4 pane comic of dolan on the left and spooderman on the right
pane 1 (dolan): cum join opensurce cummunity!
pane 2 (spooderman): shure! how joyn?
pane 3 (dolan): Here discord! (with discord logo)
pane 4 (spooderman with tears in eyes): y u do dis?
I would accept discord/irc over mailing list. But nothing beats a proper forum website.
And no, subreddit is not a proper forum.
Everything beats a proper forum because most proper forums are basically dead since small projects won't have many users and only a small number will sign up for a specific forum.
Forums used to be great since there was not much else, they still are good for large communities, but other than that, nope.
Most people don't have to sign-up, 90% of cases should resolve on just searching the problem. Good chances it was already asked and answered.
Most of the time, forums with few users aren't dead, they're just really slow, whenever you post a question - expect at least 12-hour delay. I've never seen a message on Discord answered 12 hours later - you either get somewhat instant response or it's ghosted forever. Also good luck asking questions if there's heated/rapid discussion in the room, or you have a little time and other responsibilities other than checking discord every couple minutes.
That’s because when you ask a question on discord it’s only visible for a few seconds