IRC was the Kakoune editor’s primary community space. Ephemeral. Sync-only. No searchable history. Technical discussions disappeared when people logged off. New users asked the same questions repeatedly because answers weren’t preserved.

Reddit existed but wasn’t ideal for deep technical discussions. GitHub Issues worked for bugs, not community building. The community needed permanent, searchable, async-first space.

Created discuss.kakoune.com in September 2018. Discourse forum. Mailing list mode for email participation. Searchable archive. Reorganizable threads. Still active daily seven years later.