My friends and I are hosting a Linux and FOSS group chat to have some casual chat, help, and anything related to the topic really. We chose this platform to chat on to keep a privacy preserving way to engage with one another.
https://signal.group/#CjQKIBshKeuikl5HfagdB46bXpGOyQf_4cVvO3vUMs71DiB9EhDEbE8mS3EPYL0e9CQWHBsy
I agree here. As much as I hate Discord, it would be much better geared for this. Have you considered Revolt? I haven’t tried it myself, but it is the most prominent open source solution to Discord.
I was by no means suggesting using Discord instead. Just from a purely practical perspective, it is very different.