I’m pretty excited about the Discord plugin. I get concerns around it changing the vibe, behavior. But Discord is such a rich source of information, and a lot of work does go on there. For some contributors, this may be the only place they get cred, as @decentralion mentions. And it will also be a valuable signal for governance mechanisms.
I think creating cred-free spaces is great. This thread outlines many ways you can do that even with a Discord plugin, and I’m sure many projects will utilize them. There are other ways to do it too, such as creating private rooms, or using other platforms (both of which will happen anyway). In fact, I can see many projects not using the Discord plugin at all, and sticking to GitHub and Discourse. But there will also be many projects that really want this. Especially if they’re looking at flowing rewards/money.
For instance, in the DAO I’ve worked in the last year and a half, I would absolutely want SourceCred running on chats. In part because when you have people working for money (crypto in this case), those conversations do already carry weight. I can work on OSS, and work on what I want (which is awesome), but there’s a catch. The DAO has to agree it’s worth paying for. That means governance. For big budgets, there’s a proposal system that works well. But for smaller tasks (most of the paid work), it’s all subjective. Much of the consensus building happens in chats, public and private. Those responses and 
s and 
actually do carry real economic value. You can feel it. I can already feel that weight when I in most contexts. And unfortunately, lacking formal systems, humans tend to fall into the Tyrant of the Structurelessness. Another expression of this is the article @decentralion posted about how subjective valuations lead to abusive cults. I don’t want to be over dramatic here. But when you take a bunch of ideologically-driven people, and start flowing real money and shifting power relations, it’s not a question of if you’re being judged, it’s how, and how transparently and accountably. Informal, subjective valuations in lieu of objective (or intersubjective in SourceCred’s case), lead to problems I think SourceCred is well-postitioned to address. Another side effect is that a lot of work simply never gets paid for. In my project, a lot of valuable work happens in chats, but I find myself not participating. Not because I don’t want to. But because I can only bill for approved work, and every minute in chats is a minute I can’t bill for. And I’m not crypto rich like some. Moderation of chats is another big unpaid type of contribution that happens mostly in chats.
For projects that want to keep it light, or carve out cred-free spaces, I think we should definitely support that. It seems the proposed design enables that. But if we’re looking to solve the OSS funding problem (what I’m most excited about), that is going to mean a shift in the contributor experience. Likes and 
's will become weightier. But that’s the necessary work required to reach consensus and build a graph that is rich enough to flow value across. If we punt on doing it in chats, it has to go somewhere (hidden power structures formed in private chats, expensive voting mechanisms, etc.).
I think restricting flows to the emoji is a good way to “sandbox” this. I also think that minting less cred in chats makes sense. I don’t want each emoji response to be some super weighty decision either. But actually, now that I think about it, one issue I’ve been wanting to raise is the possibility that s on Discourse have become too weighty, too sparse. Many of my posts are getting 0 s now. That’s probably fine, but I think another less weighty, higher volume signal could even that out, and increase the nuance and expressiveness of the graph. Allow me not to trip so much when nobody (nobody!) likes my post.
I’m also open to changing my mind should this not work out. But I think we will get a lot of value from dogfooding this and figuring it out.
My 2 satoshis.