Comment by Shank
3 years ago
I ran a Discord community that had the privilege of being "permanently banned" from Discord for "distributing cheats" for a game, which was reversed when we explained that no, we actually distribute anticheat software, and discussed cheats quite heavily in order to ensure that the anticheat software was effective. While the ban was reversed after much campaigning and cajoling, Discord Trust & Safety informed us that the data was lost forever.
Unfortunately, we just couldn't back down from the demands to have a discord server, and thus, one was eventually recreated. But the point stands: if you're in a Discord server of sufficient size for something you care about, take note that it can go up in-smoke. If it's a software project, you owe it to yourself to at least have GitHub Discussions so that people aren't railroaded into Discord for everything.
>Unfortunately, we just couldn't back down from the demands to have a discord server
Except you could've, and still can. People need to learn how to adapt. There's no reason a Discord server is necessary for distributing and discussing anticheat software. Thousands of much larger, more important projects are doing just fine without Discord™ servers, and part of it is the people with influence putting their feet down at the mention of Discord, a glorified spyware platform populated with the socially deprived. Discord is rarely ever a key piece of infrastructure necessary for advertising and documentation for the majority of projects that have one attached to themselves.
> Except you could've, and still can.
For many scenes, the community is an integral part of the ecosystem. Unless OP is the only person who can develop anti-cheat software, s/he's beholden to the community even if s/he's among the leader(s).
> People need to learn how to adapt.
They will adapt by starting their own Discord and cutting OP out.
> They will adapt by starting their own Discord and cutting OP out
Exactly. And it's depressing. People of every community think they "need" Discord (or a similar tool) and if you don't create it, they'll create it themselves.
"Hey, what about if AwesomeCommunity had a Discord?"
"I don't see the point, we already have a group here."
"Well, but some people like Discord!"
"Ok"
"Do you mind if we create a fan Discord community then?"
And presto! The community gets Discord and additional fragmentation, whether you like it or not.
This is exactly it. I’m in a few forums that insist on no discord and unless you go out of your way to provide a chat alternative there will just be unofficial discords.
Discord is a cancer.
19 replies →
Just bridge it to Matrix for archival and for a fallback chat.
Discord is huge with the kids today. I saw my nephew kept checking his phone and like a typical old fart I challenged him and asked what the hell he's checking. Turns out it's discord. He subscribes to channels on discord, some are read-only, just a way of distributing notifications.
The draw is the single sign on. You sign on to one simple service and you have all your friends, all the games you follow, all the groups.
Why does Discord even care if you're discussing/distributing cheats, so long as you obey the law? Who exactly is the Trust & Safety team supposed to serve?
Discord has been banning groups for discussing breaking the rules in games completely unrelated to discord.
Many cheats violate copyright licenses and the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/bungie-wins-lawsuit-against-che...
DMCA takedown notices take up employee time, so maybe they formed this team to preemptively shut down anything that looks like it might cause DMCA notices to come in.
You lost me at GitHub : sure, the public part of it is being crawled, but it's still a platform (and a Microsoft-owned one to boot !), so if you care about the Web or libre software, you should stay the hell out of it, regardless of the sub-feature you use.
This is the same Discord Trust and Safety team that was defending and participating in communities sharing cub content.
Wonderful.
What in the nine hells is "cub content"? Are we talking about drawn pictures of animals or actual bestiality? One of these is illegal, and the other is... what like Fievel Mousekewitz goes wild?
Fievel Mousekowitz Goes Wild is putting it.... mildly.
Drawn pictures, it's not illegal but it is a bit weird.
You mean there's no way to have a bot that logs conversations in discord?
There is. And they are actually quite easy to make. I would suggest this approach to anyone worried about losing information.