6 ms·
Discord isn't just for gamers. Though that's where it started, its robust community management features have made it's a go-to for online creators looking to en
by crocodiletears 8y ago
Discord isn't just for gamers. Though that's where it started, its robust community management features have made it's a go-to for online creators looking to engage with their audiences.
It's especially prominent among Youtubers, and is increasingly becoming seen in some circles as a safer alternative to public forums like Reddit for topical discourse. This is, in my opinion because there's no formal discoverability mechanism, and the invite feature lets server admins make their communities as inclusive, or exclusive as they want them to be.
Discord has a lot of appeal outside of its target audience, and its growth in other areas is largely automatic since a lot of subcultures online exist in parallel or close proximity to hardcore gaming demographics.
That's where I see its future being the brightest, so long as the service doesn't get too cluttered with unnecessary 'community' features.
- zacharycohn 8y ago> Discord isn't just for gamers. That's true! It's also very popular among neo nazis.
- nv-vn 8y agoYep. All 3 of them
- hnauz 8y ago"Zachary Cohen", what would be your incentives to pretend a popular Internet platform has a neo Nazi problem when it doesn't?
- dang 8y agoWe've banned this account.
- hannasanarion 8y agoAnd LGBT communities. The reason discord attracts both crowds is that they can safely and easily exclude each other. Sure, /r/the_donald is in discord and uses it to coordinate raids and harassment, but they perform those raids on Reddit and Twitter, where making a sockpuppet takes five seconds and you can instantly yell and vote at anyone on the whole site. You can't target a discord like that, you need an invite that mods can revoke or stop issuing at any time, or use hierarchical user privileges to hinder new accounts, or any number of other moderation steps.
- elefanten 8y agoDo you know of any comparison between use of Discord and Slack for these kind of community management use cases? Is either one used more and what are the relevant feature differences?
- legionof7 8y agoI wrote this blog post a while ago for my now-defunct startup. https://medium.com/ardentunited/why-we-use-discord-and-not-slack-500ac8027824 https://medium.com/ardentunited/why-we-use-discord-and-not-s... (I think the blog post is more popular than the startup by now!)
- bytematic 8y agoThey are essentially the exact same except discord has voice servers and no real premium limits
- bscphil 8y agoAnd perhaps, additionally, someone might have suggestions for a high quality open source alternative? Riot/Matrix don't seem to be there quite yet.
- floatboth 8y agoMatrix is very much there, and a very cool thing about it is that it allows bridging between e.g. IRC<->Matrix<->Telegram!
- crocodiletears 8y agoI honestly couldn't speak to differences between the two services. I used Slack for one semi-professional community in particular a few years ago, but have since used exclusively Discord, due to its ubiquity. I do recall that I immediately preferred Discord's UX, but I can't remember anything that impressed me in particular. As for anecdata, I have yet to stumble upon any active community still using Slack in the last couple years, but I am aware of several Slack groups that cater to industry-specific demographics, though since they require membership in their particular industries I cannot speak to how active they are or whether they've since changed platforms.