Help Me Discord Gooder'er

[Jsc]

TLR - Why do you use Discord and do you have any tips for making it a better experience for a noob like me?


The Plot. I'm looking for community feedback to help me streamline my own Discord experience.

Firstly, Discord doesn't make communication, for me, any more timely or user friendly or educational than the PM system. Quite the opposite, in fact. So here are some of my frustrations:

• People don't reply to me faster than via PM. (Though they technically could, technologically speaking.)
• Channel discussions are often lost among channel streams or broken up over days and times. And rarely do I ever resort to looking backward for them.
• Avatars and Usernames are obfuscating. (AKA, I don't know who I'm taking too or looking for.)
• Faction News, activity, and even membership is broken up in myriad different places, with little sign or understanding of who's seen it or even participating with it.
• The notification system is bonkers weird. (I silence everything immediately.)
• I don't know what Servers are available to me or often, how to even join them.

A few of those I've learned to manage myself better.

• For faster replies, I can make myself available more often. Maybe If I'm online with a little green dot, people will notice and message more often.
• Channel discussions I simply do not participate. It's a total waste of time.
• Avatars and Usernames, I quickly assign people their own nick-names as early as possible so I know who they are for later use.
• Faction Servers I just find their announcements section, follow that, and try to ignore the rest entirely.
• Notifications I just turn the sound off.
• Chaos Servers I just assume are tied to Faction Identity and I'll have to PM an Faction Admin for an invite, or something.

Alas. It's not ideal, sort of annoying, and seemingly distracts me from the Chaos website itself. Which... I guess I must be doing something wrong then. Because I've yet to see any complaints about it thus far. Or, maybe I've just never found the "complaints" Server. Meh.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Hm. Point by point.

Why do I use Discord over SWRP PMs?
I have a lot of friends that I made via Discord that have nothing to do with SWRP. It's a reliable way of keeping up with them, and keeping track of who I know from where. This is my D&D group. This is the wedding planning group. This is SWRP guys. It's the fastest, most stratum-neutral way of staying in contact with a huge variety of people and it's a hella convenient tool when trying to organize stuff with lots people who live in weird timezones.

SWRP PM system vs Discord?
Availability is entirely your problem. Some people take a while to reply anyway, but if you're available for most of the day - via mobile, logged on with the browser version at work, or just because you have no life like me - you can basically ensure that you can talk with someone when they'e available. The trick is to reply within a couple of minutes of them sending you a reply. That generally means they're online and paying attention, which can lead to a longer and faster conversation than anything our forum-hosted PM system can manage.

Server channels?
Specifically on the SWRP server, this is one of the quick and messy ways to socialize with whoever's around at the time. Some people go for it, some people don't, and instead just use specific channels to ask questions then go on with their life. Each channel serves a purpose, and any channel that doesn't serve a purpose you need to fill is safe to ignore. I don't have much use for music_chat or art_chat, for instance, so I've muted and hidden them and no one cares that I've done that.

Usernames are confusing sometimes?
Yeah. People like to be witty, or broadcast their in-jokes, or establish a persona. If you click someone's name, their actual username will be visible. On the SWRP Discord, I currently show up as Anna (Fabula), but I could easily change that to something non-indicative like "K W E E N" or "Woman-Shaped Battering Ram." Despite that, if you click my name, my actual Discord username will be visible in the popup as "Anna#5825". Setting notes is a good way of keeping track, too, if you don't want to click every weird meme.

Notifications are annoying?
Yeah. They are. Right-click SWRP's server icon and click "Notification Settings." Then you can set what you want to be notified about. I generally leave mine set to only @mentions and suppress @here. That serves pretty well to keep my desktop from getting spammed with updates constantly. Muting channels you don't need is another way of cutting down on the clutter, as mentioned above.

What servers are available?
Literally tens of thousands, but I think you're asking specifically about SWRP-related servers. Generally every major faction has a Discord server, and many minor factions do, too. And generally you can find a link to that server in their faction info threads, or just by asking a member for the link. If your interests are transient, don't worry about muting the entire server or just leaving. No one sane cares.

And don't worry, Jay. I'm sure you of all people will find the complaints section soon.

 

[WolfMortum]

[member="Jay Scott Clark"]

It's heading into the early hours of the morning here for me, so I won't give a rundown of your post; However I did wish to say that I can appreciate someone preferring to use Chaos to communicate as opposed to Discord. I, myself tend to refer to site PM's for most things, as opposed to using Discord.

Faction chat's are 100% useful and I'm not saying that discord isn't great (because it is), but as a personal preference, I also find that it distracts from the site itself and especially where faction coordination and organization is concerned.

I suppose it does come down to preference and availability at the end of the day. Between family responsibilities, work or study and then pretending to have a social life on top of all else, I struggle to keep up with larger Discord channels and before being an RPJ, I'd keep them muted 90% of the time.

I don't personally feel that it's a negative thing prioritizing the site over Discord. Use it sparingly for times where you might be feeling social or looking for a specific type of thread to join in on, otherwise communication via Chaos is great for the wider community

 

[Jsc]

[member="Fabula Caromed"] - That was great Feedback and really helped me gauge where I'm at with Discord right now. I was in a room where the thermostat was set to 30 but didn't know if I should feel Celsius or Fahrenheit even though I was putting on a sweater to stay warm.

[member="Veiere Arenais"] - Thanks for the excellent Feedback. Ever since Discord became immutably tied to the destiny of Chaos, I've always struggled with where to organize it in my day-to-day writing. Good to hear other people have mused likewise.