Discord

Discord is a proprietary freeware VoIP application and digital distribution platform designed initially for the video gaming community, used by a variety of groups for chat and instant messaging, and bridged to the IndieWeb chat channels.

For the open source forum & discussion platform, see:

• Discourse

How to

How to join

To join the community chat over Discord, please see the discuss page.

How to restrict direct messages

Discord allows several options for individual users to restrict direct messages:

1. Right click on the server name/icon
2. Select "Privacy Settings"
3. You can choose to disable direct messages or filter message requests from people you may not know

See also: Discord support request: Add a server setting to disallow private messages to users

Advantages

• The UI is easy to navigate.
• Discord and its features are well documented (link?)

Criticisms

• It's not self-hostable
• Although it contributes to open source the product is not open source.
• Discord API and chat gateway is proprietary. This means that integration developers (i.e. people making bots) are beholden to implementing interfaces that work with Discord's specific API.
• Content stored on discord is stuck in a silo, hidden from the rest of the web, and therefore not possible to index, search or archive.
• Discord has no built-in data export tool, and using the API for archiving data is against the TOS [1]
• Discord bans users who use third-party clients.

See Also

• Spacebar -- an open source replacement for the Discord server and clients.

• https://twitter.com/crypto/status/1458824708904951812
  • "Discord backpedals on incorporating crypto into its popular chat app, responding to objections from subscribers and other users saying it harms the environment https://trib.al/vNakfbw" @crypto November 11, 2021
• Slack
• discuss
• IRC
• Outage 2022-03-08 as observed in chat (links needed with details)
• https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1552028519902896129
  • "By combining the best features of Slack, Skype, and Zoom, the makers of Discord have created something that feels nothing like work https://on.wsj.com/3ODhwqf" @WSJ July 26, 2022
• Criticism: a Discord server is not "community building" [though it kinda has that reputation] : https://twitter.com/janaboruta/status/1552313316781002753
  • "And spinning up a @discord server does not = community building. That’s one program out of many needed to engage with your community, yet it seems to be the default these days. I’m curious how many Slack orgs and Discord servers are you in currently? New blog post idea brewing." @janaboruta July 27, 2022
• Criticism: login wall, thread: https://twitter.com/ChrisDeLeon/status/1544796625369026560
• Criticism: do not use a Discord to replace a forum: 2023-05-02 Kotaku: Stop. Closing. Forums. For. Discord. / I am tapping the sign as hard as I can here, people

  What Discord is not good at, however, is being a long-term repository of information, the kind of place you can ask a question, get an answer then have that answer remain easily accessible for months, years or even decades to come.

• supported Markdown subset: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/210298617-Markdown-Text-101-Chat-Formatting-Bold-Italic-Underline
• Criticism: Joe Crawford: https://chat.indieweb.org/meta/2025-02-04/1738703694398400
  • "Discord remains mostly unpleasant for me to use but I'm learning to get better at it. It is very "noisy" as an interface for me. It's too similar to standing in the middle of Times Square or being in a room full of Slot Machines. But again, I'm working with it." [ @[Joe_Crawford]] February 4, 2025
• How to avoid getting spammed with @-everyone and @-here on a Discord server: Right click on the server icon > Notification settings > check "suppress @.everyone and @.here"