Discord Server

[Urwen]

I've noticed that multiple sites and forums have Discord Servers, so I wonder, should BD have one too? It might encourage people who stumble upon the server to join the forum as well. Thoughts?

[Urwen]

Um, you don't approve of the suggestion or something?

[Inziladun]

I don't even know what it is.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I don't even know what it is.

You don't need to. For general info, look at the WIKI site under "Disruptive use" and "Controversial content". I am sure the Barrow Wight is uninterested in garnering that sort of attention:

http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discord_(software)

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

You don't need to. For general info, look at the WIKI site under "Disruptive use" and "Controversial content". I am sure the Barrow Wight is uninterested in garnering that sort of attention:

http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discord_(software)

From the name, I guessed as much.

Discord has had problems with hostile behavior and abuse within chats, with some communities of chat servers being "raided" (the taking over of a server by a large number of users) by other communities. This includes flooding with controversial topics related to race, religion, politics, and pornography.[45] Discord has stated that it has plans to implement changes that would "rid the platform of the issue".

Yeah, doesn't seem all that desirable.

[Soriman the Whide]

Bumping a dead thread just to let you know that this thread is full of incredible ingnorance, if anyone is still looking after this site and/or cares about attracting new users you absolutely should have a discord server.

This thread is absolutely laughable.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Soriman the Whide

Bumping a dead thread just to let you know that this thread is full of incredible ingnorance, if anyone is still looking after this site and/or cares about attracting new users you absolutely should have a discord server.

This thread is absolutely laughable.

In lieu of simply maligning those who are not fond of the Discord route, why not make a case supporting your opinion?

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

In lieu of simply maligning those who are not fond of the Discord route, why not make a case supporting your opinion?

I've had to use Discord for work and it is better than apps that are similar (Skype, GoogleMeet) in my opinion. But that's because the creator of it has set strict privacy settings.

I certainly wouldn't recommend having a public server on Discord that anyone can come to. It's why I stopped going to Reddit after like a week, the vitriol and toxicity people bring in is not healthy, and not things I want to have in my life. The only reason it works for my job is the privacy settings. You have to have the server link to get in. (Hmm...gives me a good idea, if I just give out the link here then you folks can spam it for me )

To be fair to Discord (and Reddit..etc) there's honestly nothing wrong with those applications, but in my opinion, you can't open up anything to public anymore. George Carlin was right about "garbage in, garbage out." People (and trolls) fill Discord with trash, you're going to get trash out of it. I realize this is a public forum, and have had plenty of spammers, but the B-W and moderators still take the trash out.

[Soriman the Whide]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

In lieu of simply maligning those who are not fond of the Discord route, why not make a case supporting your opinion?

The tone of my first post in this thread may have been influenced by the ignorance (and it is complete ignorance) to take 2 lines of a wikipedia article and then declare some software completely unsuitable and something to be avoided.

Discord is one of the best and most popular way for internet users to stay in contact, you are able to make your own server which people join. The server can be invite only or public however you will need a way to advertise and spread the word of a public discord to get anyone to join, which would simply be a case of adding an invite link to the server on this site somewhere.

Each server can have multiple seperate subsections for different topics and the server owners can make as many tiers of moderator they want with different permissions, for example one person may be granted the permissions to delete posts from a certain subsection wheras another moderator or administrator may have permissions to ban users from the server entirely.

The thought that raids would happen or the discord would be flooded with trolls and trash doesn't seem reasonable to me, is it not the case that if any group wanted to they could just as easily come here and flood this forum with terrible posts? The a discord server is as open/closed as moderated/unmoderated as you wish it to be.



Although on second thought it probably isnt worth it as it would probably be an impossible task to get the current users of the site to switch to using a new software just to stay in touch in a way they can easliy do via these forums. However if you read this post and think discord sounds like an excellent way for communities to stay in touch with each other in safe and moderated places online for free then i fully reccomend trying it out and finding servers for things that interest you.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Soriman the Whide

The tone of my first post in this thread may have been influenced by the ignorance (and it is complete ignorance) to take 2 lines of a wikipedia article and then declare some software completely unsuitable and something to be avoided.

Discord is one of the best and most popular way for internet users to stay in contact, you are able to make your own server which people join. The server can be invite only or public however you will need a way to advertise and spread the word of a public discord to get anyone to join, which would simply be a case of adding an invite link to the server on this site somewhere.

Each server can have multiple seperate subsections for different topics and the server owners can make as many tiers of moderator they want with different permissions, for example one person may be granted the permissions to delete posts from a certain subsection wheras another moderator or administrator may have permissions to ban users from the server entirely.

The thought that raids would happen or the discord would be flooded with trolls and trash doesn't seem reasonable to me, is it not the case that if any group wanted to they could just as easily come here and flood this forum with terrible posts? The a discord server is as open/closed as moderated/unmoderated as you wish it to be.



Although on second thought it probably isnt worth it as it would probably be an impossible task to get the current users of the site to switch to using a new software just to stay in touch in a way they can easliy do via these forums. However if you read this post and think discord sounds like an excellent way for communities to stay in touch with each other in safe and moderated places online for free then i fully reccomend trying it out and finding servers for things that interest you.

I recommend you watch what you say regarding referring to other posters as ignorant. The Wikipedia post was a quick reference just to point out issues that I am sure the majority of the long-time posters here want no part of.

If you require further reasons not to have anything to do with Discord as a platform for this forum, I suggest anyone can look them up on the Better Business Bureau website:

https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/campbell/p...646/complaints

The BBB gives Discord an "F" rating. That would be "F" as in Failed Grade (on an A+ through F letter-grade scale). A quick perusal of complaints in the last 6 months include:

Sending of "underage sexualized images"
Account hacks
Unauthorized charges on Pay Pal
"Revenge porn"
Abuse of the report option to get people banned
"cyberbullying or targeted harassment of an individual or community"

Enjoy your stay on the Barrow Downs. Let's hope it is not a short one.

[Galadriel55]

Soriman, I think you put up a good defense of Discord. As someone who had no idea what it is, I think you made a good case. However, as you say in the end, what does it have to offer that the Downs doesn't? Being popular? With me personally, popularity ranks so low among a list of reasons to do something, it's almost a nagative factor. We already have a way to stay in touch on a themed site, with members and mods and admins having different permissions. Why switch? Moreover, those of us who were here for a while are very attached to this particular site - it's layout, format, colours, all of it. Why would we go elsewhere?

As for the spam, I think you speak from ignorance on that count. The reason the Downs is not overrun by spammers now is not that a group of people didn't yet choose to come here and wreak havoc, as you seem to imply, but because of a lot of hard work from the admins in making the site security so. There used to be quite a few spammers around and had to be cleaned up one bh one before BW and team adjusted the "entry requirements" to the site" to a much more individualized screening process. So the idea that if it works here it will work anywhere does not necessarily stand.

[Soriman the Whide]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

The BBB gives Discord an "F" rating. That would be "F" as in Failed Grade (on an A+ through F letter-grade scale).

Sure but the BBB itself has not accredited Discord with any rating at all and states so very visibly on the page you linked. "This business is not BBB accredited."
The rating you may be getting confused with is a rating generated automatically based on the 126 user generated complaints, did you know discord has over 300 million registered users as of last year?
If you value these 126 reviews as a realistic indicator of Discords value then please consider that just for the mobile version of the application Google has a user review score of 4.5 out of 5 based on just short of 3 million individual reviews.

Bad things happen on the internet, people are going to abuse it, it happens to every platform. I think you're really grasping at straws if you try to claim that 126 negative user reviews are evidence that a platform is no good.

That said, I do not think discord is a good option for this website and I was wrong. I was perhaps a little bit hasty to defend the idea in the first place but it was slightly upsetting to see a good idea shot down over arguments I don't believe hold much weight.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

As for the spam, I think you speak from ignorance on that count.

I was aware this place had been spammed in the past as I had read the thread about the implementation of the spam filter right after joining up as i though my anti-spam question was pretty cool and unique to this website.

I failed in making my point clear which was that anyone at anytime can choose to come and raid or spam anywhere online at any time. Even with the anti-spam filters in place on the Barrows you are at risk of being spammed again, it would just take a slightly more dedicated group to do so. In my opinion you are at just as much risk of getting raided here again as you are on a discord server which provides an assortment of tools to deal with these types of issues.

[Soriman the Whide]

I've been having a little look at the Better Business Bereau Morthoron please take a look at this and see how easy it is to get the wrong impression of a website.
https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/menlo-park...674/complaints

[Ring Bearer]

I would like to know how does this Forum work??

I actually wanted to post a reply to a Movie speculation thread by Mister Underhill--last active before I was even born in 2001.{http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=8828&goto=nextoldest}

P.S. Are u guys the oldest LOTR Forum on the Internet?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Soriman the Whide

That said, I do not think discord is a good option for this website and I was wrong.

That's all you should have said in the first place. I am uninterested in the rest of your argument. Have a nice day.

[Soriman the Whide]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

That's all you should have said in the first place. I am uninterested in the rest of your argument. Have a nice day.

I am sorry to go on like that it's just you claimed you were not ignorant of discord.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Ring Bearer

I would like to know how does this Forum work??

I actually wanted to post a reply to a Movie speculation thread by Mister Underhill--last active before I was even born in 2001.{http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=8828&goto=nextoldest}

Hello Ring Bearer, welcome to the Downs!

The forum works very simply. If a topic interests you, just post what you have to say, no matter how old the thread. Old threads have been resurrected before, there's no limit to how recent it must be to post in it.

In terms of introductions and other questions, a good place to start might be here. Feel free to use this thread for general questions about the forum, while you're getting used to it. There is also this recent thread, which is another appropriate place to ask questions about the forum.

Originally Posted by Ring Bearer

P.S. Are u guys the oldest LOTR Forum on the Internet?

I can't speak to that, but it would be rather cool if we were. After all, the Downs is about to turn 21 this May!

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Soriman the Whide

I am sorry to go on like that it's just you claimed you were not ignorant of discord.

I would suggest a poster who has been on this forum less than a month referring to people as "ignorant" several times over the course of a thread proves my point about someone like yourself coming over from Discord. You lose your case every time you post.

[Soriman the Whide]

I do not come from discord. I take issue with your close minded and dismissive response to an active user with high post count (Urwen) who was trying to suggest ways to attract new users to the website. It is this dismissive mindset that robs new users in the future.

In direct reply to your comment; it is clear that you have no idea what discord is and have never used it yet you tell people to avoid it, you use unreliable websites sites to claim lies as truths and you still think I am wrong to call you ignorant.

[Formendacil]

To interject into what is essentially a dead topic being squabbled over in a case of "having the last word" oneupsmanship, since Soriman has said he realises it would be redundant to the 'Downs: back in the days of yore (you know, like 2006) I was a member of a different forum, which had a chatroom.

The technology is different, but a Discord server for the 'Downs would basically be a case of adding a chatroom, and I think that's flipping the cart and the horse: if you have a large community that wants to talk (i.e. off-the-forum), then it would have utility. Indeed, it would just be updating what has already existed: the private message system here on the forum, MSN Messenger/AIM with Downers back in the day, LiveJournal, Facebook... but its existence relies, like all those outgrowths of Internet friendship, on the forum itself being active, and putting a Discord out there would be unlikely to reawaken the sleeping majority.

[Bêthberry]

The Barrow Downs did have chat rooms. On Mirc. Does Mirc exist any more?

[Galadriel55]

My my. If you say "Discord" three times in the looking glass, a treeish Downer awakens.

Nice to see you again, Bethberry!

[Formendacil]

The 'Downs chatroom is so far back into the depths of time that I think its heyday, if not its entire existence, predates my membership... and the lichen on my branches is thick.

[Soriman the Whide]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

The Barrow Downs did have chat rooms. On Mirc. Does Mirc exist any more?

I reccomend hexchat for anyone using Mirc still. EDIT: Mirc would still be fine or try IRCCloud it's pretty user friendly.
This place has an IRC?

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Soriman the Whide

I reccomend hexchat for anyone using Mirc still. EDIT: Mirc would still be fine or try IRCCloud it's pretty user friendly.
This place has an IRC?

This place has a whole actual site, of which the forum is but a sublink. But I don't think the main site has been used forever. The instructions to the chat though say to "use your favorite IRC client".

Again though, you recommend it for what purpose? We've been getting on without it for years, and I can't say they were dull years. Form says it was before his time, it was definitely way before my time. Why go there when it seems to serve a redundant purpose? We can chat here as it is, and make private arrangements for skype moots and such should the wish arise to chat in a less themed fashion at a agreed upon time.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Nice to see you again, Bethberry!

Hi Gal. How are you doing?

[Soriman the Whide]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Again though, you recommend it for what purpose?.

Oh just that these days it is rare for poeple to mention IRC and if anyone is still using IRC I'd just like to drop a mention of some decent clients to use. It was more of a passing comment than a reccomendation for this website. Live chat requires more than a handful of active users but it does offer a different and more casual experience in my opinion.


Thank you for posting a link to the main site, i'll enjoy looking through this relic.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

The problem with any new platform is that it needs monitoring, which means it needs people who can be trusted to keep it in line with the Barrow Wight's purpose for the main site and forum. As a mod here I can say that I barely have time to keep up with the threads (literally!) of my real life, much less to be a part of something new that is subject to public misuse. As interesting as the new idea is, the practical aspects seem to cost more effort than the benefits it would generate.

That said, I would like all of you, both old and new members, to refrain from calling other members "ignorant" or similar terms. If there's one thing we pride ourselves in here at the Downs, it's our friendliness, so please post accordingly.

[Huinesoron]

Possibly dating myself very precisely, I always think of Discord as a combination chatroom and MSN Instant Messenger, with video/voice chat functionality. Personally, all forms of group chat make me feel like Denethor beholding the black ships every time I set foot inside, but I've been thinking about it in general terms:

Originally Posted by Soriman the Whide

Live chat requires more than a handful of active users but it does offer a different and more casual experience in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

The problem with any new platform is that it needs monitoring, which means it needs people who can be trusted to keep it in line with the Barrow Wight's purpose for the main site and forum.

As a member of another community which has an active Discord (previously IRC, previously Bravenet), these two points sum up my view: any chatroom function is subject to abuse, and the best ways to avoid that are either to control access, or to actively moderate. On a community the size of the active Downs, controlling access will just lead to an Anfauglith-dead server, and there's not enough people to have a robust moderation system at this point.

hS

[Ring Bearer]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

The Barrow Downs did have chat rooms. On Mirc. Does Mirc exist any more?

A quick Google Search tells me this IRC thingy still exists.]
Never used one in my life--looks horrible anyway.

The only old thing I like about Microsoft would probably be Age of Empires.(Used to play it a lot in the late 2000s)

[Mithadan]

Lol

[Mithadan]

To be clear, the reason I am laughing is because I did at times participate in the chatroom way back when, and, yes, it could be called "horrible." At least at times.

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Ring Bearer

Are u guys the oldest LOTR Forum on the Internet?

Hey Ring Bearer, yes, Barrow Downs is one of the old legacy Tolkien sites that cropped up in the pre-Peter Jackson Lord of the Rongs fanfic days (1999 I think on the old EZ Board?) Another one that is still around pretty much in it's original tech, though has very little use these days, is Entmoot. I believe they started on EZ Board in 1999 as well. The One Ring (.com 1999) has just this year renovated the tech platform, and Tolkien Forums, another original 1999 EZ Board forum, tech-renovated a couple years ago and is pretty solid and has a core of active members. Sadly, Minas Tirith (.com) crumbled into dust a year or so ago. They got started in 2000.


As for the whole Discord thing, I find it to be yet another distraction to take away use from forums when a site has a server.

Bethberry! Good to see ya!

[Zigûr]

I don't mind discord, but I think it skews towards a different style of posting and a different kind of user than an old-school forum like the Downs. That being said, I think there might be some decent-sized "modern" discussion platforms where people are discussing Middle-earth in a context that is grounded in the books, like r/tolkienfans on Reddit. I don't have a reddit account but it seems that way from a bit of lurking.

Comparatively speaking I think I'm still a bit of a newbie here (yes, despite posting semi-regularly for nine years). But the Downs is one of two forums I'm part of that keeps alive the flame of late 90s/early 2000s forum culture but with all the trolls etc filtered out over long years of survival and consistent users becoming familiar with each other. It's not really the kind of place that needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.

[Morsul the Dark]

To be honest I’m on a few discord groups that are all lovely. I would say it’s unlikely to serve the function wanted. A discord doesn’t grow a platform it’s an outcrop of the current group.

As an example one group is a fan base for a podcast the podcast gets roughly 10thousand listeners a month, 5000patrons, and maybe 50-100 Discord users.

And 100 is sort of the sweet spot. I’ve been in Discord’s with 1k+ people and it’s just spam, not even bad spam just too many people trying to have conversations. At once and you can’t follow. Like a theatre of people all talking, it’s just noise.

However, for the downs I would probably support a discord if the base was much more active, again as an offshoot.

If you’re looking to grow the site there would need to be a massive push of evangelization undertaken. Posting links to the site from YouTube videos, or Reddit, so on so forth.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Snowdog

Bethberry! Good to see ya!

Long time no see, Dawg. How are you doing?

Running any Inns these days?

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Long time no see, Dawg. How are you doing?

Running any Inns these days?

Doing well! I retired from running Inns when I set alight the old overgrown Snowdog's Inn on the Minas Tirith site. Only visit them now. Retirement suits me!