I use discord. I know how it works. My (much) earlier response is one sourced from the mindset of an admin. Were there to be a discord server that the forum officially represents as part and parcel of the forum identity, then it would fall under the forum's umbrella of moderation and monitoring, and frankly, such duties are already sufficiently time-consuming here, in the forum proper. It also presents the additional issue of "beef" taking place away from the forum proper, and then being dragged herein in media res, so to speak. That's a thing that already takes place from time to time when quarrels and infighting take place in other forums, and then those quarreling members migrate to new locations, not thinking in advance that if the new venue is similarly themed, there is bound to be some level of member overlap. Too often such problems are addressed to the staff here as "go look in that other place over there and you'll see what happened". (I'm looking at you, KDP forum) No. What happened over in that other place is not my responsibility, accountability, and certainly not within the scope of what I agreed to when I took up my post. Therein lay my thought process. Members here are free to do as they please on discord. They are not bound by our say-so, obviously, but it's not a thing I would be willing to add to my plate of daily tasks.
I understand what you mean. The way NADS is set up, they do a voting system for mini-mods, which are temporary I believe, to help lighten the load a bit, and I know the mods have a lot on their plate. Since I've joined, they've banned two people, one of which was stalking another on the server (they had returned with another username, they sniffed it out quick), and another who popped in for five minutes and then left even though they were kicked off previously for bad behavior. Some minor drama also pops up every so often between members that they have to moderate; those discussions are usually moved to beef arena where they talk their disagreements out. Thankfully, it rarely comes to that as it typically resolves quickly.
We’ve been using a Discord server for our little D&D group.... I love it, but I also completely agree with what Wreybies is saying. An official Discord server for this specific forum would require a massive time investment for the mods, and they have other stuff to do. I dunno. I’ve been using it to talk to Dragon Turtle (my longtime beta and pal) and it’s been great. It’s super easy to use. I would recommend it. I’ve become close pals with Izzy and some other folks in the span of about two weeks. If someone made a writing server, I’d use it. If you want a space to Discord chat with people... why not make one on your own? Make a Discord server for your specific genre. Keep it small. I used to belong to a similar group of erotic romance authors for a while. I think there would be a lot of value in it... But you can’t make it Wreybie’s job, or Daniel’s job (or KaTrain’s, or Komposten’s, or Minstrel’s, ect.) I guess what I’m saying is, it’s not fair to create a problem (or make more work for them) and expect them to deal with it.
Yeah, I would just like to go on record and say that I actually disagree with my own suggestion now. After some thought (and reading others' posts) I have realized there is no need for it, it would take away from the forums, and it would just provide a lot more hassle for people who's lives around here are already hard enough. So yeah, feel free to continue discussion, but my vote would be against it ironically.
