But I assume that is because of the people on that specific server, not because of the software? Or is there something about discord that enables it, that IRC etc. does not have?

I hang out with friends that predate discord, on discord and can't see it. Same with new servers.

happens on irc constantly too

chat rooms are cliques, almost always

choose any sufficiently populated room on libera chat, join, and start talking a lot without lurking first for awhile and see how the inhabitants react

try going to a pub on a Saturday night, walking up to a group of people you’ve never met, having a conversation, and start talking about something completely unrelated, and see how they react.

what you’re seeing in online chat communities is just basic social interaction reflected online

i'm on a number of discord servers. yes, some have that 'mean girls' vibe but considering the content, i expect that. the more tech oriented ones i'm on...that's not an issue at all.

to me, in general the vibe of a given discord is similar to the general vibe of that topic (i.e some games have terrible, vitriolic cesspools for communities and those discords reflect that. other things, such as one of the rust ones i'm on, reflects that community's vibe which is a lot more wholesome imo).

I've never been in a Discord server and thought "Wow this server doesn't do the moderator LARP-ing thing".

My dream is to be invited into a mildly popular server (more than 15 users), than doesn't have 50 channels, 8 separate roles and T&C to agree to. It hasn't happened yet.

An entire generation of bureaucrats and bean counters is learning the ropes on Discord.

This shows Discord is a genuine successor to Web 1.0 forums. :-)

Unnecessary channels are unnecessary subforums. User roles are user ranks (https://www.phpbb.com/support/docs/en/3.1/kb/article/everyth...), indicating both software permissions and social status. T&C—well, forum engines like phpBB, MyBB, and SMF come with a standard user agreement they show before registration. There is more concern with it now because the Internet is real life.

As for training an entire generation of bureaucrats and bean-counters, I leave it to the reader to judge.

I like this take. There was something unique how each bulletin board was customized to the administrator's taste.

And it was up to them to provide plenty onboarding to new users, so they're not overwhelmed by the hundreds of subcategories, and thousands of threads in each.

We used to be part of no more than a handful of forum communities. Maybe that changed.

I'd consider beancounter to be best case. At least a beancounter works for the company and gets paid. It's like they know they're Koolaid drinkers but every server is riced up with Discord's product pipeline like an aftermarket Honda.

I started and mod a server of about 6k users for a community around a niche software used by professionals, students, and hobbyists. We keep it really simple and focused primarily on people getting questions answered. Recently a small but vocal cadre of hobbyists have been demanding more Discord-y features oriented towards socializing with other users of the software, and our reticence to complicate the server and add features just because Discord offers them has been a point of contention. They seem to think we mods don’t understand Discord. We are having trouble getting them to understand that we are aware of what other servers are like and that we’re deliberately choosing not go that route.

My experience is that discords that arent properly moderated go through a boom/bust cycle.

And that whether in the ascendency or the fall, the moderators trying to maintain complete opaque control will fight to the death to keep it that way.

And where moderation is done more by feel than by rules people start self censoring and then disengage entirely.

But then you go to a discord that has moderation figured out, and its just... a nice place to be?

That rings true to me and probably has some truth on other platforms as well. We’re trying for transparency but it does feel like there’s a gap in perspective and goals that could only be reconciled by making space for two really different objectives or, as we’ve been doing, remain focused on the original goal and hope that users who want to pursue other activities in the space do it on one of the other forums for the community, like FB or Reddit.

Can you elaborate on what features they were demanding?

Are you a partnered server? Are they even still doing those?

I've never been a mod. I'm just an adult who understands Discord's general operations.

No just a community server.

What features are you talking about? I admin a server of 9k. The new onboarding stuff, automod, opt-in roles?

I’ll assume it was pronoun roles unless we hear back

Not sure why you would assume that.

GP was on track - they wanted voice channels, many of them, before we had any demonstrated demand for it at all.

They wanted additional, opt-in roles, so anyone could @ a cadre of self-appointed ‘question answerers’ if they, I guess, (and this still isn’t clear to me), felt as though their question was more important than the questions of those who didn’t elect to do so.

They wanted auto-mod stuff that would maybe somehow automatically answer people’s questions (‘AI’), etc

The software in question (TouchDesigner) is a complex, idiosyncratic, node-based programming environment with a tough learning curve and a GUI dependency that makes question-asking and -answering more onerous than non-graphical programming.

As mods we’ve put a ton of effort into helping the torrent of new arrivals ask better (often less lazy or broad) questions and thus get better answers, more often. Many of the requests we get are well-intentioned but seem to think the reason questions go unanswered is because no one saw them, when it’s obvious to us that in many cases, they’re just extremely lazy questions.

Unreal has a similar problem, in my experience, with the difficulty of asking a question with sufficient information making it common that those willing to help are still only inclined to go the distance with people who are willing to meet them halfway.

I'll bite. What's the moderator LARP-ing thing?

I've tried looking it up but among irrelevant results (general LARP info) I just found this comment again as the third result...

A more accurate phrasing would be "moderator power-tripping."

The moderators pretend they are vastly more important and significant than they are.

I can't piece together what you're trying to say. There's something to do with disdain (the remark about putting a child in a position with lots of responsibility) but being a "moderation simulator" makes little sense in the context of chat software (you don't go to a chat to be a moderator but to... chat). For that to make sense, they'd have to generate fake messages for you to moderate or something?! Then the LARP reference, does that also have a negative connotation in your head? Eyeing the pilot comment, should one read it as "childishly playing at"? And then something in the last sentence about everything being a simulation... is that a theory of life or are we still on the topic of Discord? You'll have to give more context for this to make any sense (the linked source didn't provide any I didn't already have/know), although the shards I'm piecing together so far make it seem like it's a destructive personal campaign that I'm not sure I should be interested in being recruited into

I'm frankly wondering whether I should ask if you're okay. Idk if you have a legitimate dispute with Discord or some people on there (I dislike Discord as much as the next self hosting open source non walled garden fan, but this is next level), or if it's something else. Wild guess / legitimately concerned: do you have a heater that can leak carbon monoxide? Or maybe I am just extremely bad at understanding what I've just read

Sounds to me like you're hanging out with the wrong people.

So basically Hacker News.