Guild Wars 2 Wiki talk:Discord

Linking to a listing of discord channels

It was brought to my attention via the forums that we're currently promoting the reddit discord channel over providing a listing of channels. This highlighting would be in contrast to how we prefer to direct people to a youtube search of a topic rather than a specific video. To quote them in full:

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[U]se the same system that has been in use for Fan sites:

Post a request on the talk page, explaining why the site is notable. See criteria for inclusion for the criteria for making requests. Sites that no longer meet criteria may be removed, usually because they are out-of-date. Criteria

• Official Guild Wars sites with a Guild Wars 2 counterpart.
• Has been strongly recommended by members of this wiki's community, by
• Suggestions on the talk page
• Consensus from the wiki community, here, on Reddit, or the forums.
• The community continues to find that the site is active, maintained, and relevant for inclusion.
• Has been highlighted by ArenaNet for its purpose or activities related to Guild Wars 2.

(I struck out the ones that don't apply.)

You could do worse than starting with the list I have, which was based on what people have added as links multiple times on Reddit, forums. And/or, they are the Discord channels for sites that are ubiquitous.

Missing from my list: the r/GW2Economy and r/gw2exchange Discords (short version: very insular groups, not very welcoming imo), the various raid-training communities (there's controversy around one of them and I wouldn't want the wiki to get in the middle of them).

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I've also created a copy of their suggestion for the page. Obviously this suggestion is only a starting point to a conversation that we should have, as personally I would love to see other discord channels promoted as well <insert typical Greener reaching out to the larger community speech>. G R E E N E R 02:36, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Hrm. I'd argue that for anything in the "Guild Wars 2 Wiki:" namespace we can do what we like.

Essentially this page should be only a link to the wiki discord, however we did get a lot of non-wiki traffic without putting the other link in too.

Maybe a completely separate page for other discord links, "List of community discords", and then link back to it? -Chieftain Alex 06:02, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Good point about the gw2w namespace. "List of community discords" works for me. G R E E N E R 14:10, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Okay I made a page. List of community discord servers. -Chieftain Alex 18:40, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

The role of Discord for the wiki

I'm not sure if it's better to start this conversation here or on the Community Portal, but either way: I feel that a conversation needs to be had about the role Discord plays in how the community discusses wiki matters. The specific points I'd like to cover:

1. We make it clear, both on this article and in the #rules channel on the Discord server, that it is not intended to be a replacement for talk pages. In practice, this is not the case; often very extended discussions take place there and are never documented on the wiki afterwards. This is not good enough.
2. Being a chatroom format, Discord has developed a very different atmosphere from the one on the wiki, and not in a good way. I can't comment on the current state of this atmosphere, as I left the Discord in November, but word of recent drama regarding several users getting banned from the server following a discussion of whether the wiki should address #BlackLivesMatter (a discussion which was respectful and productive when it was finally had on the wiki proper) does not strike me as a good sign. (Edit: I have been informed there was only one ban over #BLM, but that others were banned for separate reasons prior to this.) The admins in charge of managing Discord are the same ones in charge of managing the wiki itself, and I think we ought to question this -- admins are promoted for their wiki skills, not their chatroom maintenance skills.
3. Discord is used by the admins to discuss admin matters. While I appreciate the need for a degree of privacy in this regard, I feel the current degree of private Discord discussions causes two problems: One, the admins are less transparent than they should be, as I brought up on Tanetris's recent reconfirmation; two, speaking as a user who is considering applying for adminship but does not wish to rejoin Discord at this point in time, I feel like prospective new admins are discouraged from putting themselves forward if they can't or don't want to join a supposedly optional chat platform.

None of this is to say Discord doesn't have benefits. It's a place to hang out and socialize, a convenient and effective way to grab other wiki users' attention and get quick answers, and a valuable source of privacy for admin discussions that are better held privately. I'm not necessarily suggesting we get rid of it, but as things stand, I'm not sure these benefits are worth the cost to the wiki. —Idris 12:23, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

In the effort of transparency, I'll just say I went into the discussion on discord knowing full well I would be banned, and even said as much there. I'd previously left the discord in February due to disagreements in its administration, and the decision to prevent all "political" speech on the platform. I knew that by bringing up a highly-charged real-world topic I was making waves that no one wanted.

It's also fair to say I'm not the most diplomatic person, and could have voiced my concerns better. But, even given everything that's happened since then, I would not change how I handled it. The fact remains that not a single person on the discord said something about it before I brought it up. horrible | contribs 14:31, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, Horrible. From what I hear, a few admins left the Discord in the wake of all this drama too, and it sounds like it's been a frustrating experience for them. I fully believe they've acted in good faith, in a genuine effort to keep the peace on the server, but this task is very challenging and it's unfair to expect them to handle it when they didn't really sign up for it. —Idris 14:41, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately I can't speak to the reasons their leaving, as any such discussions must have happened in private channels or after my removal. I do know that at least some of the people who left felt I should have been dealt with quicker and more severely. Though whether that was in opposition to the delivery or the content of my message (or both), I do not know. horrible | contribs 14:52, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

My guess would be that the problem was with your delivery. :p But let's not derail the discussion -- what can we do to make Discord a more positive experience for its users and moderators? —Idris 14:54, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

My reply to Idris's original post: For me, the discord has various benefits that much outweight anything else. Let me first address your notes.

1. I am quite torn on this one. I agree that the discussions should be documented on wiki in important cases, but those cases often consist of lots of small comments, and if that was happening on wiki, I'd get lost in that.
2. From someone who is on the discord, and sees what's happening there, I would say the atmosphere there is nice and friendly now that dust settled a little. When people are fine on the wiki but behave like assholes on discord, you can't really do anything about it.
3. Admin transparency is a thing I fully support, and I'm glad that the discussion about that is happening. On discord, there was quite a move in this direction, making the audit log available for everyone. As to joining the discord, obviously admins want to discuss some things in private, so when there is simple solution, why not use it. However it is becoming apparent it is not necessary at all, as (from what i heard), the admins who left dis are still doing fine.

Also, the discord bring to me several advantages, that I believe are well worth it. First it is the possibility of just asking a question at totally random, and knowing someone will answer. On wiki, I'd need to actually find a proper page where should I put it, then hope someone who knows answers would watch recent changes/that page. Second is keeping track of what is new and what isn't. When i see in recent changes "RfA:Tanetris (23 changes)" and i know i read the first 15? 16?, it is just so hard to find out what happened after I stopped looking. DJemba (talk) 15:16, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The single greatest benefit of the discord server is that it dramatically lowers the barrier of entry for would-be contributors. It's a ubiquitous platform among the wiki's demographic and, unlike the wiki itself, it has a useable mobile experience. Talk pages really aren't a way any sane person would choose to have discussions anymore; they're simply a relic of the software we use. As such, I'd oppose any efforts that mandate driving discussions out of the discord and onto the wiki. Backup's fine, but would have to be on a voluntary basis. As far as discord moderation goes, that's a topic best discussed in the discord itself. - Felix Omni 15:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I have several big problems with discord compared to talk page discussions.

1. It has no permanent log; users can at any point edit or delete their messages. There's no way to catalogue discussions and reference them later as needed, which makes it incredibly hard to form a precedent on any given editing decision.
2. Banned users are unable to view the discord in its entirety, compared to the wiki where banned users can still view but cannot interact.
3. There's no public logs. I'm aware that recently there was a decision made by administrators to give log-viewing rights to the standard user group, but that's not public and can be removed at any point.

These are failings that make discord a lesser replacement for talk page discussions. horrible | contribs 15:41, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Discord is a useful tool to facilitate discussion around improving the wiki. It's great for sharing screenshots, to discuss (wiki) bugs, and to collaborate with other editors on finding missing information. Talk pages are unwieldy; edit conflicts and long wall of texts are awful for facilitating discussion. Not to mention discussion on talk pages are easily lost, for example on Talk: Portal (zone). Should discord discussions be documented on the talk pages? Probably, but that takes time when it would simply be easier to just fix the affected pages. We're documenting the game, not the discord.

As for the atmosphere, discord is fine if politics are kept out of it. It's disingenuous to say that discussion on BLM on the wiki was totally respectful given that a user was blocked for a week for their behavior. That user was given many warnings on discord as well. There is no reason to give up the advantages of discord to cater to banned users lol. --BuffsEverywhere (talk) 16:11, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we have to get rid of discord altogether -- I'll admit, my attempts to get a discussion going on this are clumsy because I'm pretty out of the loop regarding discord goings-on -- but it does seem like there's room for improvement. I do agree that the wall-o-text nature of talk pages are a pain to read, and I absolutely understand the desire to move on from the clunky wiki format -- but at the same time, non-discord users are being left in the dark if they choose not to join. Maybe there's a middle ground here: when I was active on discord I would sometimes post summaries (or at least conclusions) of discord discussions on talk pages if I felt it would be helpful for future editors, for example. —Idris 16:34, 22 June 2020 (UTC)