FWIW, I would support and enjoy an official TWiT Discord. I feel like it would be more accessible, more fun, and more useful than the IRC. I also feel like it has to come from @Leo and “official” in order to have any real chance. I have some ideas on what would make a good TWiT Discord. I’m an employee of an international corporation with a familiar name, and I created an employees-only Discord as a spin-off to our reddit (where I’m the top moderator) and it’s a nice, fun, helpful community. Just my 2¢.
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I’d love your feedback. We’re working on that right now!
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Thanks @Leo! Here’s a little mock up:
The live audio channel would pipe in twit.am and up to 1000 people could listen at the same time. This could be done as basic-ly as even a raspberry pi and a separate user account working as a de facto bot. But lots of ways it could be done.
Obviously more intricate work could allow for incorporating discord audio into shows, by connecting to the board for real time audio.
Whichever show is being recorded live would be moved to the top Twit Live section (a permission that can be given to many moderators). This would be a natural and “no enforcement necessary” way to keep channels on topic. Plus the ability to search by parameters could lead to interesting side benefits.
If I were moderating, Off Topic and Voice Chat channels would come and go as needed. Some Discords create channels around events then archive them when the event’s discussion is over. Eg. Superbowl. etc.
This is brilliant. Stay tuned. Learning Discord as fast as I can right now!
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And just some further thoughts about things that have worked well for us (I’m at work now so typing quickly on mobile).
I constantly allow our employee Discord to evolve with whatever is fun for the moment, and also observing what is helpful. I’ll spin down off topic channels with little to no activity and create new ones.
We have a help channel for employees helping employees, and in our case, I’ve set up a system to flag a help request as an “alert” that needs immediate help. The latter probably not needed or relevant for TWiT but might be applicable in other ways.
Right now a fun off topic channel is a “counting channel” where people simply count numbers. It’s very GenZ thing, but it’s also a nice gamification system that brings people back in to chat.
Also, I set up roles (user tags) that reward people for how long they’ve been on the discord. They get colors, their own rooms, and for some, special permissions. We have a founders group, then 3 months later created an “essentials” group, then we just get creative with names from there. Each group has their own “only is” channel, with previous groups being allowed into new ones. Eg. There is a founders only channel that only people from the first 3 months have access too. Then there is an essentials only channel that founders and people who joined from months 4 through 6 have access to. And so on. (Bots can automate or allow for self-assigning of these roles, so it’s no work on the moderators.)
We also have a community run schedule channel, where people can plan voice chats and other group activities for the voice/video channels.
Oh. And emojis and bots. Discord communities love their custom emojis and their bots. Mee6 and Carl are good for moderation. Mee6 also can play music in a group music channel. We have a trivia bot that can start a trivia game. We have ub3r bot who is kinda a jerk but also useful. Discord is definitely not IRC. It’s a younger, hipper, more dynamic platform. As long as it’s watered, i expect it will grow into a meaningful part of the TWiT community.
Lastly, I’m 38 but the majority of people on our discord are in mid 20s. Some 18. Some 30. For me, my trick to accomplishing anything is making sure it’s kinda their own idea already… be that from me raising the idea to them for feedback, to me translating their individual wants into something that I think will work well for the group as a whole.
Thanks for letting me share more than my 2¢, @Leo !
(Edit: reposted because I replied to myself earlier. Sorry! Mobile at work things…)
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