Suggestion: Migration of Services to Discord

[Cyclops]

I think that there should be serious consideration put into migrating E's IRC and Mumble services over to Discord.  For anyone who doesn't know, Discord is a platform that allows server-instances to be started and moderated by people, for free.  A server instance consists of text chat channels as well as voice chat channels.

Discord has several advantages over both IRC and Mumble but, there is one overarching advantage:
Interface!

The administration interface is built into the app, no weird text commands such as get used with ChanServ on IRC.  No command line settings done through editing files as is often done with mumble.  A very nice interface customizes permissions, descriptions, channel names, etc...  Permissions can be very granular using "Roles" similar to the web form model and multiple roles can be assigned.

Right now on IRC, ChanServ works with an eggdrop bot to provide access for members to the "Lounge" or the adult-only section.  Problem is few people know how to use ChanServ and only the bot's operator knows how to use the eggdrop bot.  With Discord it would be simplified with a right click on a name and checking a box the appropriate role (such as "Approved Member" or "Verified Member").  No messy commands or frustration with trying to figure out what command does what!  Just, right click, assign, done.

Voice performance with Discord, I have personally found to be superior to Mumble, but this could be because Discord operates many servers in different regions where as a private Mumble server (as we have here) is just in one location and someone has to pay for the bandwidth it uses!  With Discord, there is no charge, no server to keep running, Discord handles all of that.

User authentication with Mumble is also a pain in the neck.  All Mumble authentication is done with self-signed certificates generated by Mumble.  These certificates are often lost if a computer has to be upgraded without backing up the certificate.  If there is a disk failure, Mumble goof up during an upgrade, or any number of other issues and the user then has to do the process all over again - register with Mumble, contact a staffer, etc...  With Discord, it is username/password based and Discord handles the username/password recovery!  So, Elliquiy staff does NOT need to worry about that.  They just need to worry about verifying a Discord member is a member of the forum, which is easy enough to do.

Another bonus...  Many people are already using Discord for gaming, right now if someone is using 2 Mumble servers, they have to switch between them.  Logging out of one to log into the other one.  With Discord, it is unified, you can only be a member of one voice channel at a time, but you can be a member of as many servers as you want and you can seamlessly switch between voice channels and voice servers at will.

And then there is mobile.  I know a lot of people don't really use mobile a lot but I also know that more and more people are using it.  There are free and very well designed mobile apps for iPhone and Android.  In addition to free apps for Windows and Mac.

Oh, one last thing...  There is an IRC to Discord bridge that works very, very well.  I'm using it myself.  It requires a bit of configuration, but a LOT less than Mumble does to get operational and secure.

[Blythe]

Hmm. Will take this suggestion upstairs for some Staff discussion--thank you, Cyclops. Can't promise that it's a switch that'll happen, but it's something that can be talked about.

Edit: See here --Veks gives a bit of feedback about Discord / Mumble in that post.

[Cyclops]

Thanks for the update.  Like I had mentioned to Dim Hom, I knew there was no way in hell it would actually happen, but he encouraged me to at least suggest it.

Peace.