Discord

[Mintprincess]

It also supports text chat, both group and individually.

It really is designed mostly for gamers, as it runs concurrently with Steam, and will tell you which games those on your friend's list are currently playing (if they are playing any).

I like it for several reasons. One, most of the old IM systems are either disappearing or dying. AIM is gone, YIM is integrated into their horrible website interface, and I don't think Hotmail's chat client works any longer. That leaves IRC, which I have personally never understood, Skype, which is just annoying, and Google Hangouts, which requires me to have an extra email account as I'm not sharing my personal one with anyone on E, no offense. Two, it's easy to use, at least for me. Servers are easy to maneuver through, posting images and gifs is quite easy, and the design is simple without appearing like it is decades old.

But that's just me and my reasons.

everything she said.  Discord is amazing because you can be in multiple servers, have text and voice chat, and one on one messaging at the same time. 

[Al Terego]

Some random ramblings...

Yeah I don't voice chat and I use discord as a chat program. It's the one most people from E are on these days.

Out of curiosity, what Discord servers E people usually hang on?

It has a bunch of good features, my favorite is that it's not anything you have to install you just log into it like a webpage.

Truth be told, most chat platforms have web interfaces nowadays.  Looking at my bookmarks: Trillian, Jabber, Skype, Discord, Hangouts, YIM (became crap), AIM (dies tomorrow), F-chat, Facebook...  I'm sure there are others, I just don't use them.

In short: there is no need to install anything.

See, being a gamer was how/why I was relentlessly pressured to join Skype for two years till I finally did it. If you're just using it as a text chat, I don't get why all the hate all of a sudden. Like were people lying to me? Are they lying to me about Discord, too?

Nobody is lying to you.  Tastes change, fashions change.  The real me has several chat apps on the phone because different friends use different ones.  It is about facilitating communications, nothing more.  Now the virtual me (the one you know as Al Terego) refuses to use the apps that require the phone number or other shenanigans, and does most of the chatting from the desktop.

motherfucker is convoluted as fuck.

That's a technical term, right?

I honestly do not understand peoples' obsession with chat rooms. I never feel the inclination to chat with a whole bunch of people I don't know. You can't have a decent conversation with people talking over each other like that. Hell, I barely want to be physically in a room with a bunch of people I DO know. After five or six, it's just too much.

A chat room is where you meet the people and decide whether you want to have private chats with them.  Think of it as a party where you meet somebody and socialize with them before deciding to give them your number or asking them on a date.

Plus, it makes me really fucking bitter that I'm expected to migrate chat systems every 2-4 years because something new is trendy and that's where everyone is, making all the time and effort pointless. Why make me switch if you're just going to leave in two years anyways?

Why is it a problem?  You make an account, maybe install an app (or use the web page), and that's it.  Discord, for example, does not need your personal information.

I mostly chat on the desktop.  I use Pidgin for most of my chat needs, but sometimes drop into the Discord web page to check some interesting channels.  Since I use the same application, if a friend decides to switch from Hangouts to Skype (for example), I just associate their two accounts together and don't lose the history.

It really boils down to personal preferences and willingness to accommodate others.

[Oniya]

Some random ramblings...

Out of curiosity, what Discord servers E people usually hang on?

Please remember that this thread is in a public part of the site and that contact information - including names of chat servers - cannot be posted.  You are free to PM this sort of thing.

[RedPhoenix]

Beyond that I don't actually hang out on any general E servers so I couldn't tell you anyway. :)

[Mintprincess]

Please remember that this thread is in a public part of the site and that contact information - including names of chat servers - cannot be posted.  You are free to PM this sort of thing.

I’m pretty sure the name of the server wouldn’t matter.  To join a server ok discord you need an invite code that must be generated by an owner or member depending on the settings.  Username are a different matter and those should definitely not be posted. 

[Al Terego]

Why would a chat server name be considered contact information?
It's no different than saying that one is also playing on BM, which people do all the time.

[Nadir]

We do consider comments like "I have a deviantart account" as contact info, if the name is the same - what can and cannot be achieved on discord is something we are still figuring out so please allow us to beg caution for the sake of safety, and keep details to the private sections of the site.

[RedRose]

Glad that we don't have to sign up. I never go to chat rooms. What for? If I trust someone enough I'll give my Google hangout (anonymous/RP account) and if we get THAT close over months, I might be ok with vocal/audio whatever. But as a given? No way.

[Al Terego]

We do consider comments like "I have a deviantart account" as contact info, if the name is the same - what can and cannot be achieved on discord is something we are still figuring out so please allow us to beg caution for the sake of safety, and keep details to the private sections of the site.

Fair enough.  What would be the right place to discuss external Discord servers?  The "On Topic" board?

[Caeli]

On Topic would be a good place, I think.

[Fury Aphrodisia]

That's a technical term, right?

I'm going to assume this wasn't intended to be unnecessarily antagonistic...

A chat room is where you meet the people and decide whether you want to have private chats with them.  Think of it as a party where you meet somebody and socialize with them before deciding to give them your number or asking them on a date.

It must be a cultural disconnect, because that seems equally bizarre to me. But aside from that, since we're talking about it particularly in context of an official Elliquiy server (also, why does a chat service have different servers, this seems really weird to me), I would point out that we already have a system like that. Elliquiy. Elliquiy is the system by which we talk to people in our community before deciding if we want to give them any further contact information.

Personally, I don't understand the idea of wanting to wade into a crowd of people you don't know and start random conversation. I'm not saying there's no legitimate reason for it, only that I don't understand it.

Why is it a problem?  You make an account, maybe install an app (or use the web page), and that's it.  Discord, for example, does not need your personal information.

I mostly chat on the desktop.  I use Pidgin for most of my chat needs, but sometimes drop into the Discord web page to check some interesting channels.  Since I use the same application, if a friend decides to switch from Hangouts to Skype (for example), I just associate their two accounts together and don't lose the history.

It really boils down to personal preferences and willingness to accommodate others.

I take a gigantic, steaming pile of issue with this argument.

Firstly, it's not just making an account and that's it. It's learning a whole new system, it's signing up for yet another set of records, usually having to merge systems and then you become a part of someone else's organization. You get emails and contact information and as a woman on the internet, I can promise you that it's never so simple as "Ignore it/them." Every new system you come into contact with comes with its own lovely set of people who will try to seek you out, will try to harass you and make it utterly unpleasant to try to figure out your way around. In Skype, I still get messages asking me for contact information from people I don't know. Just a few days ago, I got a contact request that came with a lovely, ever-mature symbol outline of a phallus. Nobody wants that.

And if you think being a gamer and female on the internet is "just" that simple, there's a whole other conversation we're going to have to have before we can see eye-to-eye enough to have this one. In the end, though, it's not just signing up and away you go. You have a whole new set of options, navigation, filters, commands, necessities to familiarize yourself with, and if you don't specifically have someone who is patient and dedicated to the idea of showing you the ropes and happens to be an insomniac with 24-hour accessibility, you're going to have to sort things out on your own at some point. Generally speaking, the tutorials written for communication platforms are ironically terribly communicated.

A willingness to accommodate others isn't making communication any easier. In fact, complicating the fact by introducing a plethora of new platforms to use is actually making it harder to communicate, particularly since each of these systems has their own culture, their own shorthand, their own expectations and methods by which to keep in contact. Instagram on Facebook connected to the Microsoft account that's actually now Outlook and my Tumblr is part of my Yahoo which I'd never have if not for the fact that Goggle doesn't really have anything that's good for blogs like Tumblr is, so I use my Google Hangouts to talk to whatever people aren't on my Skype. Thankfully, AIM shut down because frankly, I can't keep up. That's too much, enough already. Trillium and Pidgin are a good attempt at making things a bit easier, but when i tried to use it, there was nothing even remotely intuitive about it and I had to abandon the attempt before I managed to do anything with it that was remotely helpful.

And then there's the coding. Those who feel that it should be second nature to figure out what all the little symbols are supposed to mean. I can barely keep up here on Elliquiy, though I've learned a lot since I got here, it's nowhere near what many are able to accomplish. I can't read symbols and the like the way regularly-reading people are able to do. It's a long story, but the short of it is that just because dislexia is the most famous cousin, doesn't mean that others don't exist. Aside from that, I'm per-millennial. Those who came just after me are the ones that are more capable of doing the outstanding things that computers can do, because they're fluent in the language. I speak eight languages with varying degrees of fluency, but computer is not one of them. I was still trying to figure out how to use ICQ (by virtue of peer pressure) when I was coerced into MSN messenger and that set precedent for all the ways I've had to be virtually forced into new chat systems for the last eighteen years (Starting when I was fourteen with ICQ).

I have three jobs and two kids under five and thirty dogs to train and exactly no time to try to decipher what fourteen year old girls are using today that will only have to change the way we communicate tomorrow so that by next Thursday we're ready to do the same exact thing but backwards and now with filters!

All of this combines to make me resent every person who proceeds to tell me "But this one's EASY! It's more CONVENIENT! It's not a big deal, this is what people are doing now!"

"Why is it a problem? All it is is changing apps."

That's not all it is. And the trouble is that I start a new program, and starting about two months in, people who were pressing me to change in the first place are no longer available, because they've migrated to something else. Another few months and they tell me they're never going to use the system I'm using again and if I want to keep in contact with them, I can migrate or cut my losses. So I switch. But by the time I switch, it's time for them to go to something else. Usually it's because they've started playing a new game and they have decided that they want to keep in contact with the new people more than myself.

So to hear someone tell me in such a patronizing way that there's nothing to it and that I'm essentially overreacting (if that was not your intent then I apologize, but that's how it's come across) is incredibly frustrating. I've been going through this for more than a decade and a half and I'm just about ready to give up. Yeah, I wanted to be a part of some of the stuff people were doing on Mumble that we couldn't get to any other way. But Mumble was too much for me to learn at the time and there was no one really helping because they were all doing the events. No one's problem, no one's fault. But now to hear that there's yet another system that I'll have to try to figure out in order to be able to join my friends is... I'm better off at this point just plain giving up on the ability to communicate with my friends and just let them go on ahead without me than I am to keep tormenting myself by trying to keep up with the ever-decreasing attention span of chat systems.

[Oniya]

If you don't want to use it, don't use it.

If you like it and someone doesn't, don't try to shame, browbeat, or otherwise coerce them into using it.  This is not the debate forum.

[Fury Aphrodisia]

Yes, ma'am. Will leave my comments off now, here.

[The Dark Raven]

I'm going to assume this wasn't intended to be unnecessarily antagonistic...

That wasn't antagonistic (he's teasing).

<<snip>>

As a mother of twins aged 17 months, with 2 jobs and renovating a house, I also see where it could be daunting to start a new chat system.  I totally get it.  I was also -very- resistant to making a Discord account (which was grand total picking a username) and learning to use it.  It took me about a week of very little use to figure it out on my own (no training wheels and no trainers).  It's pretty painless--less so than the umpteen bajillion changes Google forces on you to use (or not use) Hangouts or G+.  That being said, Discord is very optional.  I use it in my capacity as an E Mentor and to communicate with some gaming friends (yes, I'm a female hardcore gamer).  I do not use the headset/mic feature (more a technical issue with my computer than anything--I have used Ventrilo/Mumble/TeamSpeak in the past), but use it as a chat feature (one that I no longer get using AIM/Y!/MSN/ICQ as they have gone the way of the dodo, essentially, or Skype that most of my contacts have moved onto something else).

It really comes down to choice.  No one is forcing anyone to use it, but there are many folks on E that seem to think it would be something they would use as an optional feature.  I think it may be a useful thing as platforms like IRC get older (I'm a mod there for E and we have a few people that talk but many that dont, and the room has gotten smaller over the years--it may be a good update, honestly).

[Al Terego]

Whoa Fury, please turn that flamethrower off, I am not your enemy.
Nothing in my post was intended to offend or disrespect.

I'm going to assume this wasn't intended to be unnecessarily antagonistic...

It was wholly tongue-in-cheek.  I apologize if my humour offended you.

A willingness to accommodate others isn't making communication any easier.

There are two people, let's call them A and B, that communicate on one platform.  At some time, A decides to switch to another platform and asks B to do the same, but B is reluctant to do so.  I see three possible outcomes:
1. A accommodates B by keeping using the old platform.
2. B accommodates A by using the new platform (either instead of, or in addition to the old one)
3. Neither party accommodates the other and communication breaks down.

I have personal experience with all three options.
When Yahoo changed their YIM platform to the abhorrent pile of crap that it is now, I asked several of my online friends to use a different platform (Jabber).  Several agreed, one refused to use anything but YIM and unfortunately that meant that our communications are now limited to PMs.  Some other friends wanted me to use their platforms of choice instead (Skype, Hangouts, Discord) and I did.

I understand from your post that you have special circumstances that make it hard, or even unfeasible for you to accommodate the other parties, which only means that they need to make an effort to accommodate you.  That's how it should work, at least in theory.

It is an unfortunate fact that we live in the age of mass production aimed at the widest audience, and often people who do not fit the mould get left by the wayside.  It is not in my power to change this.

However, it is in my power to try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.  I cannot offer you 24/7 support, obviously, but I can try to walk you through things.  My PM inbox is open.

Peace,
-- Al

[mioyumyum]

I would not force anyone to use discord, but I must say - I have been using it for about 3 days now. It is easy and intuitive. I created a server which was not necessary, and I found an RP partner who created a channel and 2 sub channels underneath it just for us. One is OC, one is the RP we are working on.

I don't know what happens when we finish that RP and want to do a new one. But it is all saved.

So I've been fairly happy so far. Thanks for bringing the service to my attention.

[TheHangedOne]

everything she said.  Discord is amazing because you can be in multiple servers, have text and voice chat, and one on one messaging at the same time.

Hey Minty, glad to see you around. And yeah, agreeing 100% with what Minty has said. Having said that, I can understand why some people don't/won't/can't change, and it's okay. Everybody should be more or less free to do as they please (with the obvious caveat of do no evil).  Discord is a thing now. It will likely be a thing for a long time. I've also found that it works better to have just it running on my computer than most other similar messengers; less 'bogging down'.

[DominantPoet]

I personally use Discord as much as humanly possible for everything now. What with AIM being taken down, Yahoo having done that bizarre makeover which has zero way of expressing to others if you're actually on or not, and Skype's most recent update which was bizarre and I highly question the rationality of whoever thought it was a good idea, ever...

Took a bit to learn how servers and all of that work, but it's pretty ingrained into me now, to the point I keep trying to do things in the SB on here that I can't do (like the thinking emoji)

It is impressive how much they keep adding to it though, even if I do just briefly look over the update pop up once in a while and go "yeah, that's nice".

[Crimson Caine]

I find the whole Discord thing for writing stories strange and fascinating, in that I've never considered it before.  I only started on Discord about a year and a half ago mainly out of my gaming stuff.  I run a clan and we tried to get people over to it and it didn't work, and then I hooked up with a Twitch streamer and became a Mod and Twitch users are very big into using Discord.  It is a bit strange to get used to at first, not very intuitive I don't feel. But I now chat all the time on there with gaming people and use the voice chat for some streams as the Streamer I mod for prefers it over in game party chat.  It's a very interesting community and the way you can section off games could really work for planning stories.  And possibly writing them if you enjoy the more short, chat based ones.  I think it's something that I'm not much of an IM user but I love using Discord now, to the point of being a little addicted to it when I'm supposed to be working.

[Cynadea]

Well, if there's a discord server for E members out there, please PM an invite (if you want me over there, of course)

[Mintprincess]

Well, if there's a discord server for E members out there, please PM an invite (if you want me over there, of course)

me too please <3

[TheHangedOne]

It would be unofficial, but if there was enough demand for it, I could set up a basic channel. Nothing too fancy.

[MagicalPen]

me too please <3

Likewise!

[Al Terego]

Any one can set up a discord server. I think that people want an official one.

[SithLordOfSnark]

Any one can set up a discord server. I think that people want an official one.

This.