MeFi Discord channel

June 12, 2017 8:02 PM

Howdy! So, scrolling through the video game trailers post, I noticed there's quite a few resident gamers here in MeFi. Which made me wonder: Does metafilter have it's own Discord channel? I think it might be a good idea. It would be a good place to banter about politics while queueing for some Overwatch or whatever, and avoiding the casual racism and misoginy that permeates most multiplayer games. For those not in the know, discord is a low latency voice and text app designed for gaming. It's pretty good.
posted by _Synesthesia_ to Feature Requests at 8:02 PM (16 comments total)

I don't know of one, but there could easily be a channel I don't know about.

For your gaming-and-gaming-chitchat-with-Mefites needs, there's MeFightClub, which is a gaming site run by Mefi's own stavrosthewonderchicken, and which has significant Mefi membership.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 8:05 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I made an account just in case.

I idle on the MeFightClub IRC channel though as irssi is pretty easy to keep going all the time.
posted by ODiV at 10:37 PM on June 12, 2017

I haven't visited MeFightClub in a while but I believe they have their own Discord too, although I vaguely remember the IRC channel being more popular.
posted by A Robot Ninja at 1:24 AM on June 13, 2017

Thanks for the heads up! I'll ask around there then.
posted by _Synesthesia_ at 6:18 AM on June 13, 2017

What is Discord? An app for gaming yes, but it seems to have branched out. Is it like Messenger essentially?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:25 AM on June 13, 2017

Not really. It works basically like an IRC channel, but with far more functionality. YT, Twitter, and other links load perfectly into the conversation, and on the same room you can set up voice channels, and jump into them with whoever. Voice latency is very low, like mumble.
posted by _Synesthesia_ at 6:37 AM on June 13, 2017

I was gonna say, mefightclub probably has a Discord server, yeah, and that's an easy starting point.

I don't know enough about Discord to know whether or at what threshold of service you need to pay to run one, so if it's free and there's appeal there no harm in someone spinning up a MeFi-specific one as well.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:31 AM on June 13, 2017

Discord is growing into something a lot like Slack, a persistent conversation store. It's an IRC-a-like at its core, but offers a lot of nice features. They're a heck of a lot nicer than IRC to use, imo.

I actually think Discords and Slack-a-likes are what web-fora like Facebook, but perhaps even things like Reddit and maybe even MeFi could be replaced by in the next few years. Right now they're invite only, limited capacity, etc... but they have a lot of potential.
posted by bonehead at 8:50 AM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The MFC discord doesn't really seem to be used very much for actual text chatting, but there's a bridge to the (much more active) IRC channel that is usually running.
posted by advil at 9:34 AM on June 13, 2017

I've found that for whatever reason, MFC is a pretty text-focused community. Other places I meet with gamer-types online seem to have a bigger focus on "here's a Teamspeak/Discord, idle and shoot the breeze!" Whereas MFC is really all about the forum and IRC. I actually like it a lot especially as I get busier, since I can't always devote huge chunks of my brain to keeping up with spoken chatter. Both are nice, and both have their place. That said, drop on by! I should sort out my irssi again, ha.
posted by Alterscape at 11:28 AM on June 13, 2017

I hate telephones and am always happy for text.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:01 PM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Coincidentally, earlier today someone cut the fibre just outside of town and all I could get working reliably for 3ish hours was IRC.

80s tech, best tech.
posted by ODiV at 6:43 PM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I would like a MeFi discord.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:27 AM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

I was wondering about this yesterday! I usually have Discord up in the background. I really like it as a chat platform. It's more accessible than IRC and has more features. I also have nothing against MFC, but a lot of MeFites aren't gamers or aren't into the games that are popular with that group, so it feels less like a community for all MeFites than chat does (even though chat is slow).

It would take about five seconds to set up the server - the bigger issue is publicizing it so it reaches a critical mass of users.

I'm looking at Discord's website and haven't found anything regarding having to pay to set up a server if you're a business, yet...still looking.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:17 AM on June 15, 2017

As far as I'm concerned, discord channels are 100% free. I just asked the RPS admin, and he confirmed it. I'd be super stoked for a mefi discord if we get to critical mass. As it has been said before, it's much more easy to use than IRC, and simple to have in the background.
posted by _Synesthesia_ at 1:55 PM on June 16, 2017

Yeah let's try it out!!
posted by grobstein at 3:06 PM on June 18, 2017