Possibly controversial Discord rule
5 years ago
United States

I've thought long and hard about making my own Discord server for my friends and any of my followers. One thing, however, that had made me hesitant to do so is the general inactivity of 90% of Discord servers I am in. Why join a server if you aren't going to be a part of it? So I had a couple of ideas to keep the server live and fun. But there is one that I am certain will cause some controversy.

If a user is inactive and has not posted in the last 7 days, the user will be kicked. If the user would like to re-enter the server, they must run it by me or any Admins with an appeal for why they were inactive.

I want to hear other opinions before I go and do this

Pennsylvania, USA

I agree with that rule, I eliminated my own discord because it became inactive and useless. Not really hard to drop a "How's it going" every now and again.

North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

I would actually give it 14 days but your choice.

Red5rainbow likes this
Washington, USA
EmeraldAly
She/Her, They/Them
5 years ago

I've never felt the need for a personal Discord server, for just this reason.

Julz, Granolant and 3 others like this
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

Sounds like a terrible idea to me. I can only speak for my own discord server but I know many people who are very interested in the stuff I do but they rarely post anything. Because they are shy or too lazy or maybe they don't know what they should even talk about. Like the people who watch your stream but just in lurking mode. You wouldn't want to kick those viewers from your stream either. Many people are also in many discord servers so it can be hard to catch up with everything. I agree that taking some actions so that your discord server is appealing and interesting to everyone is the right thing to do. But if I would get kicked from a server just for not being active for x days, I would probably never join again because I would feel pretty.. excluded, like totally driven away by the server owner. I am sure that sooner or later most people who are in so many servers that they can't keep up with it anymore, they will leave those servers which they don't follow at all anymore by themselves.

Symystery, Sklitterbeer and 6 others like this
United States

Here's my point of view on what you just said. Discord's main purpose is to have a place to talk. If you don't use it to talk, then what is the point of being there? It would be like meeting up with friends to watch a movie and not saying a single thing the entire time you are there. I'm not asking for everyone to become extroverts, i'm just asking for the bare minimum interaction to make it apparent that you actually want to be there. If you don't talk for at least a week, then what am I supposed to think?

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Switzerland

I already was in a server where I mainly lurked and wrote something like once a week because I just didn't had anything to say, I still read every message tho

MasterLeoBlue likes this
New Jersey, USA

I’m in a lot of servers where I have nothing to contribute since I don’t know about the topic, but I read it since I’m interested

MasterLeoBlue likes this
Texas, USA

I think most people join Discord's to ask for help. That being said I do follow some people I watch on Twitch and don't post much at all, but I read what others have been saying.

Canada

This seems overkill to me. I feel like if I joined a Discord with something like that I would either end up occasionally posting random shit just for the sake of not getting kicked, or I would immediately feel alienated because I'm being forced to participate actively, and I would just leave of my own accord. So I feel like you're either generating a lot of fake activity that's just meaningless noise, or you're just getting rid of a lot of people for no real reason.

Honestly I don't think inactivity is that much of an issue. I see no reason to mindlessly post things in all of the Discord's that I'm in just for the sake of being "active". If I don't have something meaningful to say then there's really not much point in me saying anything. Now, if the whole purpose of the server is "talk about stuff", then yeah, maybe it's a problem if nobody ever talks. But if the server has a purpose other than "talk about stuff" (like if it's a server for a specific community), then there's really no need for constant mindless chatter (and personally, when I'm in a server that's constantly filled with mindless chatter I usually just end up muting it).

If you do decide to implement something like this anyway, please make it AT LEAST two weeks (though personally I think a month sounds more reasonable). People's real lives take precedence over your Discord server, and I'm not gonna post something in it when I have important real life stuff to deal with. And if I was kicked because I was busy for while and getting back in was an arduous process with an appeal, I think I wouldn't bother coming back at all.

Emmoji, EmeraldAly, and blueYOSHI like this
United States

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I have taken these things into consideration and have formulated a new policy. A role for "Lurkers" and a test to show that you are still actively lurking.

Those who are given the Lurker role have the power to view but never to post. This should solve the issue of those who never contribute but still want to know what is going on.

So what do you guys think about this?

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Valhalla

I don't see why it matters. It's just a discord server. Most servers surrounding a community are small and not used that often, and so what? But even for the bigger servers I fail to see the issue with there being 'lurkers'

Edited by the author 5 years ago
Emmoji, blueYOSHI and 5 others like this
Ontario, Canada

There is this kool feature discord has called prune members, which if people are inactive and have not posted in X days they will be kicked and can just join back should they wish to. Maybe use that if you want I used it several times in community servers to remove excess people from the list that had not ever posted since joining usually every 30 days if thats a big deal. But I don't think they should ever need to ask to be part of something unless its just a private server for friends thats different.

MasterLeoBlue likes this
Canada

I feel like giving people a role where they can't post anything ever is kinda pointless. Just let them stay quiet if they want to be, and if they want to talk let them talk. No need to try to control who can and can't talk.

blueYOSHI, Hako, and MasterLeoBlue like this
France

Same idea as starsmiley, I'm on numerous servers and it's not about being active on everyone of them, but at least reading to keep an eye on the news.

And the lurker role sounds weird, because if one day lurkers are brave enough to voice their opinion on something really important, like new skips or everything else, they simply won't, because they simply can't.

It sounds really weird as well to put real life logic and Internet logic on the same level of comparison.

Anyway, each Discord group is a village, this is your choice to lead your Discord the way you want it to be. There's no specific rule about that, so if you really want to separate people according to their activity, you can.

blueYOSHI likes this
Ohio, USA

This seems like a lot of effort to put into categorizing people on a Discord. Again, it's your personal Discord, no one can tell you what to do, but the idea of either kicking people or removing their ability to talk because they don't is insane.

Why do so much work to remove quieter people? Why? Does the idea of having a sidebar of a lot of online people who don't talk make you uncomfortable? I simply don't understand why someone would want to expend so much personal time and effort into this. Let people do what they want if it's not hurting anybody.

I mean, you do you, man. But if I was part of a Discord that initiated a rule that silenced or kicked people who didn't talk, I'd raise Cain about it.

blueYOSHI and Hako like this
Scotland

well some discords do need it like a certain game one I am in here that I won't mention even the mods don't respond to questions on that one, but for the most part for some people they just like to read the conversations if you want to put a silence at least make it a month+ :) a week even for chatty people like myself I would feel to pressured and leave, I like to talk but not when I am forced to. ^_^

off track a bit there, my main point if you do this just make sure it has a balance to it.

Antarctica

Automatically kicking someone and that “Lurker” role you created are just horrible ideas. Let people be quiet without removing them or putting a big sign on them that lets everyone know they’re quiet. Imagine if Twitch had a function that the streamer could enable where if you don’t chat after so many minutes, you lose the ability to chat for the rest of the stream. How is that beneficial for anyone?

I’m in many personal discord servers that I barely talk in. Why? Because I work full time and miss a lot of the discussions that happen, but moreover I’m close friends with all these people and I love to know what’s going on on their day to day lives. Even if I don’t post, I still read every message.

To put a “read only” role on someone who doesn’t talk and then have some kind of test they must pass to prove they are still a lurker is just so damn rude to them. If they are shy, let them stay shy. Don’t point them out with a role for everyone to see or test them like it’s academia or something.

If you really want to improve how active your discord server is, maybe find a few users who have been in the server for a while but don’t talk and message them. DM them and say that you noticed they’d joined a while ago but never talked. Ask them if there’s something you can do to make the server more inviting or if there’s something you can do to encourage chatter. Get their feedback and opinions, maybe they’ll have something or maybe they’ll just say they like to lurk.

Work with those people nicely or let them be. Don’t ostracize them or treat them differently, like being in your server is some reward for them if they pass their “lurker test”.

Edited by the author 5 years ago
starsmiley, Quivico and 6 others like this
United States

Twtich is different from Discord. With Twitch you have the ability of seeing who is actually watching you. With Discord, we have no way to know if someone is actually looking at the messages posted. There is no way. So to compare Twitch to Discord is not a good comparison.

If I lead a community of people, I have to make sure if those who are listed on the side actually want to be there or just joined to feel like part of the gang. Basically an empty member. Much like how on Youtube, subscriber count is not an actual reflection of those who watch your content. With all due respect, if you don't want to post, then don't come into my Discord. It's as simple as that.

Switzerland

Comparing Discord to Twitch is a better comparison as to RL tbh

And why do you actually care if someone is just there to be there or if s/hes actually active? Let them just be there if they want to, if you want to see whos actually active get a level bot or something so you easily see who writes how much, best one would be Mee6 (https://mee6.xyz/), easy to setup and easy to use