Discord server moderation is desperately needed!
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Alisyn Baxton
Howdy!
Please take steps to get active moderation 24/7 in the SL Discord. It's desperately in need of monitoring, especially for spammers and scammers. The current situation leaves new users at risk of falling for scams. Moderation is also needed for trolls and abusers, and (though it hasn't come up yet) to handle inappropriate NSFW material if it gets posted.
One suggestion would be to 'hire' SL users, verified in Discord, to make sure all or most time zones are covered worldwide. Perhaps pay a weekly stipend in $L, or a Premium membership, for as long as they are active moderating.
Thanks for your consideration!
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jackiewallace Resident
Now I won’t be popular, nor do I want to be. We can see that there are more and more AFK avatars in Second Life. One reason for this is that communication is not happening within the platform itself, but in other social media. I consider Linden Lab’s move towards Discord to be a misguided decision. Who came up with the idea, and why, to encourage users not to use Second Life as their primary communication platform? Shouldn’t the focus be on finding a way for Second Life to evolve so that users don’t need to rely on external social media services for the user experience? If I have a business, I strive to ensure that my users use my platform, and I don’t direct them to competitors or other places that are not 100% under my control.
When the Discord server was created, I already felt that moderation would become a problematic issue for the future. Who will moderate? Who will have the extra energy for this? What kind of responsibility will Linden Lab take regarding the activities of the moderators? Many, many questions, and at the same time, I don’t think ranks, rights, or privileges should be handed out thoughtlessly to just anyone.
Even though I use Discord, like it, and I’m not anti-Discord, I cannot support this idea because the mere existence of the Discord server promotes user inactivity in-world. It would be best to shut it down.
Rachelle Kiyori
jackiewallace Resident Shutting down the Discord server will
NOT
help with the already existing inactivity problems in Second Life. That's like offering a subpar service and shooting whoever has the idea to come up with something better, rather than looking to oneself for improvement. Rather bonkers.Instead, what Second Life can and should do is look at what made Discord so successful in the first place, and see what ideas could actually work within Second Life. Most notably, reliability, persistent chats, and message attachments, all help to make Discord easier to use and communicate with than Second Life.
Yes, this would require a fundamental reimagining of the communication architecture within Second Life - but maybe it's time to rip off the bandaid and admit that a 20+ year old system isn't working.
But killing the Discord server won't solve the problem. And even if it were possible, killing Discord as a whole won't, either (even though I know that isn't what you were suggesting), because the cat is out of the bag, and the ideas are already out there. At some point you have to accept that there was a reason why those ideas ever worked in the first place.
jackiewallace Resident
Rachelle Kiyori I always try to express myself precisely and to look at things from multiple perspectives. We completely agree that a full renewal is necessary - bug fixes and optimizations are just firefighting. The world is changing, technology is evolving, and people's interests are shifting. I notice it in myself too: I'm becoming less and less active on Second Life, and this is coming from someone who always believed that it was impossible to be bored on the platform. I feel like I was wrong…
Christi Maeterlinck
I've no time for Discord. A barrel-load of monkeys would have a better sense of design and functionality than this trite rubbish. Rather than using in-world monitors (and paying them! And having them approved by Discord, for Pete's sake!) let's just stop using it. Our in-world arrangement of IMs and IM groupings, coupled with the increasing popularity of Gyazo links for non-verbal material, is surely preferable to this juvenile medium called Discord.
Tamraen Dryke
Christi Maeterlinck Gigantic disagree. Discord is a major social media platform and it's here to stay. Even if you think it's juvenile, then even better for SL to be present in a space of young internet users. Though it's obvious that your very strong opinion of discord was colored by your personal experience with it, the platform is actually quite sophisticated and offers a lot of new and useful ways to engage with other users outside of SL because SL simply doesn't offer those options.
In today's connected world, people often like to keep up across multiple platforms, and that can build deeper connections in each place. I'm closer to my SL friends because we talk over discord too.
I was in the hospital for 3 weeks suddenly in June. My SL friends made a discord group chat to talk to me, keep me company in very dark times, and organize how to cover all of my SL obligations that I wasn't able to attend to. I literally wouldn't have made it through one of the nights if it weren't for a discord voice call with an SL friend who stayed up at 3am to talk with me. Without discord, I'm completely cut off from my SL community.
Also we plan and prepare elaborate stage performances that need coordination between numerous people. There's simply no good way to do this, across all timezones, with enough text space and photos and links, inside SL exclusively.
Every discord server is different so maybe you only found crappy ones that are chaotic and a mess (there are a lot!), but discord itself is incredibly useful and has its place. That said, the SL discord, I don't think I've ever set foot in there to know if it's a mess but I can assume that it is based on OP's post.
It's important for SL to appear relevant by being plugged into all the popular platforms, not too old and dusty to keep up. However if once people get there and see that it's an unmoderated wild west mess, that looks even worse.
I think SL should have a consistently updated and compelling presence on every platform, administered by competent people who understand the environment of each platform and how to make content for each. SL will never gain new young users if it has an attitude against certain spaces or isn't engaged and active in the spaces where people are.
Give discord another try but pick a better server to join, or start with just making one for you and your SL friends to stay in touch when you can't access your computer.
Christi Maeterlinck
Tamraen Dryke It's obviously a very personal thing, appropriate to people's circumstances. I'm so glad that you found it a source of support and comfort while you were hospitalised! 2 weeks there is a long time, as I know from my own experience, and having a one-off in detail when things are really grim sounds especially valuable. For me, well, a Skype call when we had Skype, or nowadays, Zoom or Teams would suit me better, if the inworld IMs I suggested weren't sufficient.
It's the ghastly interface and the intrusive 'extras' over and above the basic server arrangement that makes me so crabby about it! But friends in SL continue to be happy with the server devoted to the SL island on which we live after I stopped using Discord to supplement our communication, so fair play to anyone like yourself who advocates a more discriminating use of it.
For me, the issue still remains whether our SL time would be better spent entirely in SL interaction, as JackieWallace suggested, whatever we might feel about Discord's status outside.
River Vortex
We have moderators now! 🎉
Spidey Linden
tracked
Issue tracked. We have no estimate when it may be implemented. Please see future updates here.
steph Arnott
Issue with that giving a little power to some soon causes them to act like dictators. SL has a shed load of trigger happy goons.
River Vortex
This is long past due since opening the server to literally everyone in March.
Gieon Arun
And on that note, requiring phone number verification
and
SL account verification is stupid. If I verified my SL account, why do I need to verify my phone number? My last account was lost because Discord locked me out of it when they couldn't verify my phone number, I'm not risking it again.It clearly doesn't stop any of the trolls.
River Vortex
Gieon Arun I don't think LL is requesting you to verify your phone number. I think it's Discord.
Rachelle Kiyori
River Vortex LL still sets the setting requiring phone verification, so even if Discord gets the actual number LL still sets the setting for it.
Gieon Arun
River Vortex
It's a setting that LL turned on for the discord server. It is Discord that gets the number, but LL that requires it.
Alisyn Baxton
Gieon Arun Pretty sure there is a separate Canny for the phone number issue. Please don't cause confusion, this is specifically about moderation, not any other issue with Discord.
Gieon Arun
Alisyn Baxton It's semi-related and I didn't imply it was the same thing, but thank you for your input.
River Vortex
Rachelle Kiyori Thanks, I've rarely had to use my phone for verification and not for the SL server. I always thought it was Discord only.
River Vortex
Gieon Arun thanks, I never knew it was the server that required this! I didn't have to use mine I assume because I was in the server before it was opened up to all residents.
Bunny Svenska
Gieon Arun I agree. I can see the SL account, but not the phone. I don't even have a mobile and not getting one for the Discord.