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So as I've mentioned a few times, I started a Discord server! I am so chuffed with how well it's going, and with this space I've carved out of the world!
I've got four categories with about sixteen channels so far. (There is also a super secret fifth category which contains the only voice channel and is pure crazy art because I am a great many things, including fucking weird. We'll not be discussing that more). Here's the run down of those categories, and what it's like to hang in my space:
*Administratia. Contains the "read this first", "introductions", and "suggestions and tech-help" channels. Read this first contains vital information including my official declaration that my server is a dictatorship, not a democracy, and I reserve the right to kick people out if need be. It absolutely has not been needed in any way, but I feel like it's a better idea to start with this kind of policy than try to cobble one together later.
One of the best parts of my server is that, since Discord lets you adjust your nickname for each server you're on, and because I requested them in the Intro thread, I started an accidental trend of people putting their pronouns in their nickname (if they want to, some people don't wanna). About 40% of everyone in the server has their pronouns right there when you read their name and that's makes it so much easier for my text-based ass to keep track!
*ADHD Nightmare Party. This was the original concept for the whole server, because I felt like my mental health was falling apart with the pandemic, and maybe other peoples were too and we could all use a space to work on that. It has four channels:
**What Day Is It? Approximately half a joke, but I've only missed one day so far (Weds May 13, whoops) since I started doing this on April 9th. Sometimes it's just nice to have another reminder of how time is passing.
**Ideas and Help. This is an open discussion channel. I'm not very militant about keeping subjects on track, but ideally this is the channel where people post ADHD ideas (yay!) or ask for help. Now's as good a time as any to mention that it's called "ADHD Nightmare Party" but mental health support is for everyone, regardless of what your neurochemistry may or may not actually be.
**Accountability Club. Absolutely stolen from the hashtag idea on Twitter, this is where people can post things they've done (yay! Cheering!) and also post the things they are definitely gonna do (yay! You can do it!)
**Today's Challenge. This is something I started on a whim. It's not actually daily, but most days I am trying to put up some sort of one-word challenge and some suggestions for things you can do based on that word. No one is checking your progress, so like, ignore at will, but maybe sometimes it helps to have someone else tell you what to work on today? I have no idea if other people are getting benefit from this channel really. I have thought about porting the challenges to twitter though.
*General Chat. This is the boring category, but it does have good channel names --general chat, extremely specific chat, look at my cool stuff, shared joy is doubled, shared pain is halved. Those last two are blatantly stolen from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, because Spider Robinson knew what was what. (Having reread the main three books of short stories, gotta say, it holds up!).
Like I said above, I really am not doing much moderation around "chase that off-topic discussion into the correct channel!" I wanted enough channels that my compartmentalizing brain is happy, but not so many that you shut down trying to decide where to say something.
One success I have done is making explicit in Shared-Pain that you should offer up "solutions or sympathy" with your ranting to help people know what kind of response you are hoping for. Not everyone does (which is okay, like who cares?) but enough people are remembering to that I am thrilled.
*Specific Chat. The last category! Also a fairly boring category, but again, I like compartmentalization. The channels are, as you might guess, a little more specific.
**sexxxy nsfw stuff. I suppose I could also make a bloody nsfw stuff channel, if that's something I decided I was willing to cultivate on my server. I might do just so I can post the photos of the cool mumified mammal from the steps of the abandoned hospital. (photos of dead things do not belong in "look at my cool stuff" without very adequate warnings). Anyways, we talk about sex because everyone invited to hang with me is an adult, but the goal is to keep it over her, because not every adult wants to encounter sex talk all the time.
**shared pets are tripled. The name is an offshoot of shared joy. Most recent posts include a couple of adorbs children, and while one could argue histrionically that a child is not a pet, I think that's hilarious and it's my server so we're all cool.
**cross animals. I play Animal Crossing! So do about a half dozen other people on the server! We gossip about the game, keep each other updated on turnip prices and meteor showers, and trade neighbors around. I am pleased to have a very small AC community --it's just the right size for me to have people to play with, without being so big that I can't feel like everyone involved is trustworthy and worth having around!
**Cats-Like-Movies. This is the new channel I made so we can livestream Cats together on Saturday. Maybe if it goes really well we might livestream other movies on other days? I don't really know how well this all-text-chat-all-the-time thing is gonna work for snarking on a movie and singing along, but the really nice thing about this whole experience is that _it works for me_ and it's my space! Obviously the server in general works for other people as well --I probably get between a few dozen and a few hundred lines of conversation a day-- but there's something incredibly gratifying about doing that whole thing where you think "I'm an unrelatable freak and no one else would possibly like doing things the weird way I do" and then it turns out you've got a whole heap of friends who are there for it.
Is every one of my friends into the server? No, not at all --I'm 1/3 for boyfriends even joining, for instance, and 0/3 for them participating. There are a number of people who are super important to me who just don't prefer connection via text, or connection via big group text, or slow-moving text (I have been comparing Discord to a cross between IM and a forum). That is truly fine, and I look forward to getting to talk to those people again in other ways when the world returns to normal.
But I am _thrilled_ for myself that I managed to realize a need --that I'm no good at video chat or even just big group voice chats-- and figure out how to fill it. I love y'all, and hope you can do the same for yourselves, whatever that looks like.
~Sor
MOOP!
PostScript: I've finally started reading DW again, yayyyy! If you received a comment on a two-week-old entry, that's why. I am about 150 entries behind right now, but probably gaining?
I've got four categories with about sixteen channels so far. (There is also a super secret fifth category which contains the only voice channel and is pure crazy art because I am a great many things, including fucking weird. We'll not be discussing that more). Here's the run down of those categories, and what it's like to hang in my space:
*Administratia. Contains the "read this first", "introductions", and "suggestions and tech-help" channels. Read this first contains vital information including my official declaration that my server is a dictatorship, not a democracy, and I reserve the right to kick people out if need be. It absolutely has not been needed in any way, but I feel like it's a better idea to start with this kind of policy than try to cobble one together later.
One of the best parts of my server is that, since Discord lets you adjust your nickname for each server you're on, and because I requested them in the Intro thread, I started an accidental trend of people putting their pronouns in their nickname (if they want to, some people don't wanna). About 40% of everyone in the server has their pronouns right there when you read their name and that's makes it so much easier for my text-based ass to keep track!
*ADHD Nightmare Party. This was the original concept for the whole server, because I felt like my mental health was falling apart with the pandemic, and maybe other peoples were too and we could all use a space to work on that. It has four channels:
**What Day Is It? Approximately half a joke, but I've only missed one day so far (Weds May 13, whoops) since I started doing this on April 9th. Sometimes it's just nice to have another reminder of how time is passing.
**Ideas and Help. This is an open discussion channel. I'm not very militant about keeping subjects on track, but ideally this is the channel where people post ADHD ideas (yay!) or ask for help. Now's as good a time as any to mention that it's called "ADHD Nightmare Party" but mental health support is for everyone, regardless of what your neurochemistry may or may not actually be.
**Accountability Club. Absolutely stolen from the hashtag idea on Twitter, this is where people can post things they've done (yay! Cheering!) and also post the things they are definitely gonna do (yay! You can do it!)
**Today's Challenge. This is something I started on a whim. It's not actually daily, but most days I am trying to put up some sort of one-word challenge and some suggestions for things you can do based on that word. No one is checking your progress, so like, ignore at will, but maybe sometimes it helps to have someone else tell you what to work on today? I have no idea if other people are getting benefit from this channel really. I have thought about porting the challenges to twitter though.
*General Chat. This is the boring category, but it does have good channel names --general chat, extremely specific chat, look at my cool stuff, shared joy is doubled, shared pain is halved. Those last two are blatantly stolen from Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, because Spider Robinson knew what was what. (Having reread the main three books of short stories, gotta say, it holds up!).
Like I said above, I really am not doing much moderation around "chase that off-topic discussion into the correct channel!" I wanted enough channels that my compartmentalizing brain is happy, but not so many that you shut down trying to decide where to say something.
One success I have done is making explicit in Shared-Pain that you should offer up "solutions or sympathy" with your ranting to help people know what kind of response you are hoping for. Not everyone does (which is okay, like who cares?) but enough people are remembering to that I am thrilled.
*Specific Chat. The last category! Also a fairly boring category, but again, I like compartmentalization. The channels are, as you might guess, a little more specific.
**sexxxy nsfw stuff. I suppose I could also make a bloody nsfw stuff channel, if that's something I decided I was willing to cultivate on my server. I might do just so I can post the photos of the cool mumified mammal from the steps of the abandoned hospital. (photos of dead things do not belong in "look at my cool stuff" without very adequate warnings). Anyways, we talk about sex because everyone invited to hang with me is an adult, but the goal is to keep it over her, because not every adult wants to encounter sex talk all the time.
**shared pets are tripled. The name is an offshoot of shared joy. Most recent posts include a couple of adorbs children, and while one could argue histrionically that a child is not a pet, I think that's hilarious and it's my server so we're all cool.
**cross animals. I play Animal Crossing! So do about a half dozen other people on the server! We gossip about the game, keep each other updated on turnip prices and meteor showers, and trade neighbors around. I am pleased to have a very small AC community --it's just the right size for me to have people to play with, without being so big that I can't feel like everyone involved is trustworthy and worth having around!
**Cats-Like-Movies. This is the new channel I made so we can livestream Cats together on Saturday. Maybe if it goes really well we might livestream other movies on other days? I don't really know how well this all-text-chat-all-the-time thing is gonna work for snarking on a movie and singing along, but the really nice thing about this whole experience is that _it works for me_ and it's my space! Obviously the server in general works for other people as well --I probably get between a few dozen and a few hundred lines of conversation a day-- but there's something incredibly gratifying about doing that whole thing where you think "I'm an unrelatable freak and no one else would possibly like doing things the weird way I do" and then it turns out you've got a whole heap of friends who are there for it.
Is every one of my friends into the server? No, not at all --I'm 1/3 for boyfriends even joining, for instance, and 0/3 for them participating. There are a number of people who are super important to me who just don't prefer connection via text, or connection via big group text, or slow-moving text (I have been comparing Discord to a cross between IM and a forum). That is truly fine, and I look forward to getting to talk to those people again in other ways when the world returns to normal.
But I am _thrilled_ for myself that I managed to realize a need --that I'm no good at video chat or even just big group voice chats-- and figure out how to fill it. I love y'all, and hope you can do the same for yourselves, whatever that looks like.
~Sor
MOOP!
PostScript: I've finally started reading DW again, yayyyy! If you received a comment on a two-week-old entry, that's why. I am about 150 entries behind right now, but probably gaining?