Template talk:Discord

Linking to servers and including information about them

So, I made this template because I have a couple server pages I really want to make soon (notably the Yuletide server and its offshoot Exchanges After Dark) and I didn't want to keep using the html infobox I made when I made the Dreaming of Sunshine Discord Server page. But, I think that we still have some outstanding privacy concerns that I haven't seen addressed anywhere, so before I start making more server pages, I was hoping to get some guidance on privacy concerns and also just some general feedback about the template. You can see a live version of this template being used on the Dreaming of Sunshine discord server page.

Main questions/concerns:

• Moderator/Server owner info: I assume that in addition to not being able to quote things on the server without permission, we also shouldn't list server owners, moderators, or members without permission or a public source, but it would be nice to have a policy specifically addressing this because I don't think other things like mailing lists and locked LJ comms actually hide who runs the thing unless you join.
• URL/Invite links: It's my feeling that invite links to servers shouldn't be put on Fanlore pages unless the server owner agrees, but I don't think any of the current policies really give guidance on this. Also, I think some servers have stuff where like, you join by IMing a particular person on tumblr, so maybe this section should be called "Joining:" and then have either an invite link or instructions about how to do that?
• Quoting servers in general: Help:Citing sources currently uh kind of says I need permission for everyone in the Discord to quote what one person said, and that seems... wrong? It says this:

In general, the transcripts of chat rooms or instant messages cannot be easily cited. Like citations of private email, citations of this kind of content require that all individuals who were present during the chat agree to publicly disclose the contents of the chat. This makes quoting of these kinds of transcripts difficult from a practical standpoint.

I don't really see why I would need permission from everyone CC'd on an email person A send to quote person A's email, so long as that email's contents didn't otherwise violate their privacy, and Fanlore:Citation only says I have to get permission from person A, so I'm not sure how accurate/enforceable this is, but I'd really like clarification on that. Especially because some things on Discord aren't even actually chat conversations — like, would I hypothetically need to get permission from everyone who's ever been on the Dreaming of Sunshine discord server and looked at the rules channel to post the server's rules? It seems like I should really only need the permission of the server owners/the mod team who came up with the rules, and generally I think permission from the OP should be good enough.

I'd also appreciate any feedback in general about the template. - Hoopla (talk) 16:45, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Very late reply (though I know policy concerns like this *have* been discussed in other places, particularly on the Fanlore Discord Server itself :P) but I agree these are important thing to discuss & I'm glad to have a more premanent record of it here on this talk page. Regarding your bullet points:

• Moderator/Server owner info: somehow I hadn't thought about this explicitly despite making a substantial chunk of the pages currently in Category:Discord Servers, but I think I mostly have been following this policy for pages I create, and relying on server promotions posted to other social media websites to cite moderators and owners.
• URL/Invite links: I have been putting invite links on fanlore pages if (and only if) those invites are publically posted on the internet. A fair number of servers do leave open invite links in the authors notes of guest-viewable AO3 fics (e.g.) or even promote them on instagram (e.g.) and I don't see why including those links on Fanlore would be different than including links to other publically viewable AO3 fics or social media posts? But many others have "ask to be invited" or other closed invite policies and in that case I definitely agree that the invite link should not be shared on Fanlore (it probably would expire immediately anyways). Actually, I know of request by a Discord server owner/moderator to remove a publicly-accessible (though semi-hidden) Discord invite link already & it was indeed removed ([1]). But either way, I agree Fanlore policies should provide guidance on this.
• Quoting servers in general: I agree with your takes here (and IIRC that was the general feeling on the Fanlore server too, but the discussion was a while ago -- probably still well after you posted this message though! I'll try to backsearch and add a summary to this page soon). I agree with you that Help:Citing sources --and also Help:Citation should explicitly address Discord servers; I know there's a (slow-going, but going) effort to overhaul the help docs and we should make sure it's on the list.

As I said earlier, I've used the template to make a number of pages (maybe a dozen so far and planning on more) and so far it's covered everything I've needed in an infobox. Thanks! -- Quaelegit (talk) 10:09, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Discord Category

I just noticed that we currently don't have a category specifically for Discord servers. I'm considering creating one and adding pages that use this template to that category. It would be a subcategory of Category:Fan Communities, same as Category:Subreddits. At the moment there is only 5-10 pages that use this template, but I imagine that will grow given the number of fannish discords out there. Does that sound like a good idea? --Auntags (talk) 22:11, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

As no one said it was a bad idea, I went ahead and created Category:Discord Servers and this template now autoadds to that category. Hope that's okay!--Auntags (talk) 21:22, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Template generates a redlinked category if you use an image with the "thumb" parameter in the infobox

See for an example. Which is frustrating, e.g. in this edit, someone removed my image caption to remove the redlink. I think that caption is useful! Can we please fix the template so as not to generate redlinked categories, instead of removing useful image captions? -- Quaelegit (talk) 22:04, 4 October 2024 (UTC)