First, let's start with the copypasta we have in SSSC.
1) too much extra work for operators 2) voice chat is hell to moderate 3) split between two different chat clients for community and operators is hard to balance 4) discord is hard to get onto for a number of ppl due to being specialized + memory issues whereas irc has tens of clients/programs to access from 5) discord's extra features ultimately dont matter
First. It's too much extra work for operators. Our current team of ops and hops in 19 can pretty easily moderate the channel, because it is a single channel. And the rest of the side channels are moderated by other people. because they are not official channels. This diversification of channels works well for keeping activity in 19 containable and relatively easy to moderate.
Based on the conversations in the io discord, we'd be looking at significantly more channels. And we just don't have enough current operators to be able to effectively moderate it, even if we have IO also help. Yes, there are a few people on IO who are familiar with Discord, but it is significantly more difficult to be become an operator for 19 than it is to become JS or staff in general, and the people who I believe you're referring to just haven't had enough time in the community for me to feel comfortable with them moderating what would become the face of our wiki.
2) voice chat is hell to moderate
Yes, we can turn Voice off. But then we're willfully ignoring an aspect of the platform that people are accustomed to. I feel it would be the equivalent of disabling /me in IRC.
3) split between two different chat clients for community and operators is hard to balance
Yep. I'm going to reiterate my point from the first bit. There is only one #site19. Adding a discord, with even just a single channel, would more than double the work staff/ops would need to do. And since so many more people have discord than IRC, there would be a significant influx of users that would easily more than double the amount of people who would be active on the chat platforms we use
4) discord is hard to get onto for a number of ppl due to being specialized + memory issues whereas irc has tens of clients/programs to access from
While I feel this could be worded better, I feel the basic gist of it is that Discord performs very poorly when you look at its power consumption. It drains my phone and laptop batteries stupidly quickly. IRC on the other hand is just text. It can be run on a potato. And there are a bunch of different clients that all run very smoothly.
Discord also has some issues in regards to its servers, with fairly frequent crashes that I've seen. And that can't be avoided by simply switching to a different client.
5) discord's extra features ultimately dont matter
Here are the discord's extra features that I can think of.
- Special emojis
- Specialized roles
- Multiple channels
- Voice
- Lower bar of entry
- Emoji reactions to messages
- editable messages
The specialized emojis isn't really that useful to begin with, imo, and just contributes to emoji spam.
The specialized roles, unless we just keep it to Chatmin, op, and hop like we have in 19, can be a headache to manage. And I feel contribute to a sense of elitism. And I know this because I often feel better than other people because I'm a staff member and an author and I have a colorful name on the discords I'm in, and that's not a good thing.
The multiple channels thing I've already covered above, but the more channels, the more difficult it is to moderate.
The emoji reactions to messages I will admit is fun to do, but it ultimately doesn't matter.
You can also edit your messages, but while that's a nice QoL feature, will be abused. And looking through the settings, there is no way to turn that ability off.
And that leads me to the lower bar of entry. Because of how easy it is to get a discord account and to join a server, it will be significantly easier for underage users to get on. But it also means that it's much easier for people to bypass bans or disciplinary actions by simply making a new account, as we don't have access to hostname bans like with IRC. Sure you can IP ban, but IPs are incredibly easy to spoof. Sure we could put the verification level on the highest level, but I'm pretty certain people can use things like those "temporary phone number" creators to rejoin as well.
We also wouldn't have IRCops who can take care of the more troublesome repeat offenders.
Lastly, I want to address this:
To go whole hog and make/promote an official Discord on a wide scale out of the gate. We want to soft open a server and see what problems arise and how the server runs to test the viability of having one in the long term.
Our plan is to create a small server based on how the International SCP Discord is set up.
It does not matter how small we try to make the server. It will be flooded by people as soon as we open it. It can't be a small server based on the shear fact of how large our off-site fanbase is and how prevalent discord already is.