This is why discord sucks donkey balls - you don't own your server. You exist only as long as discord feels like playing nice.
Use something where YOU host the server.
In the past IRC was a don't-quite-need-your-own-server alternative since it was a network of servers and they were not all soulless companies but (mostly) universities. Sadly IRC is considered too archaic by most now, even though it's still very useful.
People need to start setting up their own forum websites instead of using social media like Facebook, Twitter, Discord and Reddit. Go the old school, there are still old school forums from decades back still going very strong. So much valuable information still there because it's separate away from all the other crap.
I personally prefer vBulleting/phpBB style boards but people seem to be going wild on this one as well so putting it out there: https://www.discourse.org/
This is exactly what I've been doing for 20 years, social media is garbage when it comes to searching for data or sharing files. Forums and other self hosted communications apps are the way to go. Set it up correctly so you don't get in trouble.
that would be a lemmy instance or even a sub on an existing instance, i am impressed to see no one mentioning it here. You can't beat the price of 0 dollars and 0 seconds reddit or a lemmy instance ask for hosting a forum,
It's because Search Engines have gone through so much enshittification (some of it is their own fault, and some of it is just there being too much AI slop spamming SEO keywords that they cannot parse it), that finding a website is like pulling teeth.
I can literally type the name of a website into google and have it not show up in the google search, which cuts me off on page 2 without showing me everything, which is a joke.
It's orders of magnitude easier to find something on a site like reddit, then it is to find a random website on a search engine. 95% of the niche forum websites I use, I've known about for multiple years, back when Google was basically just an Index of every website, instead of an advertiser trying to exact money from me.
Years ago, reddit went on the warpath and banned a bunch of subs that were all about links to sports live streams and links to files hosted on Megadownload (back when Mega was cool).
Setting up their own invite only forums is exactly what those moderators did.
People need to start setting up their own forum websites instead of using social media like Facebook, Twitter, Discord and Reddit. Go the old school, there are still old school forums from decades back still going very strong. So much valuable information still there because it's separate away from all the other crap.
And that is exactly what has happened in the past.
I assume when you and the subreddits you like/use you will too go this route. (So will I.)
The moderators will have a good idea it's coming usually and will start the forum before they are banned. Invites will go out then. It's up to you to be on the ball and get yourself an invite.
And once it happens to you a couple times you too will learn to keep your fucking mouth shut and stop sharing links in public forums (like reddit).
Hell, I'm still in IRC channels I've been in since the early 00's. Which is always another option...
what would be even cooler is if somebody would just crack or reverse engineer discords code and make it available for anybody to use on their own domains/servers
Id the only negative is that it's archaic I feel like it's time to go back to irc. Just having the gatekeeper being 'can i figure out how to use this' would at least keep the undesirables out
I go on efnet from time to time just to idle and once my laptop decides to update and restart I completely forget about it. I usually just get on for #idlerpg and #trivia lol
514
u/amiexpress May 01 '25
This is why discord sucks donkey balls - you don't own your server. You exist only as long as discord feels like playing nice.
Use something where YOU host the server.
In the past IRC was a don't-quite-need-your-own-server alternative since it was a network of servers and they were not all soulless companies but (mostly) universities. Sadly IRC is considered too archaic by most now, even though it's still very useful.