Love & Hate Stories | dR Community Server

vintprox OP Mod , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

My story with dRCS started at the roots, when @akshayprogrammer invited us to his Discord server via devRant on 10th of October 2020. I can say with confidence that I was the first one there (if you exclude the owner)! Grab the tea and enjoy my retrospective. 😆

There was an upcoming event, a Zoom call organized by @ceee and @F1973, to be precise. If you really wanna dig into the past, there are one and another links to his initiative, but the OP is lost now.

We were really hyped for a meetup with random people of dR, even if it was just an innocent video call during COVID! And so it began on Saturday, 2020-10-10 12:20 UTC+0. The choice of software for the call was questionable, so it didn't take long until everyone settled on... Google Meet?! OK, I was really stupified by these contrast showers, but I wanted to hear from people that rant and tell relatable stories on our lovely platform.

Beginning of the meetup with devRant people in Google Meet. Some of us have shown video to immediately connect with each other.

We gathered, but everyone changed platforms again... to Jitsi. It was lagging as hell on mobile and I've missed half an hour dealing with it until I found a "Limited" mode. By that time, everyone has moved to Google Meet again. 👌🥲 We were commuting for about 3 hours. I don't remember most of the topics. I liked to hear from live people about their concerns and programming adventures, that's for sure.

What's the story with Discord server, anyway? The call wasn't made there, despite its primary VoIP features, because Discord rooms didn't hold up more than 25 members with video streams in the voice channel, so idea was cut short.

theuser: If this was a meetup of designers, then they would all have video on

But, as you'd expect with majorly introverted individuals, even 20 video faces weren't able to show up on the meetup. Thinking back, enforcing Discord for this event would probably pay off more than trying to remember what even happened in Zoom/Google Meet, but we didn't do it in the light of negative votes from few people. The first ever rule on server was to post NSFW stuff to the appointed channel, LOL! 😂

After the meetup, the original owner, @akshayprogrammer asked for anyone who would take over the ownership of the Discord server. I volunteered and without much delay the ultimate permissions were bestowed on me. That was a convenient acquisition, what I can say. 💫

CodeTalker: By the way, wouldn't it be a good idea to create a Discord join confirmation thread just to verify the people who join is really who they claim to be?

In response to this apt request, I created a devRant collab where everyone could verify and virtually link their devRant profile to Discord. And since then, the verification served us well. No impersonations were possible for any, at least checking others' profiles, human being, as I went through every verification and later delegated this task to moderators as well to make process visible and swift.

NoMad: what benefits does the verified get?
ely: none
Jilano: They have a blue name
Jilano: As opposed to the white peasants

Questions about verification procedure didn't stop pouring, except they were not as frequent as number of members growing! 💪 Verification was even automated 2 years in a row by a bot written by @epictern. After its decline, we were doing it manually and it looks pretty with everyone's custom colors.

🧵 Part 1/2

vintprox OP Mod , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Screenshot of my status notifications on Samsung device with a bunch of notifications from devRant and people asking to be verified on dRCS.

It didn't take long until people got very eager about the server, it exploded: 2020-10-11 8:00 I wake up to a myriad of notifications and get drown in them. What an enticing affair! Headquarters channel was created and intense discourse with moderators ensued. Proper rules started taking place in our abode and we were making sure that they are followed to a T. 🛡😼😐👺⚔

We were convinced that MEE6 is a good bot for most our tasks, at the time. Then, there were few other bots: Color-Chan, Simple Poll, FredBoat. As I look back at it now, such decisions were not in the best interest of the community and since then I was catching up to the thought process that admin of dRCS should have.

SoldierOfCode: I need faster then light reaction speed to switch between channels, Jesus XD

Fast forward to today:

• Discord is a privacy hazard, basically.
• App runs unforgivably slow on mobile.
• Centralized authority over the physical servers that run the platform doesn't fit the ideas of decentralized comms we have in mind.
• Few key devRant members are not convinced that they should join the chat because of the reasons above.

We need a consistent anarchy! 🤣 Oh, gee, now I wonder if we should enhance the experience by using only one room and actually free, open source software. Synchronous software for devRant people is a thing I'm covering now. Have another read!

🧵 Part 2/2

Backlink to devRant: https://devrant.com/rants/9228210

vintprox OP Mod , 6 months ago

Proto icon of the server was assigned two months after server creation. Today, the place of avatar takes an improved icon of dRCS.

Ranchonyx , 6 months ago

I'm content with anything as long as nobody is being censored.