Geek Native has a Discord server, and it’s a candidate for the most prolonged soft launch ever! At least it’s a place to easily get to geeky news.
This blog often cites Reddit, as Bronwen did on the Starfield cancellation story just now. As Reddit rumbles through a troubling month, fans and communities are worried about the changes to the API, and there’s been plenty of reasons to think about how different the two companies are.
So, when a chance came around to talk to Julie Taylor, Tech Principal at Joyn, a company that works directly with Discord on bots, tools and communities, and Jacob Dahlman, Team Lead at Joyn, a veteran of the gaming industry and former Director of Community Development for Tournament Kings, I took it!
I just asked the most challenging question I think of; what’s the difference between Reddit and Discord’s strategies? Let’s get to the so what of it.
Discord vs Reddit
In this Q&A interview, I ask about the two company strategies, the moderation challenges we as geeks might face, popular tools and safety.
Answers By: Julie Taylor, Tech Principal at Joyn and Jacob Dahlman, Team Lead at Joyn, with Contributions by Harry Haley, Operations Team Member at Joyn
With everything happening with Reddit and its controversial API changes right now, why is Discord instead embracing third-party apps – can you give us a bit of insight?
Discord does things a bit differently than Reddit and actually explicitly does not allow third party apps that skin the software, although they do exist, Discord hasn’t done anything significant to take down these devs. The most important thing to note is that this is a moral and ethical issue rather than a cost issue. Discord is seemingly transparent about what they are doing and they actually go above and beyond to support creators of all sizes. It is arguable that Reddit has similar structures when interfacing with their developer community as Discord does but the recent events kind of point to it all being a show.
What do these differing approaches say – if anything – about the two similar companies?
As Discord offers dedicated resources and support for developers, they are very familiar with the community and the apps that their community creates. One is willing to rock the boat with their legacy users for the sake of monetization and the other is not. The Discord platform is able to find better ways to monetize than Reddit and they also care about supporting their developers.
What do you think the consequences of these changes will be for Reddit? Things aren’t looking so good right now, and it seems to be fighting battles on all sides.
Trust is a hard thing to earn back and we are seeing this with the traditional social media platform wars that are going on. The community that improved the foundation of Reddit feels that the company has betrayed them.
And the recently revealed conversation between Apollo’s founder, Christian Selig and Reddit’s CEO, Steve Huffman, an entire new can of worms has opened up specifically around ethical business practice and communication. In a recent meeting between the two entities, a simple miscommunication occurred when Mr. Huffman thought that Selig was threatening him. This was almost immediately corrected after Selig clarified what his wording meant and that no malicious verbiage was ever intended. However, despite this apparent resolution, Mr. Huffman reportedly perpetuated the narrative in subsequent internal Reddit meetings that Apollo’s founder had threatened blackmail. This continuation of the false narrative, even after Reddit’s CEO acknowledged his initial misinterpretation, painted Apollo’s developer negatively. It not only distorted the original intent of Selig’s dialogue but also demonstrated Mr. Huffman’s questionable conduct. And as a result of Reddit’s decision and actions, Apollo’s founder announced the app would be shutting down, in an extensive subreddit.
Will there be consequences for Discord if they continue with their current path without monetizing their API? We’ve seen the consequences Reddit is feeling… but is the road ahead for Discord all rosy? Or might there be problems in the future for their community/messenger app?
No, It’s incredibly unlikely Discord will make their API paid access. Discord is clearly making efforts to monetize in different ways, and arguably in a way that won’t trigger their audiences. Making the Discord developer API paid access would put the platform 6 feet under real quick. As for the consequences for Reddit, one example of exodus to competing platforms is r/malefashionadvice, which has more than 5 million users is redirecting the community to a Discord server. We expect in the coming weeks that more communities will explore the Discord platform and the free API.
What would these online communities look like without the uncompensated moderators and the tools they use to do their jobs?
Without moderators and volunteer-developed tools, it would be an absolute wasteland. Managing communities is like trying to shoot constantly moving and constantly spawning targets. If companies go this route, the communities that they house will now have to compare venue cost, tools and the quality of those tools, which is something I don’t think unpaid community managers and moderators have any desire to do if everything has a cost to it.
You also need to remember that these tools that volunteers created are often very specific to a Reddit community and automate specific tasks that are unique to them. With this now being paid access they might not be able to cover the cost and therefore shut down the project.
Discord does have in-house tools that help communities but they’re very general, which is why they have a Discord API, so developers can get creative for communities solving problems Discord can’t.
How are third-party tools making online forums safer for users, and in compliance with community guidelines?
Safety is definitely a consideration here; tons of bots moderate in certain ways catered to the user’s needs. Every community is different so one tool may work extremely well in one but not the other. The same goes for every tool made for the platform. There is no one size fits all, creativity and community knowledge is a must. Reddit should be paying them instead of charging them.
The unfortunate reality is that Reddit didn’t make a user-friendly mobile app, then the community took up the challenge and delivered to the tenth degree! All for the sake of saving money, a bunch of significant apps are being shuttered due to the cost of continuing operation and now they are stuck with an app that doesn’t streamline their day to day volunteer tasks.
Here’s links to Discord’s guidelines:
- Community Guidelines: https://discord.com/guidelines
- Developer Policy: https://discord.com/developers/docs/policies-and-agreements/developer-policy
- Discord Safety Center: https://discord.com/safety
- Discord Community Center: https://discord.com/community
What’s the most popular third-party tools for Discord? Are there ways to find out?
There are several popular third-party tools in a variety of categories on Discord. These tools include MEE6, an in demand moderation bot and a fan favorite that helps you build, manage, and grow your server; and similar to MEE6, there’s also Dyno, a customizable moderation bot that helps with server management; along with ProBot, a customizable bot with features such as welcome images, logs, social commands, social media notifications, moderation, and more. Other popular apps include many of Joyn’s Discord applications like: Tourney Bot, a bot for hosting tournaments in your Discord, Emote Manager a app to easily manage emojis, stickers, and role icons, Support Bot, an advanced and dynamic ticketing solution, and ZeroTwo, a roleplaying anime themed game.
If a user wants to search for other popular third-party tools, they can visit the application directory on Discord. Just login and search the desired tool in the search bar. The front page features the top applications, and you have the option to also filter those apps by the various categories.
Would many of these communities even be able to exist if they had to compensate moderators?
Only a small minority of these communities would be able to exist. Most of these communities are volunteer managed, volunteer developed, and it’s a unicorn thing to see a community monetizing enough to compensate their staff.
Reddit communities that are unmoderated can often get struck by Reddit and have a risk of being disabled. Such as when modmail tickets are left without an answer, etc.
Discord server admins might not need to compensate third-party moderation apps but they often need to pay for them. Is the money spent on such tools really better than an enthusiastic and intelligent volunteer moderator?
It’s not that these tools are replacing the moderator. It’s that these tools allow for time saving and streamlining frequently repeated tasks which ultimately prevent that moderator from burning out. So in essence, the community manager or owner is buying a tool for the moderator to use to make their unpaid job a lot easier. I want to emphasize that apps that monetize aren’t rolling in the dough and they often charge a modest fee to keep the lights on. That landscape is changing but it certainly doesn’t justify the extremely high price tag Reddit put on their API, which is way above industry standard.
What are your thoughts? Strike up a discussion and leave a comment below.
