Forum:Discord Chat Implementation

Greeting everyone ( .___.)/

So you have probably been hearing about this for a while. For the past two months I have been experimenting with a new medium in an effort to help users better communicate with each other and help grow our wiki. In the last two months, around 60 different wiki users and I have been using Discord Chat in an experimental setting to see if it would be suitable for use on the One Piece Wiki. Today, I am going to finally propose the implementation of Discord Chat for use on the One Piece Wiki. Before I go any further I would like to briefly talk about the history of chat. Special:Chat was first introduced to the wiki in 2011, and at the time it was a major game changer for the already 5 year old wiki. With the introduction of Special:Chat users were able to better communicate with each other and lead to an increase in wiki activity. Although Special:Chat has managed to stand the test of time for a while, in recent years its popularity has begun to dwindle. Nowadays it’s mostly empty, and the days when we are certain to have people are on chapter release days. Even when chat does have people, we barely ever manage to have 10 members online and we rarely get any new regular users. Now, Discord Chat is going to change the playing field once more. It’s 2016 (five years since the introduction of Special:Chat) and it’s about time we got a major upgrade.

'''So what exactly is Discord you may ask? '''

A quick answer would be: "a browser based chat for communities such as ours". Discord is a chat service that you can use on your browser without having the need to install anything. http://i.imgur.com/86ZaTWY.png

So what does Discord have to offer?

1. Discord has all benefits of a video chat service including emojis, uploading images and videos, adding friends, voice calls, etc. Discord is well known for its bots that can do a plethora of tasks, like searching stuff on the Internet, responding to simple questions or helping out with moderation. http://i.imgur.com/mpXuxuo.png

2. A sleek, fresh, and modern interface

3. The ability to create roles. Roles are essentially group names that may or may not have special rights. On the test server we have Crewmates, Bots, Yonko, and SupremeBean. Each role has a different color.

4. The ability to change your online status and get notifications when you’re mentioned.

5. It will get us a lot of new users! I helped Attack on Titan Wiki set up their Discord Chat last month and since then their once dead chat is now flourishing with life as they now have over 100 new members.

6.It will allow users and editors to be able stay in better touch with each other. With Discord, you can leave another user a message and that message will stay on the server whether it be on the main sever or in the pm. So now you have the ability to communicate back in forth without having to be always be online at the same time. This also great for when you want to message another user something private or personal, because talk pages aren’t exactly the most private….

7. Discord has a much more stable structure than a Wikia chat, because Discord is made to be a chat and Wikia chat is just a side feature of a wiki farm. Discord client is much less likely to crash and lag than the Wikia chat client. This in particular is in important. Our wiki chat is always lagging and pms have been known to crash a lot and that will most likely never be fixed. With Discord you can be assured you will have a smooth chatting experience.

8. Unlike our normal chat, Discord’s chat room is divided into several "channels" to talk about different topics (akin to the boards in this forum). As of right now our main channels including a general channel, a spoiler channel, admin channel, and an off-topic channel. Also another to thing note is that users have the ability to mute channels if want to stop receiving notifications. 9. Admins will find the admin channel to be very useful. The admin channel allows the admins to communicate with each other much easier than ever before. How? Well, the channel would be only be granted access to the five wiki admins and unlike normal chat if you leave a message in the channel, it will stay and you can scroll up to see the history of comments/discussions. So you guys are able to stay in touch without having the need to all be online at the same time.

10. Group pms! Remember how we used to have that and then it broke? Will it’s fully functional on Discord and there’s no limit to how big you can make the group.

11. Pinning important messages. Discord allows admins to pin important messages on the server. This is perfect to let users know when a poll or talk page is going on when they enter chat. http://i.imgur.com/XywhHHB.png

12. Voice Chat and Video Calls! Discord offers users the ability to talk with each other live! All you would need is a mic and sometimes headphones work too!

 FAQ:

1. How long would it take for Discord Chat to get set up? If the majority of the wiki agrees with adding Discord Chat, it would take around a week to set up. It would take a few days for Staff to approve the javascript and another few days for an admin to build a new server from scratch.

2. Will my user rights carry over? All chat moderators rights will carry over. An admin would just have to create a role called “mods” and give them the power to kick and ban like regular chat.

3. How will we know who is who on the server? Admins can disable the ability for users to change their nicknames and we will require all new members to identify their wiki username when they join chat for the first time.

4. What about the issue of users being able to delete and edit their comments? There’s a bot that keep tracks of modified and deleted edits. Only admins will have access to that.

5. Will the old chat stay if Discord gets implemented? That depends on you guys. It’s possible to keep both chats, we’d just have to create a hyperlink underneath the Discord Chat module. http://i.imgur.com/ljVGkfL.png

6. Do we have to download anything? Nope, nothing mandatory. But if you really want there are optional desktop and mobile apps to enhance your experience.

'''For those of you who haven't joined yet. I encourage you to do so. Don't knock it until you try it''' Invite Link: https://discord.gg/USPmUCa

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/wanpies/images/d/db/Discordlogofinal1.png/revision/latest?cb=20161111145618

15:24, November 11, 2016 (UTC)