Official MC-Market Discord

[User]

People are constantly getting impersonated left and right, most often on Discord. We could make an official MCM discord, a confirmation system could be set up to link a Discord user to an MCM account (giving them a "Verified" tag). If an MCM is ever compromised, the linked Discord user could alert everyone on Discord (including staff) that he has been compromised and not to deal with the MCM profile. If a user ver forgets their login details, instead of having to create an alt (against MCM rules), they can just log into their Discord and ask staff to help them recover. Whenever the site is down (which is happening more and more often) there will still be an area to communicate with MCM users.

(also this has probably been denied in the past but I haven't seen any thread about this recently, so since MCM has been going down quite a bit I might as well bring it back up)

This would:
1. Provide a secondary form of communication in case MCM goes down.
2. Heavily cut down on the amount of impersonators, which make up the majority of scams.
3. Provide an area for compromised users to alert MCM members NOT to deal with their hacked MCM profile.
4. Provide a way for users who have forgotten their login details to recover their account (without needing to create an alt against MCM rules).

If you disagree, please state why. I'm open to criticism.

 

[User]

Banned members would have to be banned on the discord. Which is another thing to do.
What if their discord isn’t the same name? Yes, it can be edited and such, same problem.

This can be done with the bot; if a verified member is banned on MCM, it can auto-ban them on the Discord. If they aren't verified, you don't know that's their Discord anyways, so you wouldn't be able to ban them. Same with suspensions.

Actual channel moderation. Is it really worth it to code something that would transfer kicks and such.
Verbally warning someone on the discord would be quiet annoying to record on mcmarket.

This could prove to be much harder, I don't have a solution yet.

We’re understaffed as it is, it’s unnecessary and another thing to moderate.

Hire discord-exclusive staff! Sort of like a chat mod.

 

[Lotus]

Moderation is already an issue onsite due to it being extremely difficult for us to keep with the sheer quantity of reports we receive.
Managing a Discord server will increase the strain on the moderation team, making it even more difficult for us to handle onsite matters. In my eyes, we would be expending too many resources on this venture, without getting much benefit from it in return.

Discord is a platform we can't control. It's a 3rd party communication platform which enforces its own rules and policies separate from MCM which could cause friction in the future should our interests differ. We don't have the flexibility to view all the logs we want. When someone deletes a message, or changes their Discord ID, we wouldn't have the tools necessary to respond effectively should a negative scenario occur.

Encouraging Discord may actually even prove to assist the impersonation problem. Our aim has been trying to keep users on the site. You can't be scammed by an impersonator if you just use the site's own PM system. By bringing more people off the site, it may just become a better hunting ground for impersonators to wreak their havoc.

By endorsing Discord, we are likely to create far more problems than advantages to MCM.

 

[User]

Encouraging Discord may actually even prove to assist the impersonation problem. Our aim has been trying to keep users on the site. You can't be scammed by an impersonator if you just use the site's own PM system. By bringing more people off the site, it may just become a better hunting ground for impersonators to wreak their havoc.

Whether or not your aim is to keep people on the site, it's quite obvious that the community prefers Discord. The amount of people dealing entirely on-site dwindles compared to those using Discord. If we can't stop users from using Discord, even if they get scammed while doing so, we need to adapt to it and create the discord. There won't be more impersonators if we create a Discord, because they'll realize it's not profitable to imitate a user if that user already has a verified account.

 

[Poggers]

Moderation is already an issue onsite due to it being extremely difficult for us to keep with the sheer quantity of reports we receive.
Managing a Discord server will increase the strain on the moderation team, making it even more difficult for us to handle onsite matters. In my eyes, we would be expending too many resources on this venture, without getting much benefit from it in return.

Discord is a platform we can't control. It's a 3rd party communication platform which enforces its own rules and policies separate from MCM which could cause friction in the future should our interests differ. We don't have the flexibility to view all the logs we want. When someone deletes a message, or changes their Discord ID, we wouldn't have the tools necessary to respond effectively should a negative scenario occur.

Encouraging Discord may actually even prove to assist the impersonation problem. Our aim has been trying to keep users on the site. You can't be scammed by an impersonator if you just use the site's own PM system. By bringing more people off the site, it may just become a better hunting ground for impersonators to wreak their havoc.

By endorsing Discord, we are likely to create far more problems than advantages to MCM.

You could do a verify where you have to verify with your mc m

 

[utaninja]

This can be done with the bot; if a verified member is banned on MCM, it can auto-ban them on the Discord. If they aren't verified, you don't know that's their Discord anyways, so you wouldn't be able to ban them. Same with suspensions.

This could prove to be much harder, I don't have a solution yet.

Hire discord-exclusive staff! Sort of like a chat mod.

It’s easier said then done to hire staff. That’s ultimately the reason why we opened staff applications. If we had candidates for staff I’d much rather them staff for the site rather than a discord server.

 

[Ted]

If someone in the community scams on a discord server, the victim could report the server. Since discord’s support is special, the whole server will get removed just because it related to the incident even though it had no correlation. This, mick and most likely all the staff getting banned.

TLDR: This has been denied before, no need to migrate the community to discord.

 

[NickE]

If someone in the community scams on a discord server, the victim could report the server. Since discord’s support is special, the whole server will get removed just because it related to the incident even though it had no correlation. This, mick and most likely all the staff getting banned.

TLDR: This has been denied before, no need to migrate the community to discord.

they don't remove the whole server just because of one small thing

 

[Joshua C]

As much as I love this idea, it was denied a thousand times in the past unfortunately, and I still can't see a reason why.

They can't manage their site properly and expect them to manage the server? I do agree but bruh.

 

[User]

It’s easier said then done to hire staff. That’s ultimately the reason why we opened staff applications. If we had candidates for staff I’d much rather them staff for the site rather than a discord server.

Perhaps because the requirements are too high? Let's see, from what I can tell it's based on join date, rep, activity, age, etc. You could easily lower that down a bit (even the age part, for the Discord you wouldn't need them to sign anything like a DOA)

If someone in the community scams on a discord server, the victim could report the server. Since discord’s support is special, the whole server will get removed just because it related to the incident even though it had no correlation. This, mick and most likely all the staff getting banned.

TLDR: This has been denied before, no need to migrate the community to discord.

Yes, except there are also unofficial MCM and MCM-related discords that the MCM staff are in. People have gotten scammed by other members in those servers, and the MCM staff have never been banned. If the discord is public, and said scammer holds no position of power, then the discord itself most likely will not face any consequences.

 

[Lotus]

Whether or not your aim is to keep people on the site, it's quite obvious that the community prefers Discord. The amount of people dealing entirely on-site dwindles compared to those using Discord. If we can't stop users from using Discord, even if they get scammed while doing so, we need to adapt to it and create the discord. There won't be more impersonators if we create a Discord, because they'll realize it's not profitable to imitate a user if that user already has a verified account.

Scamming has always been profitable on the internet where no one fears of being caught, that's why it's done so much.

My point still stands that Discord is a 3rd party platform which we do not control. If Discord pushes an update unfavorable to us, we will be at its whim. We don't have any of our moderation tools and we can't even view deleted messages due to Discord's limitations and policies. Creating an official Discord server would bring over a whole assortment of issues we would need to face and overcome.

Quite frankly, I'd rather invest our resources in improving our own platform, than spending it externally without much benefit in return. What you are suggesting may provide some aid to the impersonation problem, but brings many more problems alongside it. It's just not that efficient to be using our resources on this sort of venture in my eyes.

Perhaps because the requirements are too high? Let's see, from what I can tell it's based on join date, rep, activity, age, etc. You could easily lower that down a bit (even the age part, for the Discord you wouldn't need them to sign anything like a DOA)

When we choose a new staff member, we don't decide that quantitatively as you suggest, but qualitatively. Asking us to reduce our standards sounds quite detrimental for the site itself. Would you choose 1 extremely competent staff member? Or 100 useless ones?

 

[Satan]

We don't have any of our moderation tools and we can't even view deleted messages due to Discord's limitations and policies. Creating an official Discord server would bring over a whole assortment of issues we would need to face and overcome.

This is false. You can do many things with discord bots. It will require xenforo integration as well.

My point still stands that Discord is a 3rd party platform which we do not control. If Discord pushes an update unfavorable to us, we will be at its whim.

This is true. However, does this outweigh the benefits that discord currently can provide? If anything, don't move your most essential features/systems to discord so if in the event discord releases an update that does not favor MCM, everyone runs back to the forums here.

 

[Blood]

It's a great idea and real-time communication is great but I understand why staff is hesitant to open up another platform they have to manage and moderate.

 

[User]

Scamming has always been profitable on the internet where no one fears of being caught, that's why it's done so much.

My point still stands that Discord is a 3rd party platform which we do not control. If Discord pushes an update unfavorable to us, we will be at its whim. We don't have any of our moderation tools and we can't even view deleted messages due to Discord's limitations and policies. Creating an official Discord server would bring over a whole assortment of issues we would need to face and overcome.

Quite frankly, I'd rather invest our resources in improving our own platform, than spending it externally without much benefit in return. What you are suggesting may provide some aid to the impersonation problem, but brings many more problems alongside it. It's just not that efficient to be using our resources on this sort of venture in my eyes.


When we choose a new staff member, we don't decide that quantitatively as you suggest, but qualitatively. Asking us to reduce our standards sounds quite detrimental for the site itself. Would you choose 1 extremely competent staff member? Or 100 useless ones?

Not suggesting you lower it that low. It'd be more like 1 pretty good staff member or 4 pretty good staff members and 1 you thought was good but wasn't, that you ended up demoting.

 

[Cal]

A Guide to Joining the MC-Market Discord Server, by Cal.

1. Register for an MC-Market account.
2. Buy premium to gain access to the chatbox and discord.'
3. Associate your discord and MC-Market profile.
4. Join the discord. The MC-Market discord bot will add the appropriate roles for you to gain access to the server.

A Guide to Moderating the MC-Market Discord Server, by Cal.

1. Setup a bot for issuing punishments in sync with both Chatbox and Discord. If you are kicked from chatbox, you are muted in discord as well. If you are verbally warned in Discord, you are verbally warned in Chatbox as well.
2. Setup automatic moderation systems via a bot like DynoBot or via a custom made bot.
3. Accept a few more chat moderators who's primary task is to moderate the Discord over the Chat.
4. Pay for the chat moderators by charging a ~$5 premium to gain access to #advertisements channel in the discord where users can promote their services. This can be enforced automatically by filtering out thread links that aren't in specific forums via the bot.

But people really want a discord because it is easy to talk over discord. Why? Their communications systems are great and they have apps on every platform.
I, and most everyone else, will continue to use third party messaging services to do the overwhelming majority of deals because of the better conversation experience and the accessibility of these third party services like discord on all platforms (Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android).

People will not stop suggesting things like this until MC-Market is at least competing with the alternatives, or MC-Market embraces the alternatives. Neither are good options, but I think it's best you pick one rather than sitting on your hands and hoping people stop asking.

 

[Lotus]

This is true. However, does this outweigh the benefits that discord currently can provide? If anything, don't move your most essential features/systems to discord so if in the event discord releases an update that does not favor MCM, everyone runs back to the forums here.

If Discord does push an unfavourable update, then all our investments into this venture would be for naught.

Here’s a more concise and understandable list of the benefits and problems I believe is associated with this suggestion :

Advantages

• Provides a secondary form of communication for the community to have fun in.
• A verification system may cut down on the risk of getting impersonated.

I’m going to disregard all ‘benefits’ which say users also can get easier support through Discord, because that would be an annoyance (I personally do not offer any support offsite as I consider Discord a more personal means of communication away from staffing), and would also cause disorganisation on the support channels we have onsite as separate queues would be added offsite.

Disadvantages

• More real-time moderation required for multiple chat channels, instead of one shoutbox.
• Heavy investments for us to maintain the server. Time, money and development for things such as management or the creation of the limited moderation tools we would be able to use.
• Discord’s still a 3rd party platform with many limitations which won’t truly give us the freedom we would prefer to impose our own policies upon.

I’m still not convinced that what we invest in this Discord server will actually be worth it. I’d rather have the team to spend their time improving onsite functions which will better benefit the whole community, than us focusing on projects like this which doesn’t truly bring much back to the site.

 

[Zyger]

If an MCM is ever compromised, the linked Discord user could alert everyone on Discord (including staff) that he has been compromised and not to deal with the MCM profile. If a user ver forgets their login details, instead of having to create an alt (against MCM rules), they can just log into their Discord and ask staff to help them recover.

Security shouldn't be an issue, it's really not that hard to keep your account secure.

 

[User]

Security shouldn't be an issue, it's really not that hard to keep your account secure.

Yes, but in the case that it does happen (multiple user accounts have been compromised recently, like QuantumX for example), the issue can be quickly ratified.

 

[kayn]

I agreed to the suggestion and was in the middle of forwarding it to the staff team. Then a problem came up that’s not mentioned that much.
Moderation.
Having a discord server would mean another thing to moderate.
-
Banned members would have to be banned on the discord. Which is another thing to do.
What if their discord isn’t the same name? Yes, it can be edited and such, same problem.

Suspended users would abuse this. If we transfer suspensions, that’s another thing to do.

Actual channel moderation. Is it really worth it to code something that would transfer kicks and such.
Verbally warning someone on the discord would be quiet annoying to record on mcmarket.

We’re understaffed as it is, it’s unnecessary and another thing to moderate.

Suggest hiring chat-mods / discord mods.

 

[mai]

Great auggestion, the only problem is that I prefer not to give out my discord to people I'm not friends with, this way everyone will have it which I'm not a fan of but there are a lot of pros to it.