A Guide to Debian Community Discord

[Aristocat]

Hello everyone! If you're checking this thread, I am the server administrator (or owner) of the Debian Community Discord. You may have encountered a global sticky post earlier in the past concerning the "reconstruction" of an unofficial Discord server you likely never heard of before, and are wondering why it was relevant enough for individuals like @donald to bring up globally, or why you may encounter users on the forums with the "Discord Affiliate" group ranking from time-to-time going forward. We hope this topic will be enough to answer any questions you have. This guide will also be updated as time moves on to account for changes within our server.

Introducing Debian Community

In a nutshell, Debian Community is an effort by users on Discord to create an instance/venue to discuss Debian GNU/Linux that was created last year by a few regulars within the official Linux Mint Community discord, and has been its own unique space for some time. We have made a formal, collaborative partnership with the administration on the Debian forums to help further promote and facilitate the continued growth & prosperity of this instance, which we believe can be a great starting point for both new and experienced Debian users to socialize in. Although Discord is not the most ideal platform to use given the FOSS nature of the wider Debian community, Discord is nevertheless a powerful form of social media that is accessible to millions of users, particularly younger individuals, who are likely just starting their Linux journey. An increasing number of open source projects, including some major distributions like Mint, Gentoo, and openSUSE, are also using Discord alongside traditional venues such as IRC, as a result of ease of access in using Discord. We are here to fill that void for Debian, even if in an unofficial capacity.

A Oversimplified Guide to the Server

If you are joining our discord, you will be asked a series of pre-join questions ranging from direct message preferences to opt-in announcements involving server news, event news (server contests), and official Project news. We also welcome users from other distro affiliations and even partner with a collection of other distro community servers. Naturally, most of our users will be Debian users, which is the point of a Debian server, right?

Discord also allows for the creation of "forum channels" and "voice channels" in addition to traditional chatroom channels. Most of our support venues are structured as "forum channels" which emulate the feel of a traditional forum and allows for self-organized support threads. Debian Sid users have a specific text channel that provides unofficial support for Sid-centric issues, and is organized as a text channel due to the nature of Sid (something that might work in a year will not work for Sid the next year). The #general channel is our on-and-off topic room, and is widely used as the social zone of the server. It is by far the most active channel and is heavily regulated to prevent spam. Only long-term users and server boosters (usually done by those who subscribe to Discord's Nitro service) have the ability to post images & other embed media.

Our demographic is wildly different to those on the forums, IRC, or the Debian subreddit. We have a far larger amount of younger users and cross-distro users who are interested in discussing Debian-centric subjects for any number of reasons, giving us unique cultural differences in contrast to other Debian-focused communities.

Discord is a closed ecosystem that hides its content behind a wall! Our content surely can't be accessed outside Discord, right?

No problem! We utilize Answer Overflow (see https://www.answeroverflow.com/) as a third-party resource to ensure that any discussions and solutions to issues are indexed on the clear-net versus being stuck on our Discord. This is a common solution used by some major communities who act as support venues, but want their content to be accessible on search engines. We do not believe in forcing you to join our Discord to access helpful information posted on our channels. We also regularly promote the usage of IRC and specified Matrix venues for official project communication to those interested in wanting to help with the Debian Project & get involved, which allow for easier archival.

How do I join?

Very simple! Just use the link https://discord.gg/debian or type in the code debian into the "Add A Server" functionality on Discord. We hope that you enjoy your time being in our community. If you have any questions about me or the Discord itself that aren't answered here, feel free to ask me in this thread.

[donald]

Made into a global announcement as it deserves it.

Debian Discord Instances, User Forums, Reddit sub-forums, and other areas around the Internet each cater to particular users. There is some overlap, though not a lot, across this divide of where Debian is accessible.

A large part of our affiliations going forward is to bridge that divide, there are other Debian communities out there championing and supporting Debian and FLOSS from all corners of the world which sometimes is easily overlooked. We seek to change that; We see you. We welcome you.

As you can see the Debian Community is a lot larger than one may think and growing daily with each new user, each bit of advice, each bit of aid given to new and fellow users, and every measure taken such as this linking of common resources that we share, to unite the larger community.

We ask that everyone be aware that in the separate areas of the Debian Communities that we reside in that each has a particular culture that speaks, interacts, chats, and evolves differently. 'Choose your adventure!'' as the old books were titled, for this experience, but be mindful that each is a bit different and some culture clash is expected.

Taken directly from Debian Code of Conduct:

Be respectful
In a project the size of Debian, inevitably there will be people with whom you may disagree, or find it difficult to cooperate. Accept that, but even so, remain respectful. Disagreement is no excuse for poor behaviour or personal attacks, and a community in which people feel threatened is not a healthy community.

Assume good faith
Debian Contributors have many ways of reaching our common goal of a free operating system which may differ from your ways. Assume that other people are working towards this goal.

Please read the rules wherever you are. The forums have rules and guidelines, as does the Discord Instance, as do other Debian specific sub-forums of both micro and major venue in size.

Things or behaviours from one community may be intolerable in another community, shorthand abbreviations understood in one met with confusion in the other. So again read the rules and guidelines put into place by the respective teams that manage the resource, they and we are all volunteers, just like you all are when you promote and submit bugs to the parent project, or help a new user with some support.

Remember at the end of the day that we are not just members of communities, but rather ambassadors of those communities as we all move forward helping, supporting, and building 'The Universal Operating System'.

-Be well,

Donald