DisNCord Rules

This is an ongoing discussion to create a server overview, and description of all channels, as well as an effort at revising and clarification of the rules.

Server Description

DisNCord is NCommander's personal Discord server, which has taken many forms in the two years it has existed. At the moment, it's a combination of a social group, a center of preservation and retrocomputing, a place of acceptance, healing and understanding, and much more. It's expected that DisNCord will constantly shift and change throughout its existence both as its residents, and its owner changes. This is a living document intended to outline its core tenants and values.

Rules

1. Treat everyone with respect. Absolutely no harassment, witch hunting, sexism, racism, or hate speech will be tolerated.
2. No NSFW or obscene content. This includes text, images, or links featuring nudity, sex, hard violence, or other graphically disturbing content.
3. No spam or self-promotion (server invites, advertisements, etc) without permission from a staff member. This includes DMing fellow members.
4. This server is focused around retro-technology, and the history of computing but there are no hard and fast rules on topics.
5. Posting links to proprietary information (such as copyrighted, or classified material) is prohibited.
6. Excessive negativity, doomsaying, lashing out, and similar behaviors is prohibited.
7. Venting is fine (we have a dedicated forum), but try to remember the other human.
8. Violations of the rules may be reported via the ticket reporting system
9. Transparency and accountability are the keys to a long running server.
10. The Discord ToS supersedes all server rules, and shall be upheld by all moderators
11. Come by and have a good time.

To prevent excessive rule lawyering, a general statement of what each rule means is provided for some of the more open ended ones. Moderators have final authority in determining what is and isn't acceptable, but, at the same time, moderators are humans too, and it should be understood that mistakes can and will happen.

Proprietary Information

The term proprietary information is an overarching term that essentially refers to anything that isn't intended for publication. This also includes information that would be covered under a signed limited disclosure agreement or NDA, trade secrets, or classified material. The standard line to use here is similar to that of clean room design (sometimes known as the Chinese wall technique), where you can discuss things learned, but not directly link to such information. The very simple example is as follows: Linking to a news article is fine, linking to leaked docs, not so much.

Moderators will handle this on a case by case basis.

The Responsibilities of Staff

Staff, which include both moderators, and those who've taken up a volunteer role such as Wiki Editor are responsible for helping create DisNCord (and this wiki) what they are, as well as upholding the server's values and roles.

At the time of writing (2022-12-26), moderators are organized in a flat structure, with NCommander being the final arbitrator.

At the time of writing (2022-12-26), wiki volunteers are organized in a flat structure, with a wiki admin group being created in the near future.

Server moderators have the "Resident Madfolks" role, and a gold name in chat. Moderators uphold the chat rules, and are trusted to timeout, kick, or ban on their own cognition. Server moderators are considered volunteers.

The Importance of Volunteers

Volunteers are recognized with a distinctive purple color and icon in chat representing where they are interested in working. While volunteers are always welcome, by becoming one, you also accept the responsibility of being a representative of the server, and thus should be expected to be held to a higher standard than a normal member might be.

As DisNCord expands, it is important that we always remember the people who make it possible, and more defined benefits and responsibilities will be laid down as we expand further.

Supporter Roles Are Not Rule Exempt

This server accepts both NCommander's Patreon, and its own Discord Supporter payments, and collects funds towards both helping its creator, and funding it's own internal projects, such as this wiki, and Mastodon servers. Unfortunately, there are who believe that one can simply buy their way out. As an official policy, supporter status shall not be considered when a moderation decision is made. At NCommander's discretion, Patreon perks may also be blocked for especially egregious conduct.

Discord Nitro Boosters are considered a supporter role, although at this time, they do not gain any access to perks.

Channel Descriptions

Announcements

Channels used to broadcast announcements, proclamations, or other information to all server users.

#rules

The rules of the server, posted for quick reference.

#role-select

Lets users toggle pronoun and ping roles.

#content

Announces when new NCommander content is available. 🎊

#changelog

Changes and other updates to the server will be announced here

Supporters

These channels are only visible to premium supporters (Seeker Supporters and Tip Jar Supporters) as a membership perk.

#the-lounge

General discussion for supporters. Help yourself to the cookies on the table. (note: the cookies are fictional)

#supporter-content

Announces when new NCommander content is available to premium supporters for early access.

Discussion Tracks

Discussion Track Channels: #general-pi and #belgium

These are the general discussion channels, for any sort of discussion. There are two of them so users can start a conversation without getting trampled by the conversation already in progress.

(TODO: explain belgium)

#off-topic

Overflow channel for talking about things that aren't necessarily computer related. There's a thread here just for memes.

Topics better suited for the "no place of honor" channels should go there instead.

Voice Channels

Want to hang out and talk about stuff? Want to livestream your installation of CDE on an air fryer? Then you want the voice channels.

#voice-text

Lets people who can't or won't use a mic participate in a voice chat conversation. (This channel predates Discord's own text subchannel feature.)

Voice Discussion Channels

Voice chats for voice communication, video chat, or streaming.

Breakout Tracks

These channels are for relevant sub-topics

#amateur-radio

Discuss amateur radio ("ham radio")

#cursed-computing

This is where you post cursed ideas that won't leave your head, or share an abomination against computing that you found somewhere.

Please don't ask N (or anyone, really) to do a video on a specific idea; they already have plenty of videos planned.

#tech-support

Provide or request technical assistance. Sort of the opposite of #cursed-computing.

(No one is obligated to provide support.)

#oddware-finds

This channel is dedicated for people posting interesting eBay finds.

Please put notes if you just want info on an item, or if its free to bid on. Unmarked items are assumed to be fair game.

#photos

Post neat photos you took.

Acceptance Corner

These channels center acceptance, a core value here at DisNCord.

#express-yourself

Express yourself in ways we can all see

#coming-out

Discussion related to LGBTIQA+, including coming out, questioning, and acceptance

#help-and-venting

We all need to vent sometimes.

#good-vibes

Post things that give us good vibes. For example, cat. 🐈‍⬛

Paint Drying

Channels for the paint drying competition, also known as Slow Computing Speedrunning.

#paint-drying-competition

General discussion for the concept.

#milestone-drips

Lets participants announce achievements to the world.

#wet-paint

Forum with threads for the individual attempts.

Paint Drying Streams

You can actually watch a computer from the early 90s compile distressingly recent software in real time!

No Place Of Honor

This is not a place of honor. No great deeds are commemorated here. What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us.

#politics

Political discussion goes here. It is on slow-mode, as a reminder to think before you type and treat everyone with respect.

#no-great-deeds

This channel is to denote all the horseshit on the Internet. Incel crap, alpha male crap, and well, things that make the world a worse place. If it sucks, put it here.

#blockchain-of-fools

The cryptocurrency carnival. Bitcoin, Web3, metaverse, NFTs--if it sucks on the blockchain, put it here.

Restless Systems

Discussion and documentation of Restless Systems' attempts to make its mark on the world

#fedi-discuss

Discuss Fediverse things, including our Mastodon instance.

#wiki-bootstrap

Discussion of this very wiki!

#wiki-changes

Automated changelog of wiki edits.

Projects

Document and discuss the major tech projects the community is involved in.

#project-monterey

Discord forum for the effort to get the Project Monterey OS up and running. See: AIX on Itanium.

#banyan-resurrection

Channel for the Banyan VINES resurrection work.

#osdev

A channel for the community's Homebrew OS Development scene.

This channel predates Discord forums, so most discussion happens in the threads.

Meta

#welcome

👋 Discord's automatic announcements for new users appear here

#botworld

Experiment with the Discord bots here without fear of trampling conversation

#discord-improvements

Suggest improvements for the Discord server here

Staff Lounge

Private channels for server staff.

Archives

These channels are no longer active for whatever reason, but the messages are kept in the archives just in case useful information

#8086-detector

The 8086 Detector was an attempt to identify the various 8086-compatible CPUs in software

#games-server-thoughts

Discussed setting up a Minecraft server or some other game server for the community.

#rms-fsf-response

Discussed Richard Stallman's conduct, leading up to NCommander's video on the subject.

#video-production

NCommander talks video production

#stuff-youtube-says

This was meant as a #no-great-deeds specifically for YouTube comments

#wiki-changelog

This was originally intended to document updates to the wiki's configuration.

A Note On Private Channels

A small number of private channels have been used in the past to hold discussion between server admins, as well as handle time sensitive topics. These are generally all inactive, and only exist for archival purposes.

Server Roles

Self-Selected Roles

Pronoun Roles

Pronoun roles exist for easy identification of folks. Roles are self-selected through a bot (or for more rarely used roles, filing a a ticket and requesting it). At the moment, roles are colored differently, and ordered in such a way to help increase diversity on the server.

In the past, the pronouns all shared an orange color, which stood out against the white generic color; the diversity in colors also helps allow those who don't have roles selected from not feel forced to take one.

Colors and ordering may change in the future

• She/Her (Cyan)
• He/Him (Red)
• They/Them (Purple)
• Any/Any (dark gray)
• It/Its (gray)
• Fey/Fey (gray)

Things To Be Written

• Reporting/Ticket Handling Guide
• Incident Response Guide (ICS Primer)
• Improvement Proposal Guide