Has anyone set up a Discord server for their neighborhood?

Started by BillD16 • 10 replies • 689 views

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BillD16 (Texas)
Posts: 971

Posted:

Greetings, all, from that odd little piece of spacetime that is “the week after Christmas / before New Years”!

I won’t bore you with details: I’ve become unhappy with Facebook as a medium for sharing with the neighborhood. And I’ve wondered about setting up a Discord server for the neighborhood.

Has anyone ever done this? I can figure out the installation details - but I’m wondering about organization of the Discord community - typically Discord communities are arranged into ‘channels’: general, announcements, welcome, and etc. What channels would be appropriate and useful in a HOA Discord?

Thank you,

BillD

PS: my target is an “unofficial” Discord server that parallels our current “unofficial” FB page.

HOA Board ex-President
Austin, Texas USA

“You can’t put too much water in a nuclear reactor”

JimR24 (Texas)
Posts: 399

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By BillD16 on 12/28/2022 7:02 AM
Greetings, all, from that odd little piece of spacetime that is “the week after Christmas / before New Years”!

I won’t bore you with details: I’ve become unhappy with Facebook as a medium for sharing with the neighborhood. And I’ve wondered about setting up a Discord server for the neighborhood.

Has anyone ever done this? I can figure out the installation details - but I’m wondering about organization of the Discord community - typically Discord communities are arranged into ‘channels’: general, announcements, welcome, and etc. What channels would be appropriate and useful in a HOA Discord?

Thank you,

BillD

PS: my target is an “unofficial” Discord server that parallels our current “unofficial” FB page.

Sounds interesting Bill - and looks useful too. I had to look up Discord on the internet to become better acquainted. If you decide to do it, let us know how it goes - okay? This may be an option for others too.

Lovin' life with my honey!
and, President of HOA in Texas

WendyM5 (North Carolina)
Posts: 1,522

Posted:

if your HOA members are mostly online gamers then it's a perfect match.

I personally think discord is stupid, it can't be organized well and the serach feature is even worse than this forum.

basically it could easily be done, but I wouldnt' expect anything good out of it, but what do I know, it's free and takes 10 minutes to set up go for it and let us know what happens.

vis ta vie

WendyM5 (North Carolina)
Posts: 1,522

Posted:

channels could be
Board news
CCR
Volunteer
Change request,
etc.

vis ta vie

CathyA3 (Ohio)
Posts: 6,299

Posted:

Discord is a somewhat unfortunate name for community association stuff...

CathyA3 (Ohio)
Posts: 6,299

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By CathyA3 on 12/28/2022 9:47 AM
Discord is a somewhat unfortunate name for community association stuff...

Before you go with them, I suggest taking a hard look at their privacy and data protection policies, even though these seem to be more aspirational than factual on social media sites. Rule of thumb: if they're not charging you, then you're the product. Be sure you're OK with that.

MarkM19 (Texas)
Posts: 1,459

Posted:

Bill,
I will tell a short story here about what happened in my community back in Ca. about 13 years ago. The President at the time had his hands in many more HOA things than he should have included hosting a server that the community could chat on prior to FB or next door being around or popular. Like everything else it started off good and many casual topics we discussed. Then the operator of our General Store and a homeowner got into a debate about some petty crimes that went on in the hood. It turned out that it was his son who had a real bad track record with the Law and moved into our HOA when he got out of Prison. Once this was uncovered things got real ugly and many accusations were made and both parties were threatening violent acts. Everyone on the blog had opinions on both sides but mostly against the bad guy. The blog had to Shut down and shortly after I was elected to the board and doing some investigations, I found out that 1 board member had 5 login accounts and was posting messages in all accounts. The president knew about these fake accounts since they were buddies.

I would say that even if you have the best intentions things can get out of hand quickly just like all social media and you do not want to be the throat to choke. What happens when your board days are over does this tool just die?

CathyA3 (Ohio)
Posts: 6,299

Posted:

I've mentioned in the past that our association's attorney was firmly against hosting any sort of social media sites for liability reasons.

The association is responsible for any information posted on HOA-controlled sites. Sites that allow users to post tend to collect incorrect information, arguments, false accusations, copyright violations, photos of minors posted without parental consent, and the like. They provide a platform for community troublemakers, and that's the last thing any association needs.

We were strongly encouraged not to host such a site and to make all of the association's webpages informational only. If we still wanted to have a site that allowed homeowners to post, we needed to have a robust Terms of Service agreement (written by a lawyer since it's intended to limit liability) that was strictly enforced. Posts needed to be moderated, with offending posts removed along with users who repeatedly violated the Terms. This is a time-consuming task and a source of additional conflict, and most board members don't need this.

In addition, board members had to avoid posting anything themselves. Individual directors do not speak for the board, and no matter how many times they may say that something is their personal opinion only, homeowners will interpret the comments as "the board says". And responding to certain threads and not others will be viewed by some as favoritism.

Finally, association websites need to be covered by insurance, so talk to your insurance agent before going down this road.

MarkM19 (Texas)
Posts: 1,459

Posted:

Cathy,
Great post. You said it much better than I ever could have.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By CathyA3 on 12/28/2022 12:02 PM
I've mentioned in the past that our association's attorney was firmly against hosting any sort of social media sites for liability reasons.

The association is responsible for any information posted on HOA-controlled sites. Sites that allow users to post tend to collect incorrect information, arguments, false accusations, copyright violations, photos of minors posted without parental consent, and the like. They provide a platform for community troublemakers, and that's the last thing any association needs.

We were strongly encouraged not to host such a site and to make all of the association's webpages informational only. If we still wanted to have a site that allowed homeowners to post, we needed to have a robust Terms of Service agreement (written by a lawyer since it's intended to limit liability) that was strictly enforced. Posts needed to be moderated, with offending posts removed along with users who repeatedly violated the Terms. This is a time-consuming task and a source of additional conflict, and most board members don't need this.

In addition, board members had to avoid posting anything themselves. Individual directors do not speak for the board, and no matter how many times they may say that something is their personal opinion only, homeowners will interpret the comments as "the board says". And responding to certain threads and not others will be viewed by some as favoritism.

Finally, association websites need to be covered by insurance, so talk to your insurance agent before going down this road.

Good advice.

MichaelS56 (Minnesota)
Posts: 858

Posted:

We use, email blasts, organize a monthly newsletter that is put together by the Communications committee, hold zoom Board meetings for all to attend, and have our own association website that has all of the information on the site for any owner to review all association information. The result of the system has allowed the board to build very good trust with the owners.

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