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I've had a few inquiries about Discord what with the TS pranking and other issues associated with voice comm servers in the last little while. Read this post twice - you'll need to so as to fully understand what you're doing.
I have a fair amount of IT and server admin experience, and have set up both self-hosted and web hosted Mumble and TS servers over the years. I liked Mumble better until Discord came along. But now I like Discord most - it's a well-polished app with few drawbacks, except there's no option to host a Discord server yourself. So if Discord folds or becomes undesirable for whatever reason, you're hosed - in which case I would go back to Mumble. But let's walk you through Discord.
Go Discord, Go!
Setting up a Discord server is insanely easy:
- Make an account
- Download the app and login - works on mobile, desktop, and through Google Chrome
- Create the Server for your group - while best done on a PC, can also be done with the mobile app. On the black band on the left, click the dashed circle with the + inside it... yeah, that's it, you just created your Discord server! Stupid easy, right?
- Administrate the server and set up roles
- Upload your clan logo (max 128x128px)
- Set up voice and text channels as desired
CREATING the server is easy, but roles require some attention. And there's a couple of fine points to note as well.
Part 1: Roles
The most important thing to set up on your Discord server is roles. These are permissions, essentially - they control access for groups of users on your server. They're edited in the Server Settings dialog from the top menu in Discord. Note that for each role you create, the Permissions you give to each role can be overridden by the Settings of each voice or text channel. Go to Server Settings > Roles.
While you'll probably only need two or three roles for your server, pay attention to the @everyone role. If someone is given the link to your server, they will join your server (unless you ban or kick them) and will automatically get the @everyone role. By default, any new voice or text channel you create will give @everyone access to that channel, though you can and should deny them any permissions to all channels. And there's an odd exception: the #general text channel that gets created when you create your new server cannot be hidden from @everyone, even if you rename it. All other text channels can be hidden from members with the @everyone role, but this one channel will remain visible. You can deny @everyone the ability to read message history or post to that channel, but they'll still be able to see that it's there.
Moderators and Admins
Moderators on your server should have, under General Permissions, the Kick and Ban Members permissions checked, and under Text Permissions Manage Messages checked.
Admins on your server can either, under General Permissions, have Manage Server permissions or the 'god mode': Manage Roles. Note that the original creator of the server cannot have his access revoked, so someone with the Manage Roles permission cannot revoke the permissions of the original account that created the server.
Denying @everyone access to anything
What's probably best is to edit the @everyone role so that all the boxes are unchecked, and people who come to your server won't see anything except the #general text channel. If you wish to have a specific text and/or voice channel that anyone can access without you have to do anything, then go those channels' settings and explicitly allow @everyone to access it by clicking the permissions you wish to give until the box has a green checkmark in it. Read on below.
Guest Role
Once someone has joined your server, you can create a guest role that allows them access to more text and/or voice channels. In the Server Settings dialog, click on Roles and create the Guest Role and give them the desired permissions. This is what we've set up:
Member Role
Clan members will probably want all permissions, though you need not give them admin capabilities. Create a Members role in Server Settings > Roles and give them these permissions:
Part 2: Creating Roles and assigning them to users
Once you've created the roles, now you need to add members to these roles. Go to Server Settings > Members, and find a user to whom you wish to add a role. Click the + under their name to add the role to that user. So once a new user has joined your server, an admin has to add a role to them so they can access text or voice channels - otherwise they will not be able to access anything if you're following the directions in this post.
Part 3: New Channels - Roles and Permissions
When you create a new channel, only the @everyone role is added to the channel. To change this, you must first create the channel, then hover over the new channel and click the gear icon to edit its settings. Click Permissions on the left, then + at the top and add whatever Role you want to have access to the channel. So let's say you created a Role called Guest and gave them a number of permissions: those permissions will be given to them to access this channel if their Role is added to this channel. At this point, whatever permissions were given to that Role in Server Settings will now be added to this channel.
You'll notice that the Role's checkboxes for Permissions for this channel are filled with gray slashes - that means that right now these permissions are driven by Server Settings > Roles. You can override them for this channel as desired, but if you have your Role permissions set up right in Server Settings > Roles, then you only need to add the Role to the channel and you're done. So you may have channels that Guests can access, and channels that only Members can access. Oddly, even if a role cannot connect to a voice channel, they will still see that it's there even if that role hasn't been added to that voice channel. On the other hand, text channels will not appear for users unless their role has been added to that text channel. Go figure. Don't forget the exception about @everyone being able to see the #general text channel in the list, even if they can't post to it or read anything in it. Again, I would recommend that in Server Settings > Roles that you uncheck all permissions for @everyone so that people who get onto your server have access to nothing until someone gives them a Guest or Member role. You can of course give @everyone Read Messages and Read Message History access on one text channel so they can read a welcome message and know they won't have access to anything until an admin flips the switch.
I've left out lots of details, but that should get you sorted on roles - and as we've seen, proper administration of your server keeps you from unpleasant experiences!
Part 4: But wait! there's more! There's... BOTS!!
Discord has an API that's getting all kinds of love from users. Now you can add bots to your server that can help admin your server, or even better - show you your Blitz tank stats! Let's look at two commonly used ones by clans in this game.
Dyno is an excellent bot to help advanced Discord admins see more of what's happening on their Discord server. If you're interested, go to their website: https://www.dynobot.net/
Blitzbot is developed by the illustrious Xaver5A from Storm. It can tell you your current stats, how you're doing in a certain tank, and who's in a clan. You can add it by using this link: https://discordapp.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=173627383566434306&scope=bot&permissions=36817920 To learn how to use it, after you've added it to your server, type in @blitzbot help
For more Discord bots, go to https://www.carbonit...t/Discord/bots
Edited by reluctanttheist, 14 March 2017 - 04:43 PM.
- when creating an Instant Invite for a channel, choose Advanced Settings. It's in there!
