Discord server is now closed

This impacts a very small number of people (around 250 and 25 active posters), so I'm going to keep it short.

Effective immediately, the Discord server is now closed.

I won't dump all of my reasons why here (there are many), but it's become clear that more resources (mainly my time and effort) would need to be invested into Discord to grow it and I no longer want to support Discord as a company.

### Update: Here's a dump of reasons:

• Recently laid off 17% of their workforce (and 4% last August), when they're sitting on over $700 million in cash.
• Is valued at over $15 billion and backed by a bunch of venture capital firms that will no doubt want their returns soon; either when they go IPO or sell; like the $12 billion deal with Microsoft that they refused. I don't want to be on the platform when that happens.
• Has become bloated and increasingly focused on monetizing its users and communities.
  
• Will never allow BA to become fully discoverable (with all of the perks) as we focus on alcohol.
  
• Hasn't helped to grow the BA community, and it never will. In fact, it directly competes with online communities / web-based forums like BA and every time someone posts on Discord it's one less post on BA. I'm also seeing users who only post on Discord. And some of the users who won the recent Society giveaways haven't even logged into their account for months, even years.
• Update: apparently Discord is about to change its file hosting policy.

###

So, I'm reclaiming the time and refocusing it on growing the BeerAdvocate community on BeerAdvocate vs. a third-party platform that reaps all of the benefits.

Note:

• Invites have been disabled.
• Posting has been disabled and channels have been archived.
  
• I won't be nuking the Discord server, but any hotlinked images should persist regardless.
• All remaining members will be removed from the server later today.

Thanks to everyone who signed up (1,250+) over the years, especially during the pandemic where Discord gave us a space to hangout and have some fun during our beer fests in cyberspace and beer boxes. Damn, those were fun. But it's time to move on and focus on what matters: this site, its community, and its continued growth.

Talk to you on BeerAdvocate!

 

Here's what I posted for the Mod Team, which is what Discord was primarily for.

###

Discord...

• Recently laid off 17% of their workforce (and 4% last August), when they're sitting on over $700 million in cash.
• Is valued at over $15 billion and backed by a bunch of venture capital firms that will no doubt want their returns soon; either when they go IPO or sell; like the $12 billion deal with Microsoft that they refused. I don't want to be on the platform when that happens.
• Has become bloated and increasingly focused on monetizing its users and communities.
  
• Will never allow BA to become fully discoverable (with all of the perks) as we focus on alcohol.
  
• Hasn't helped to grow the BA community, and it never will. In fact, it directly competes with online communities / web-based forums like BA and every time someone posts on Discord it's one less post on BA. I'm also seeing users who only post on Discord. And some of the users who won the recent Society giveaways haven't even logged into their account for months, even years.

So, I'd rather spend my time on BeerAdvocate, its community, and its growth vs. being distracted by Discord.

###

 

I'd love to launch a BA app with all of the features everyone deserves (like being able to post photos from your phone). It's one of a few major projects that I plan on pushing internally this year that focuses on growing the BA community.

 

Ironically, I just read that apparently Discord is about to change its file hosting policy. External links to files posted on a Discord server will be accessible for 24 hours and not work after that.

https://piunikaweb.com/2023/10/20/discord-file-hosting-ending-this-year-what-you-need-to-know/

If that's the case, and it looks like it is, I'll be forced to block Discord soon to ensure that threads like WBAYDN aren't full of broken images the next day. Can't help previous threads/posts, but I advise anyone using Discord to host images for hotlinking on this site to find another solution.

Good timing, I guess.

Moving on...