Faith Discords

[Mele]

Hi there -

I've sat on something for a few months now and I think after monitoring how it's working it's time for me to speak up.

While I understand the intent and do think the idea is not malicious, I find faith discords to be quite problematic.

Here are reasons/examples:

1. We are a roleplay enforced community. Discord is an OOC chat program.

2. They are inclusive only to players who a. Use discord b. Choose to share their discord

3. They allow a faith manager to essentially run their faiths via OOC summons. While I do not discourage people pinging a faith manager to set something up, 24/7 access to this kind of thing ruins an element of roleplay of genuine IC meetups. Things exist in game that work far more ICly than a discord. Letters, temple lurking and even tells. An example of this is a faith manager with <10 hours a month, but still shipping hopefuls into the faith. When you see someone with low hours and see the faithfuls bump through the list, you can tell the faith manager themselves was not doing the legwork here - or the character is slipping in with little to no rp. That defeats the point of having a faith manager. I can throw symbols at people for free. Your presence means more RP. People see that title, that name from the helpfile and it creates more. People see you inactive, but running the faith just enough to run it and assume they can't shoot their shot for the slot.

4. It creates a clique-type environment. Imagine a faith with 4 hopefuls and 3 faith members online. 3 hopefuls are meeting with the 3 faith members, while 1 hopeful is lurking around the city of the main temple hoping to 'bump into' their faith manager. Only, the other 3 are in the discord server. Unknowingly the discord group has effectively dis-included this last member. It's not malicious, but it's also simply not okay. (This example is loosely based on previous upstairs sightings over these months - as in more than once.)

5. Problematic players will create problems. IC problems are fine, but giving that access to yourself as a player, as a FM, can inevitably create more foul a run at FM for you. This is a job, but it's also meant to be fun. Further, not just for you, but for the faithful members who join your discord. IC you can avoid a person, surely on discord you can block a person but turmoil will still become turmoil.

I do really greatly appreciate you guys and your efforts. I am not so naive to think friend discords will not exist, but please, PLEASE do not keep faith discords. I do not want to make threats of removal etc, I just want to plea to squash them and carry it out IC. Use temple note posts (Don't have one? Ask in apps!). Use letters. Use tells. Please handle your business in game screen.