Jeff21h ago
julian

Discord now requires age verification, and why you should reconsider the age-old forum

We're not even two months into 2026, and yet another large social media network has done the seemingly unthinkable and instituted a policy that triggers a mass exodus.

I am of course talking about Discord's roll-out of age verification globally, across the entire site.

https://www.theverge.com/tech/875309/discord-age-verification-global-roll-out

Not only will they require age verification, Discord is also utilising AI technology to analyze your content and habits to infer your age.

https://community.nodebb.org/post/106594

Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

Starting in March, all Discord users will have a “teen” experience by default unless they complete age verification using a video selfie or ID.

The Verge
Feb 9 at 9:39pmWeb
Show threadianhclark510Feb 9
Lemme know when your forum handles screen sharing, else it’s going to be a pretty shite Discord replacement
Show threadjulianFeb 9

Certainly. It's possible with the screen capture API to do screen sharing via a WebRTC conference call. One of our users created an experimental plugin that did just that (like, ten years ago, even!)

Of course you were being facetious and moving the goalpost by expecting a Discord replacement to do everything Discord can. If you RTFA you'd know I said that wouldn't be possible.

But that's ok too. I'm not here to convince you.

Show threadianhclark510Feb 9

I don’t think there’s anything facetious in expecting a replacement to do complete the same tasks as what it’s intended to replace?

If you developed a cyborg replacement liver, I’d expect it to complete all of the tasks the original did before I have it implanted in my body

(Maybe it helps if I specify I’m looking for a new tool for my merry band of autistic dorks to communicate with, and not just here to pick a technical fight)

Show threadjulianFeb 9

Fair, in that case I apologize for assuming malintent.

Specifically I argue that forums ably take the place of Discord's text communication features (chat and discussions), but do admit it does not do everything Discord can. One may also argue whether it should!

Show threadKichaeFeb 11

@[email protected] There are so many communities out there using Discord for something other than game streaming or whatever. Discord's been a right shit replacement for forums, yet people used it.

Maybe we can stop looking for the one-stop swiss-army-knife products. They're always trash, and their business model is always to treat you like garbage.

Show threadianhclark510Feb 11

I agree! If the current model is unsustainable let it die, OP can keep his trap shut about some 20$ subscription being an alternative even worth suggesting

You can look on the other comments someone was hawking some gawdawful WebRTC plugin Hank and it’s just like, god, please stop

Show threadhemiechinussFeb 15

I wholeheartedly support the step back to forums. The only problem I am having with it is providing real-time dedicated (and most importantly private) support to individual users. This is something that was crucial to many communities over at Discord where you were spoiled for choice in terms of solutions to this.

NodeBB doesn't really have a solution to this as far as I can tell. I've been looking for several days but the only option I can see, other than contact forms which do not meet the required specs, is a deprecated plugin that isn't readily available on the ACP.

A real issue that NodeBB is going to face if it wants to step up against Discord is, as has been discussed already, the issue of everything being all in one place. That's what Discord did well and that's what it cornered the market on. No network of platforms is going to replace that. It has to be centralised. A forum obviously can't replace the voice channels of Discord but it can excel for text based communications. However, it needs to be a complete package in that regard and flexible to the needs of people coming over from Discord.

Show threadjulianFeb 16

@hemiechinuss said:

The only problem I am having with it is providing real-time dedicated (and most importantly private) support to individual users. This is something that was crucial to many communities over at Discord where you were spoiled for choice in terms of solutions to this.

Thanks for commenting! I'd love to hear more about what kind of individualized support features Discord offered.

I am not a Discord power user, so I think many of the bot enhancements and customizations I am not at all familiar with.

hemiechinuss

NodeBB Community
Show threadhemiechinussFeb 16

So really what I'm missing currently is an internal ticket system. A place where someone can press a button and then privately reach out to staff in order to raise an issue. This mostly impacts gaming communities I think as it has been raised in the past here once. We have a contact form on the forum now but it really is no replacement for an instant messaging ticket system. I'd rather avoid third-party options not only for privacy and security but primarily so that it is integrated into our current platform.

But this is just one of many issues that will need to be overcome in the near future. Moving away from discord is incredibly difficult. Not only is it free but it has fantastic support for setting up and maintaining your community. It's meant for this purpose and it does it really well.

As I mentioned there was a deprecated plugin for this. This plugin allowed you to create a category where the posts could only be viewed by the author and authorised groups. This would have been a perfectly viable solution however it is over a decade old now.

(nodebb-plugin-support-forum is the name of the plugin)

Show threadjulianFeb 16

@hemiechinuss ah! You're talking about nodebb-plugin-support-forum!

If you're interested in that plugin I'm sure I can get it updated for v4. You're right in that that would be helpful from a moderation standpoint.

When you say...

@hemiechinuss said:

it has fantastic support for setting up and maintaining your community

What was there for community admins, good documentation? Onboarding support? One on one contact point?

I'd want to make some inroads into providing something like this for NodeBB admins as well.

Discord now requires age verification, and why you should reconsider the age-old forum

@hemiechinuss ah! You're talking about nodebb-plugin-support-forum! If you're interested in that plugin I'm sure I can get it updated for v4. You're right in...

NodeBB Community
Show threadhemiechinussFeb 16

Yes, that's the one. I would love for that to still be supported. It would meet my needs perfectly.

@julian said:

What was there for community admins, good documentation? Onboarding support? One on one contact point?

The documentation was ok, it was decent enough if you wanted to create your own bots and webhooks. They did onboarding well. Agreeing to rules, prompting new users to visit a spot and post there, etc.

For community admin it doesn't really offer much more than NodeBB other than being more flexible in its capacity to service more types of community. Permissions is definitely a sore spot with NodeBB. They work, but they don't work as well as on Discord where I can lock a channel to a group or even an individual and the sheer amount of permissions I can define per group or individual makes it incredibly flexible.

One-on-one contact points were definitely a plus. Allowing individual users permissions to specific channels and threads was a really useful feature that I used a lot.

While it does lean on bots and webhooks for functionality, it is really easy to set up whatever you need on Discord and there are significantly less plugins on NodeBB that offer the same functionality that the various bots provide over on Discord. What I think is the biggest sore spot here is automation. Discord had a lot of that.

To be fair though I've only been using NodeBB this last week and I am only scratching the surface of what it can do. I'm really new to this specific forum software.

Discord now requires age verification, and why you should reconsider the age-old forum

@hemiechinuss ah! You're talking about nodebb-plugin-support-forum! If you're interested in that plugin I'm sure I can get it updated for v4. You're right in...

NodeBB Community
Show threadjulianFeb 16

@hemiechinuss said:

Permissions is definitely a sore spot with NodeBB. They work, but they don't work as well as on Discord where I can lock a channel to a group or even an individual and the sheer amount of permissions I can define per group or individual makes it incredibly flexible.

Oh actually NodeBB has fine-grained privileges. You're able to restrict categories by posting or viewing privileges. Privileges can be applied to user groups and individual users.

All of this is handled at the admin level in the admin control panel.

Discord now requires age verification, and why you should reconsider the age-old forum

@hemiechinuss ah! You're talking about nodebb-plugin-support-forum! If you're interested in that plugin I'm sure I can get it updated for v4. You're right in...

NodeBB Community
Show threadhemiechinussFeb 16

@julian said:

If you're interested in that plugin I'm sure I can get it updated for v4. You're right in that that would be helpful from a moderation standpoint.

Would this be something you'd be willing to do? I would be really grateful.

Discord now requires age verification, and why you should reconsider the age-old forum

@hemiechinuss ah! You're talking about nodebb-plugin-support-forum! If you're interested in that plugin I'm sure I can get it updated for v4. You're right in...

NodeBB Community
Show threadjulianFeb 16
@hemiechinuss since it's my plugin at least it's easier to do. I'll make a point of looking into it Tuesday (as Monday is a holiday)
Show threadhemiechinussFeb 16
Thank you so much! 
Show threadjulianFeb 17
@hemiechinuss I've updated the support-forum plugin for v4 compatibility, it didn't need much, just a light ACP page refresh.
Show threadPoliverso - notizie dal Fediverso ⁂Feb 16
@julian NodeBB obviously doesn't have the full functionality of Discord, but unlike other federated solutions, it also has an excellent chat.
The problem, however, is that Discord users want Discord precisely because it's centralized and because its users suffer from Stockholm syndrome.
Discord users would probably only replace it if they found something worse, with stricter Terms of Service and more AI.
Show threadhemiechinussFeb 17
It works! does the permissions also allow Global Moderators to see the posts or not?
Show threadjulianFeb 19
@hemiechinuss v4.1.0 does, now.
Show threadhemiechinussFeb 20
@julian You're incredible thank you