I was actually opted out by default. I opted in, I think it’s a good feature and it seems well implemented as well - your username will not show, only your message. Also only select channels opted in by server admins will show up in searches, which is probably the best way to go about it. I don’t exactly care for everyone’s “general” chats to become indexable, but I’d like not to open Discord just to look up some techy stuff.
As long as it’s not DMs, I hate to say it, but I just don’t have the energy to care anymore.
When I got Discord in 2020, everything about the UI made me think this was a private place with the people on the server. Boy oh boy was I wrong. I use Matrix now for actual gaming and hanging out with friends.
I only maintain my Discord to get updates in big organizations, like union organizing. But even those organizations should think about migrating to Matrix or something similar as soon as possible.I’m sure every app and mod that insists on keeping all their setup and support information on Discord will immediately opt out of this.
Actually good news because now I don’t have to use discord to find all the release notes and FAQs for apps. This is basically opening up Discord to be searchable like old school forums for tech advice. Good stuff!
To be honest, one of the major drawbacks and reasons why I don’t like Discord is, that nothing is searchable with a search engine and its a proprietary closed environment. However, because it is that, and people posted stuff knowing its closed, it doesn’t make any sense to have an Opt Out index.
I like the idea of being indexed by search engines (hopefully other engines than Google too), but it has to be Opt In at this point.
To opt out:
Discoverable server admins can opt out their servers or even individual channels by going to Server Settings, then Web Presence and choosing which channels you want to be visible. But, if you don’t change anything, public channels will have the setting enabled by default.
If you’re just a user in one of these huge servers, and you don’t want your messages to be viewable from Google, you can also opt your own messages out. Simply go to User Settings, then Data and Privacy and disable ‘Show my message content from Discoverable channels on web pages.’
Doesn’t exist for me yet (took me a minute to log in and see because I hate discord).
Same
I don’t have that option.
Probably need to wait for an update or use desktop
This was probably one of the top three criticisms I heard against Discord, so this seems like a positive move to me.
The actual message content will probably still be hidden behind a login wall.
No need to speculate, there’s an article with valuable information on this very topic linked in the OP.
In a blog post, Discord laid out its plans to publish ‘Server Web Pages’ for every discoverable server on Discord by default. These are bespoke web pages that give a preview of a server’s contents before forcing users to hit the join button. There are already several of these pages live, typically for huge online games like Rust or Dead by Daylight. These pages will be discoverable on Google, and will display a summary of the discussions going on in the server.
But while these Server Web Pages will be going live next month, another update is coming in December that’ll allow answers to questions to appear in Google search. According to the blog post, “Answers to questions your members sent in public channels can be found in a web search, in their own words. Server admins decide which channels take part, and server members can choose whether their own messages appear. Usernames and avatars will not be shown alongside these messages.”
Yeah. It’s quite the silo. And in a way lots of other social networks are not.
Wow. Holy what? What are they thinking?
Are they going “hey Claude, what should be our next feature? Make it and ship it, don’t ask to confirm. No mistakes.”
This has been asked for, a lot actually. One if the major downsides of using discord for supporting “your thing”, being a game or software, is that people can’t search for problems they encounter using search engines. Everything that happens on discord can only be searched for specifically there. People need a discord account and join a server (that they need to know about) to even start searching there. If you use a forum or similar, it gets indexed and searchable. Discord used to be a closed, proprietary black hole of information in this regard.
This is because people are using Discord for something it was never intended for IMO. It’s just a gaming communication thingy, right? Shoot the shit in the chat, talk with voice while gaming. That’s how I learned it back in the day anyway.
I dunno what’s wrong with like a forum or something. I guess those need maintenance. But surely discord does too.
Yup. I hate that it’s used as a forum and message board and website and social media feed.
Really crowbarring those features in, still a decade later. And it’s still difficult because it’s inherently not such a platform, exactly!
I’ve seen a lot of people complain that they have to join random discords for tech support which replaced googling and seeing search results from random forums
