Discord Dilemma: We're Keeping the Forum AND Discord

Earlier this year, when Discord announced its plans to push age verification requirements, demanding face scans or government IDs to access parts of the platform, it struck a nerve.

As someone who spent more than twenty years as an information security professional, the idea of surrendering digital privacy and identity verification just to participate in basic online spaces goes against everything I stand for. Demanding biometric data or driver's licenses for casual chat rooms is a severe breach of fundamental user sovereignty.

When I made my video covering the issue, it did not pull massive numbers. I was competing against channels hundreds of times larger than mine that were jumping on the exact same topic. But size does not matter when you are part of a broader pushback. We added our voice to the noise, and collectively, the internet made an impact. Discord ultimately paused and pulled back on how aggressively they were rolling out those mandates.

While Discord seems to be reconsidering its approach, that situation exposed a massive vulnerability in how we communicate online.

In response, we launched our own dedicated community forum at community.loyalmoses.com. It is built in a classic, old-school format because I love the structure of traditional bulletin boards. It preserves knowledge.

That is the fundamental problem with Discord: it is where information goes to die. Discord servers are private digital sandboxes. You can have brilliant technical discussions, solve complex engineering problems, or post critical guides, but that data remains locked inside a walled garden. Search engines cannot index it, and outsiders cannot learn from it anonymously. Traditional open forums, on the other hand, allow knowledge to be archived, searched, and accessed by anyone on the open web.

At the same time, I recognize reality. Traditional forums have a higher barrier to entry for users accustomed to modern chat apps. They take more effort to navigate, and the user interface feels unfamiliar to a newer generation of internet users.

When I recently checked in with our LM Discord Community to see if people still wanted to keep the server running, the answer was an overwhelming yes. Thousands of active members are still there, enjoying the real-time interaction and building relationships every day.

I am not going to punish our community or force anyone onto a single platform. We are keeping both.

community.loyalmoses.com will remain our permanent, searchable home base for long-term knowledge, technical archive, and open discussions. Our Discord server will remain active for real-time chat, casual hangouts, and instant communication.

You are free to use whichever platform fits your workflow, or use both. I appreciate everyone who supported our pivot when privacy was under direct attack, and I appreciate everyone continuing to keep these spaces active.

Let's keep growing.

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