Discord is dying and dragging our work chats with it

Discord ignores Roskomnadzor. And now users cannot play or work there normally. We talked to developers, managers and marketers. We found out why Discord is loved and hated. They wrote about how they play at a meeting, call up 100 people for free, listen to music together in a chat and manage several projects. Moving will be painful. If you don’t agree with something or want to cry with us, we’re waiting for you in the comments.

Discord is usually used for gaming. Gamers call each other and go on a raid on the boss, organize a massive push on the enemy base, or watch how others do it.

But since Discord does not take money from small and large teams and has not joined the sanctions, it is often used as a corporate messenger.

In Discord you can chat, integrate services, make video and audio calls without time limits.

Who uses Discord for work and why

You would think that only buzzers work in Discord, but no. This is a messenger for all generations.

Discord employs employees from 18 to 56 years old. And it’s convenient for everyone.

Elena, project manager at the design studio

Mostly marketers, designers and developers work on discord. Many people switched to Discord after Slack. Firstly, because Slack left Russia, and secondly, you get the same functions, only for free.

Used Slack before. Every month they paid 15 thousand for the team. Now we use Discord. Because we get the same functions: calls, correspondence, integrations – only for free.

Vlad, technical director of an online learning platform

During Covid, universities and schools switched to the messenger. Several scientific papers have even been written about this.

Why do they love Discord?

Employees call each other to chat via roles

You go into the chat and they tell you who you are, the administrator determines the rights of each team member in advance. You can prevent a person from writing or deleting messages, muting others' microphones, or entering certain chats.

The administrator does not need to configure rights for each employee separately. Simply assign a role, and the user will automatically receive all the capabilities associated with it.

We created roles for each department: development, sales, technical support, accounting. When a new employee arrives, we simply give him the right role. And he automatically gets access to the necessary chats. The developer immediately gets into chats for developers, and the sales manager immediately gets into chats for sales.

Vlad, technical director of an online learning platform

If you urgently need the opinion of designers on a call with a client, simply mention the role of @designer. All four designers see the notification and join the discussion.

Elena, project manager at the design studio

We correspond with the team and clients on Discord. Clients have a separate role. It opens access to 2 chats: – general project chat for discussing ideas – technical support chat, where customers report errors

Misha, application developer

We conduct interviews via messenger. When a candidate logs into Discord, we assign them the “Candidate” role. This way he doesn’t see all the chats and automatically gets into the interview chat.

Nastya, HR at a software development company

The role is visible to every user in the workspace. All you need to do is open your user profile. Therefore, roles are often used to indicate an employee's position. This helps you quickly understand who is responsible for what and who to contact with various questions.

But having roles does not guarantee order. No program can correct bad management:

We have 150 employees in our company. HR created 7 main roles: team leads, backend, frontend, ML, devops, project managers and admins. The idea was good: to help employees navigate and get into the right channels. But in the end, some employees were given roles, while others were forgotten. There was a lot of confusion, and the team leads had to fix everything themselves.

Danya, developer of artificial intelligence systems

Create servers, channels, chats

Discord has three levels of organization. First, a server is created – this is the main workspace. Channels are created inside the server – separate sections for different topics. And already in the channels they create chats for communication.

First level: servers

The server is a workspace for communication. The whole team gathers here: from managers to interns.

The server has a main one – the administrator. He assigns roles, creates chats and sets rules. Usually the admin is the one who knows best about Discord.

We sell clothes on marketplaces. The administrator on discord is our sales manager. Because he knows better than anyone how the messenger works.

Dima, sales manager of an online clothing store

But for some teams, administrators are HR and managers:

We are developing applications. Our channel admin is hr. It creates channels, distributes rights and access. And watches how we communicate with each other. If a conflict is brewing, he calls for a conversation.

Misha, application developer

We are developing a platform for online schools. Our administrators are heads of departments: sales, technical support, it.

Vlad, technical director of an online learning platform

In Discord, you can have different names on different servers. The main thing is that the server administrator must give permission. Then an employee can be Ivan Sergeevich in the work chat, and in the gaming community – the Terrible Abaddon.

Second level: channels

The server consists of text and voice channels:

Voice channels are virtual meeting rooms. There you can communicate simply by voice, via video and show the screen. They are always active. If you want to call, you just go there and you’re already on the call.

The development team should be on call from 11 to 19:00. At any time, a manager can enter the voice channel and check if the employee is there.

Nastya, HR at a software development company

On a free account, 100 participants can be present on one audio call, and 25 on a video call. This turns out to be convenient for large teams.

In English classes, I worked with 40 students at once. Created voice channels in Discord for groups of 5 people. When I gave an assignment to a group, the students discussed the assignments in their channels, then defended the work in general. This made it possible to conveniently organize classes for a large flow.

Galina, English teacher at the university

Text and voice channels help organize communication across projects or departments. Companies usually create:

We created a common channel for 44 employees. There is one news chat. Then we created channels for each department: it, sales, technical support, accounting, management.

Vlad, technical director of an online learning platform

We have 3 development teams: frontend, backend and ML. Each team has a separate channel where members interact with each other. And in addition, we have separate channels for projects. The teams are already communicating with each other there.
Danya, developer of artificial intelligence systems

Channels are containers for chats. One channel can have many chats on different subtopics.

Third level: chats for projects, flooding and micromanagement

Chats are already specific discussions within the channel. Usually created:

• general: all employees are here. They write information for everyone: holiday dates, salary delays, new instructions

• voice for calls

• Fludilki: memes, happy birthday greetings

• chats for reports and micromanagement

Each company creates its own set of chats in the channel. It depends on the number of teams and projects. If a company has many projects, it creates chats for projects:

If the company has many teams, they create more chats for each team.

In the general chat we share books for IT people, services and even client passwords.

Danya, developer of artificial intelligence systems

We have 150 people in the general chat. There we report: when we started work, what problem we are solving today. If someone from the team hasn’t written, the team lead gives it, but in the team chat.

Danya, developer of artificial intelligence systems

We sell clothes on marketplaces. We have two groups of employees:
– white collar workers: these are sales managers, marketers, analysts, warehouse managers and founders
— blue collar: 30 warehouse workers.

Only white collar workers communicate on Discord. There we have 3 text chats: flood, chat for hypotheses and general announcements. There are also 4 voice chats for discussions and reports:
— chat about the monthly planning meeting: the whole team discusses the results of this month and outlines plans for the next one
— chat on weekly planning meeting
— sales department chat
— marketing department chat We write down all ideas in a text chat with hypotheses, then copy them to Bitrix

Zhenya, sales manager of an online clothing store

If you added it to an unnecessary chat, you can mute notifications. And when the client leaves, delete it or send it to the archive.

Chat archiving preserves the history of work with the client. When a client returns after a year, you can open the archive and find out what kind of advertising was done to him. This helps you quickly remember details and continue working.

Slava, head of marketing agency

You can discuss ideas in threads

Threads are mini-chats within the main chat. They help organize discussions without clogging the main channel.

We write in threads when we need to draw the attention of other teams to a problem. For example, the backend team can write the name of the task in the general chat and say that they encountered a difficulty not in their area. Other teams come and discuss together.

Danya, developer of artificial intelligence systems

Bots and web servers

Bots are programs that allow you to use new features in your channels. They can send notifications from other services, moderate channels and provide entertainment. They are connected to text or voice channels. They write it themselves or find it in a search engine.

We connected the Ear Tensifier bot to the voice channel. It includes music from YouTube and Spotify. We select songs, make playlists and adjust the volume right in the channel. So now we always work with music.

Elena, project manager at the design studio

To protect the server from outsiders, we use Verify Bot. It works in a separate channel. When a new user tries to log into the server, the bot asks him to confirm his corporate email. After successful verification, the bot sets nicknames from the mail and prohibits changing them.

Nastya, HR at a software development company

Bots can be linked to each other.

We have linked the Verify Bot verification bot with the Sync Bot employee removal bot. He checks who else works at the company by comparing the list of employees on Discord with the list in the company database. If someone quits, the bot automatically removes them from the server. This way, you don’t need to manually delete former employees; the bot does it itself.

Nastya, HR at a software development company

Why do they hate Discord?

If you play, they shoot

Discord is connected to Steam. When you play, Discord shows this in your status and during calls. This is convenient for communicating with friends, but at work it can cost you money.

Discord only tracks running applications on your computer. That's why we play D&D.

Misha, application developer

While someone else's report is being discussed on the call, you can play. But if you're the only one who understands discord, you're forced to give presentations. And situations arise when on one computer you have a hot skating rink, and on the other they shout at you: “Dimon, switch the slide, I’ve been talking about something else for about 5 minutes.”

Dima, sales manager of an online clothing store

Statuses are visible everywhere

Statuses are visible not only on the working server, but also in gaming communities. The problem arises when an employee logs into a work chat from a gamer account, and HR requires setting statuses: on vacation, on the weekend, will be there at 16:00, or adding a link to the company.

And then all players see that Mega_Destroyer_3000 is “in a meeting until 16:00.”

Danya, developer of artificial intelligence systems

One message contains no more than 2000 characters

Discord has a limitation: one message cannot contain more than 2000 characters. If the text is longer, it must be sent as a file.

This is inconvenient for developers and technicians. They often need to share long code snippets or detailed technical descriptions.

Sending a file to a channel – no more than 25 MB

Discord limits file sizes in the free version to 25 MB. For most tasks this is enough. You can send documents, presentations, small images, and short audio recordings.

But sometimes this is not enough. For example, for video files or high-quality images. In such cases, there are two options:

1. Buy a Nitro subscription, which increases the limit.

2. Use cloud storage.

Many people choose the second option. Upload the file to Google Drive or Dropbox and share the link on Discord. It's free and solves the problem with large files.

Poor quality video calls

Free video calls without time limits for 50 people are a feature of Discord. But video calls on Discord are limited to 720p resolution. This is not enough to demonstrate the code. Text and symbols are unclear.

When we need to discuss a task, we call on Discord. But if you need to show the code, we’ll call you somewhere else.
Danya, developer of artificial intelligence systems

Can't find files

It's easy to find the message you need on Discord. The search engine understands the context and quickly returns results. There are convenient filters by author, date or content type.

But with files everything is more complicated. Finding a document or picture is difficult. This problem is for those who use the free version and exchange documents. You have to waste time searching manually or asking colleagues to re-send.

Leaky

Discord collects all the information that is sent to it: messages, audio, files, bank cards, subscriptions. And he doesn’t promise to encrypt it even from his own employees. Plus, it's easy to hack. But some people don't care:

Customers' three-factor authentication and passwords change every day. If passwords from chats are leaked, hackers will not be able to do anything.

Danya, developer of artificial intelligence systems

We do not post classified information on Discord. If clients who require special confidentiality. Correspondence about their projects in other messengers: Timsa, Skype. The client chooses himself.

Misha, application developer

Discord in Russia

March 12, 2024 2024 Russia added Discord to the register of social networks. This means that Discord must find and block materials with information prohibited in Russia, and also provide a form for complaints about such content. For non-compliance with the law – a fine of up to 87 million rubles.

The register of social networks includes all Internet platforms in accordance with clause 1 of part 1 of article 10.6 of the Federal Law of July 27, 2006 No. 149-FZ “On information, information technologies and information protection”

We don't talk about politics or watch porn at work. Therefore, our accounts will not be blocked. It's another matter if the government decides to block the messenger. Moving will be painful.

Elena, project manager at the design studio

Discord has already had problems complying with Roskomnadzor's requirements. In 2023, the company was fined 6 million rubles for child porn. Then the company said that they could not remove it within 24 hours because Roskomnadzor’s request came to the wrong email address.

In September 2024, Roskomnadzor sent five more decisions to the messenger regarding its violation of the law. And in the same month, users had problems accessing Discord. Thus, on September 26, according to Downdetector, more than 11 thousand complaints were received.

Now Russian users freely access the messenger and use it without a VPN. However, they cannot buy the advanced version of Discord Nitro. The service does not accept Mir cards, and Mastercard and Visa of Russian banks do not work.

But you can buy through third-party services or wallets.

Conclusion

Discord is easy to use: free calls, chats, threads and integrations. But he confuses the personal with the work. Colleagues can write even on weekends, and the temptation to play while working is always nearby. But most importantly, Discord scores on Roskomnadzor. Therefore, it may be blocked in Russia. And goodbye to work correspondence.

To avoid problems, it is better to move to another messenger. This way you will maintain a balance between work and rest, and will not lose money or important information in correspondence.

In TG we maintain a blog of domestic Lenza messenger. We write there about useful features of the messenger.