Wasatch Commons All-Community Meeting minutes, Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Topics: proposal discussion, trial period using Discord instead of Google Groups
Proposal: Adopt Discord for Community Communication
Present: Kathy (outside facilitator), Sarah #5, Kay (notes), Mike W., Vicky, Starla, Tobie, Alex, Kerry, Grae, Kerri Jo, Cheryl, Kathleen #17, Scott, Michael A, Larraine,Laraine, Laura, Joe, Tysic, Ben (co-fac), Lila, Lynda. 8:45 Emily
Announcements
Lynda will have the guest room keys when Kerry is out of town.
Thank you for bringing bags to pick up Farmette produce.
Maintenance is meeting with a general contractor tomorrow to talk about some issues and will have a committee meeting Monday.
Discussion of Proposal, Adopt Discord for community communication
Pass around proposal [revision 10]. Call for consensus at September 10 meeting.
Discord lets you group discussions (threads) in a way that Google Groups does not.
Favorable comments: easy to see the various groups, get fewer messages but subjects of interest. Prediction, Discord will put out an AI which will be able to summarize messages.
Q. How might things go differently with Discord’s moderation tools when there are inflammatory emails? A. We don’t have agreements in place for moderation [would probably need community consent – Kay]. Can restrict how frequently someone can post to cool flame wars. Can delete messages before everyone has seen it. Sensitive image filter.
Would want an agreement that people do not delete their own messages, for accountability.
The audit log does not record when someone edits their own messages.
Before moderation gets done, we’d want agreements in place.
Discussing potential behavioral problems tends to keep them from happening. If we discuss moderation, people are likely to self-moderate.
Records
Q. Are our records going to exist in fifteen years? A. It’s a private company, meaning it could start charging or doing intrusive ads or changing ownership or putting a limit on storage of archives or ….
Miss the collective, everyone seeing messages.
Using Discord puts everything to do with the community in one place instead of mixed into everything else in the inbox.
Suggestion:other words, Channelno for ‘lost & found’. Ben has created a channel for give-aways.
We will figure out with experience whether we can have too many channels.
Can have channels that exist for a while for a specific purpose and then close.
There’s a ‘suggestions’ channel.
At the moment, please double-post to email & Discord.guarantee.
We will be keeping the wiki and the forms page that links to pay-or-play, agenda suggestions, maintenance requests.
Discord has message history, but the bigger it gets the harder it is to search. The wiki is better for storage of permanent records.
The Google-Group archives would still be available through a Google log-in.
Channels, Organization of Communication
Discord lets you group discussions (threads) in a way that Google Groups does not.
Can have channels that exist for a while for a specific purpose and then close.
Easy to see the various groups, get fewer messages but subjects of interest.
Prediction, Discord will put out an AI which will be able to summarize messages.
Miss the collective, everyone seeing messages.
Using Discord puts everything to do with the community in one place instead of mixed into everything else in the inbox.
Ben has created a channel for give-aways. There’s a ‘suggestions’ channel. Channel for ‘lost & found’? Could certain things be combined into a time-sensitive channel? Lost and found, ride to the airport, lost cat, need a cup of sugar, locked myself out, work party, vehicle will be on the path, poker night. The ‘urgent’ channel goes to everyone who hasn’t opted out.
Reminder: The bell is our traditional emergency alarm.
We will figure out with experience whether we can have too many channels.
Q. What about people who are trying to cut down on screen-time or get stressed by too much communication? How do we accommodate them? A. The same way we do now, we don’t. [Less snarkily] It’s something we’ve struggled with and haven’t got a good answer. One way can be having a buddy who informs you if you need to see something. On Discord you can control how much you see.
Reluctant to have one more thing to check. Especially if using Discord at work as well, can feel like having another job.
TechnologyQ. isIf notyou goingare to solve relationship problems. Isusing Discord goingfor towork solve(or ourother conflictgroups), issues?will the community Discord be separate? ShouldA. beYes. self-evident(Separate from the name: No.icon?)
Q. You launch emails into the void and don’t know if anyone read them. Is Discord any different? A. No. You could ask people to click an emoji if they’ve read it.
Moderation
Q. IfHow youmight things go differently with Discord’s moderation tools when there are usinginflammatory Discordemails? A. We don’t have agreements in place for work (or other groups), will the community Discord be separate?moderation. A.Can Yes.restrict (Separatehow icon?)frequently someone can post to cool flame wars. Can delete messages before everyone has seen it. Sensitive image filter.
CouldSuggest certainan thingsagreement bethat combinedpeople intodo anot time-sensitivedelete channel?their Lostown andmessages, found,for ride to the airport, lost cat, need a cup of sugar, locked myself out, work party, vehicle will be on the path, poker night.accountability.
The ‘urgent’audit channellog goesdoes tonot everyonerecord whowhen hasn’tsomeone optededits out.their own messages.
Reminder:Before moderation gets done, we’d want agreements in place. The
Discussing potential behavioral problems tends to keep them from happening. If we discuss moderation, people are likely to self-moderate.
Technology is not going to solve relationship problems. Is a program (named 'Discord'!) going to solve our traditionalconflict emergencyissues? alarm. No.
There are applications that have a ‘tone’ meter.
The ideal is way up there, but we function down here, and arewe disappointed indisappoint ourselves. Don’t hold ourselves to impossible standards. Be generous in spirit about others’ words or actions.
Next Steps
OneFor stepnow, inplease disablingdouble-post theto Googleemail Groups& wouldto be making it so only the owner can send messages.Discord.
This proposal is for a six-month trial. If it isn’t working well, we can go back. If it is going well, we’ll discuss how to shut down [better word?] the Google-Group listservs.
The Google-Group archives would still be available through a Google log-in.
Half a dozen people can do one-on-one training for anyone who feels it would help.
One step in disabling the Google Groups would be making it so only the owner can send messages.
Maybe have status discussions on how it is working intermittently rather than waiting until the trial ends?
Straw poll: Most are okay with proceeding (that is, asking for consensus at the next meeting, the second Wednesday in September).