[Enshittification][DO NOT ADD] Discord Username System
Did you know? Discord is reworking/removing their partnership program (as it currently stands)
Hey there @everyone! Been about 2 months since I changed this post. And it's been a hot minute, but the username update has now been worked into Discord. No matter if we liked it or not. And people will now (forcefully) get used to it.
As a suprise, this idea has the MOST ever comments and votes recieved on a single post on the feedback platform EVER. The story around this event is the most interesting I have ever seen. And the gerne around it still hasn't ended either. We'll see where all of this goes.
On that note, I have been working on a little project regarding that, since Twitter, Discord, Reddit and Tiktok are heading all into the same route. Our own little enshittification.social! A mastodon instance for the enshittification of companies and they services they used to offfer. (Twitter, Unity, Discord, and so on)
Would you like to participate in an UNOFFCIAL poll? Click here!
(NOT affiliated with Discord in any way, shape or form)
We thank everyone for their votes, comments and joining our DIscord server and enshittification instance. The story of enshittification will never end and we can see that with the recent Unity Pricing changes.
I've recieved a press request through Discord, however I'm moving that to email, if any press wants to reach out about the update from someone willing to represent the entire discord community against this change, send an email here:
- press@stefanocoding.me
Need more information? Check NTTS's Video:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3LUtBVe3Jk
Want to talk with people about the update? Check this server:
- https://discord.gg/jpFhkeqGHS
An anonymous Discord Partner has spoken out about the reservations, check it out.
- Original post was deleted by reddit admins, link is now for archive.org
Hey, even game devs are struggeling getting their official name as verified servers:
- https://www.gamesradar.com/indie-studio-has-their-discord-username-stolen-out-from-under-them/
- https://twitter.com/rustylakecom/status/1659556388526338048
So what is it with this update?
So generally, this update has recieved a TON of backlash. And this feedback post has already recieved just about 13k upvotes at the time of writing AND a change.org petition with 13k people having signed it,
Fundementally this change to discord is going to cause more issue's for it's users then it could be worth. Among the comments, there are a few I'll display/mention.
One of the major issues that can be confirmed is the resale of Discord accounts. That is something that is unable to be denied and is going to be a major issue. Example here:
What discord has done absolutly wrong during this update:
Discord staff has been claiming double the names, one for their private account. Another for their staff account. Some of these usernames that are being claimed are so rare that people are speculating they are planning to sell it one day or another. The communication is absolute crap, they have not communicated how they where planning to do the roll-out and the way people are now claiming names left and right, from piewdiepie, markiplier and other names that should have been reserved. Then the way access get's rolled out? Verified bots where supposed to get access first, then supposedly brands, moving on to the staff and then the partnered and verified servers. Then the general population. But this has so far changed even more, starting with people from the moderator program, and suddenly the Hypesquad event team. And we still do not have enough information to know what the next bracket will be. There is no proper communication apart from Discord telling us to append our tag/discriminator to our usernames if we can't use it. Or you know just don't make usernames unique. The reddit has been stormed with people hating this update. And when people go to the support page, they're told to respond to feedback, or create it. We've all done this, but Discord still hasn't made an official statement. The entire update wasn't even properly announced like they do with everything else. Hidden behind their Birthday suprises. With the nitro trails providing people with 2 weeks of nitro to forget they signed up and pay an additional month. Normally, this would be tweeted and announced everywhere properly. People are moving away from Discord in an attempt to revolt, they're disbanding Nitro to put a dent somewhere in Discord's earnings. But that'll probably be recouped by investors. Discord claims to listen to feedback. But we've seen nothing of this yet. As a ton of people are saying, Discord is turning into Twitter, we don't want to see it happen. But with the 300 million active users on Discord, we're barely making a dent with this feedback post.
What are some good ways to fix this update?
The previous system worked perfectly, nothing to change about it. However using the display name system is a good idea. Maybe even supporting for official known people to get a username, or a checkmark to define "hey they are official" without the Twitter "pay for a blue tick" bs.
> BELOW ARE COMMENTS MADE BY THE COMMUNITY, NOT BY ME DIRECTLY <
Mikey's, Gen, Rain
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The more I read the blog article again, the dumber and less sincere it sounds.
It’s hard to believe that Discord “truly believe this is the right thing to do to help more people hang out with their friends on Discord”. It just is simply not true. In fact the recent features and updates to the app have made users feel quite the opposite.
Even though I don't use Discord as frequently as some other users, I imagine Nitro users in especially, seeing this latest update and the poor reaction it received has made it clear to me and many other users where the devs are headed. And it's certainly not motivated by the community user-base. So stop persisting with that bullshit.
Such an update, informed via email on a BLOG, not even an official announcement on socials, really showcases how little you guys think of the community. Who even wanted this? NO ONE wanted this! The pathetic Reddit post you linked had absolutely no valid justification in supporting this idiotic decision (All the Reddit user did was ask what the 4 digit was - did not even imply any difficulty with the actual use of a discriminator).
While the criticism is rightly directed at the significant negative effects this username change will have on users, it only highlights how unbelievably frustrating it is that you guys don't offer any kind of support or engage in any sort of user communication.
FOR YEARS, users have been asking for better support and solutions with account management issues especially with 2FA lockout and SMS verification but you guys constantly give stock phrase responses and basically tell users "Haha tough, well we can't really be bothered to fix that right now, so just suggest it in the feedback site if you care enough!" I'm slightly derailing now but I just don't comprehend Discord's management or the reasoning behind all of this. Why implement something users clearly DO NOT want and without even asking the community whilst ignoring the issues that users DO WANT and have been asking for years? Be serious now, you won't benefit financially from the username update so what's the point? You "truly believe" this is a rational decision? No one is buying into this anymore (lol).It's funny and embarrassing you guys dared to imagine that this new upgrade is a feature that will make Discord more enjoyable for the users has obviously and comically backfired.
Though I can't even say you didn't think this would be a terrible idea. It's utterly shocking and astonishing how you think by keeping quiet in actively avoiding in responding to the criticism (on Twitter at least, where Discord usually posts the official update announcements) on the new username update would make this issue any better. You are just pissing users off even more. It only reveals you knew this was going to be an unwise decision to make but still chose to go on with it. Crazy incompetence.
So, now we have the amazing Discord Support team that refuses to acknowledge EITHER issue; what the users want and what the users don't want. But yeah, this is something you guys have "thought alot" about lol.
The only positive to come out of this is a good realisation in being glad to have never financially supported Discord and it's even better that many (long-time, too) Nitro users are cancelling their subscriptions. Why would it even make sense to keep supporting a company that constantly fvcks their user-base over, no thanks.
Anyways, be prepared for the backlash if mediocrity and illogical decisions are what you're "all about" because there is no way that you guys believed this would be a bed of roses.
Sort your shit out.
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amazingly well said. an idiot who can't figure out how discrims works is not gonna understand this new system even more. this just backfires an dmakes it even harder for these braindead idiots, who discord shouldn't even be pandering to anyway.i hope discord realizes this and changes their minds. i hope they have the nerve to admit this wasn't a great move, and take it back to the drawing board. there are lots of ways to improve the username system and this absolutely is NOT one of them.
we mass-migrated away from skype in 2016 to get away from garbage behavior like this, when microsoft were stubbornly shoveling extremely unpopular changes into skype and completely stonewalling their userbase. the mass migration away from skype kicked microsoft exactly where they needed to be kicked, and now they're desperately trying to win us back but it's WAY too late for that. if we knew discord were gonna be no different, discord would never have taken off.
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EJ I actually did see the comment and I was honestly baffled that a verified staff member said that... like, they're not even sure themselves of what this change is lmao
Them coming out of their mass graves only to give dumber suggestions to an already foolish update...There's not a single brain cell in the team surrounding this issue.
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actually decided this pissed me off enough that i was just going to cancel my nitro now. so i did. stupid ass change
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If this goes through, I'll drop my Nitro subscription like a hot coal. This will only lead to account selling, impersonation, hacking... A four-digit code is just easier to enter and harder to target.
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Sorry, but we are living in a time where everyone should know what a discriminator is. Even Xbox (microsoft) have this kind of systen "#0001" and NO ONE is complaining about it. Just add the Display name and thats it. Be yourself and don't go with the other Social medias.
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+1 this system is brain dead, and defo wasnt asked from the community
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+1
One of the worst updates I have ever heard to Discord. By doing this, getting a username will be even more complicated than it ever needed to be. The tag system was the solution to these name sniping problems that other social media platforms like Twitter and TikTok suffer today, and why most Nitro users really even bought Nitro in the first place. If they wanted to mitigate the issue of "9,999 Mikes", then why can't they just allow lowercase and uppercase letters into the tag??? That way Discord would have the ability of having "14,776,336 Mikes", which is a big fraction of all Discord users, plus Nitro users would be more than happy to use it, as it will allow more creative tag naming than ever before like a custom car license plate. The simple solution was literally right there at Discord Dev's face and they went for the more complicated and one of the worst possible options. It's not even a solution, it just adds more to the problem.
+1 to this. Me and my friends absolutely hate this idea of an update.
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+1. This is genuinely one of the stupidest changes to Discord I've ever seen since I started using it in 2016. No one is asking for this. Nobody (but the devs) have an issue with the current way usernames work. It's a really, really bad change, as it'd allow for bad actors to have an easier time stalking, harrassing, sniping usernames and create a massive blackmarket for rare or popular usernames. It genuinely makes usernames fall into mid 2000's era forum names and such. Not to mention the, in my opinion, blatant racism of not allowing non-Latin characters in people's usernames. I guess anyone with kanji or hiragana or katakana or cyrillic or greek or what have you can just get bent, eh?
Do not implement this. I've cancelled my Nitro subscription. Such a stupid change for no benefit to anyone.
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In case anyone wants to go a step further, opening a support ticket under "feedback and suggestions" and voicing your opinions there could help as well. Not sure where those tickets ultimately get sent to but hopefully it does something.
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+1. Please don't do this. This is such a bad idea. Among other reasons, such as the current system keeping relative anonymity, being a fan favorite, and and not causing your users stress and anguish, you should want to stay unique. You're doing this to look more like Twitter, but is that something you want? I should hope not...
Stay as you are -- our quirky (not so) little platform!
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+1.
people i know and love will be impersonated by weird people trying to ruin their reputations, or just steal their recognizable and unique usernames from them.
also, what's it matter that 40% of people didn't know what a discriminator is? i knew what the #s were for, and i always had mine memorized since 2016. but if you polled me on it before this update was proposed and i saw all the backlash articles covering it, i'd have no fing clue what you were talking about.i love the discord username discriminators. it's really not a problem when people have to check to see what theirs are if they dont have them memorized. people are gonna forget their usernames too!
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Okay, here's another thing.
So, you know how there's apparently roughly 150 million users on the platform?
And for every unique username currently, there can only be 9,999 with said unique username?
Now, for example, let's say that we take a list of unique usernames, and all the 150 million users when through the list. Every 9,999 users taking up only a single unique username in particular.
You would have approximately 15,000 usernames that would be all be used up and are being occupied.
15,000!!!
And if you are someone with a brain and can actually think and ARE realistic and think within the realm of actual possibility. You would easily know that even given what I just said, it would be extremely and exceptionally low the amount of unique usernames currently are all used and occupied in all 9,999 instances. Even if you took the amount of registered users, which is only twice the amount. It's literally still not even a damn issue with usernames being hogged and all taken up and is still such a low enough number even with the extreme example I had just gone over.
It's actually absolutely fucking outlandish, the asshat(s) behind all this who actually didn't even think more about this change, and had actually taken more time than it takes for the human eye to blink.
I really want to put emphasis on it and drive this shit home on behalf of the community.
Discord, get your shit together.
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How you thought this username update was a good idea, I have no clue. If released, this will be the worst update in discord history. The numbers make you unique! THIS is why we can't have nice things.
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#DISCRIMINATOR_MATTERS
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I really prefer the old way. At least with that way, people with common usernames can have up to 9999 chances to get their preferred username. With the new system, you'd only get one chance. Also some people might just snap up usernames and sit on them, or some people may be inactive, blocking new users from choosing their preferred username.
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+1 from Carmabound!!!
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+1
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https://www.change.org/p/discord-add-back-discriminators
The petition has reached over 10,000 signatures.
What's it going to take to get you guys to listen to your users?
We can't even complain about it on reddit because the moderators at r/discordapp are silencing our voices there - actively removing posts and shadow-banning anyone that tries to talk about it publicly.13 -
Partack I'm afraid it's going to take no less than a million signatures for them to reconsider.
But we need to make this milestone go viral on social media and YouTube for it to have any chance to be effective.
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+1
Plenty of people have already explained what's wrong with this move better than I ever could, so I'm not going to repeat what they've said. All I have to say is that I too am against the upcoming username change.
However, I am not expecting the outcome to be any different than how it was during the rebrand incident, when the staff didn't care one bit about the complaints and the abandons, they just pushed ahead for the sake of becoming more like the rest. You people didn't care then, and from the looks of it we would have to move heaven and earth to make you care now.
13 -
Maybe we ought to pressure Discord by coming up with a hashtag on Twitter? How does "#Savethefourdigits" sound?
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+1
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Please don't do this. I usually don't complain about changes but this... I love Discord's username system as is. The numerical discriminators make it much easier to come up with usernames for oneself. I don't want to come up with silly numbers and random letters or words to add to my username.
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Already killed my Nitro with this cited. I see no reason to resubscribe if this goes in.
"The mistakes of the past? I love those, let's goooooo!" - xxDiscordTeamxx001
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This is the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.
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Terrible decision for a multitude of reasons already laid out in the comments here. I will add though, that even though I've had my account since the year discord started and I'll likely get first dibs on my current username, which is Onee-sama, with the new rules laid out I can't use "-" as a character, so the username I've been using for like 8 years will be lost automatically.
I had been subscribed annually to nitro since nitro was originally introduced and I did so solely to support discord because I believed in the platform, I got almost no use out of the benefits. I cancelled that subscription today. I will no longer support or advocate for discord unless this decision is reversed.21 -
+1
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+1
I just cannot fathom how this was decided to be the best decision for usernames.
The issues the crop up from this change will be far worse than the issues we have now, which are negligible in comparison.
Denominators were genuinely one of the best parts of this MESSAGING service (NOT to be confused with social media, despite its very clever server system) to push more towards social media is just strange and out of touch.
My impression was discord was made for gamers by gamers, the denominators were my favorite and still are my favorite solution to usernames. People realized discord had uses outside of gaming and overall was just a very useful and fun messaging service.
It's mind boggling that this is the step that Discord has decided to take forward.
My username is simply my name. I do not like having names with numbers or special characters. Now I will have to do the one thing I despise and choose a username I hate.
I can remember my goddamn phone number why would I have an issue with a four digit number that I can choose with nitro. And that's besides the point. Because any time I have ever added someone, my discord was easily accessible -- so I don't NEED to remember it.
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+1
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