Force disable invisible status in server settings

Comments

116 comments

  • neronix17

    It allows a degree of privacy, server admins should not be allowed to decide whether or not people want to hide for a while. Really if someone wants to appear offline then it's none of your business why, or even if there's a reason at all. It doesn't encourage anything. Being able to appear offline is a staple of online services, taking that away from the user does nothing but make them not want to be a part of your community, especially in the social climate we currently have where people have a fear of being constantly watched via devices and services.

    The only purpose this request has it to be abused by server admins.

    63
  • MagnumDopus

    This is a horrible idea.  If a user wants their privacy respected, server owners shouldn't just be able to override the setting.  Privacy powers should always be in the hands of users.

    43
  • Zuek

    You guys are seeming to forget that Discord is widely used by all kinds of people nowadays, not just gamers. It'd be a pretty bad feature to advertise in your service. "Yeah, you know how in any other chat service you can go invisible for whatever reason? That can be overridden by a server owner! Forget about your privacy, eh?" I can only imagine normal servers abusing that to no end, and stalkery people joining servers that have this just to check if a specific friend is online. The privacy of the user should ALWAYS come before stuff like this. If you don't want to deal with invisible users you shouldn't have become a mod of a server because it's a feature on pretty much any chat client.

    20
  • neronix17

    Online status isn't the same as whether or not someone has read a channel and if they want to lie to you then that's their choice to make, regardless of if it is a bad one.

    "Oh but they're invisible elsewhere" doesn't matter, it WILL be abused if admins are given the opportunity. Luckily I doubt Discord is in the business of letting mini police states exist so I don't think this will ever be an issue.

    19
  • kyoko

    you know that idiots can still spam call you when you are doing something important, if you are do not disturb. working, programming, homework. you can't disable calls from users from a switch in a setting.

    19
  • NitroCorrupted

    when im offline, its not to disappear from a server but to avoid someone (usually known irl) to not spam call or message me!

    i think that it would make no sense that i cant access a server because i dont want to talk to a friend at the moment!

    Also with the thing about online people in a server, when does that matter?

    a server with you and your buddies: i should be allowed to be offline. Any other server: i can still chat because i have full access to discord so im not being sneaky or sketchy because i will be able to talk and let others know that im online A public server for anyone: do you really think theyll care if one guy out of all their members is offline? i really doubt it especially since you can still talk

    but i really think this server stuff is dumb. For example: on snapchat (since i use that a lot) people dont usually care to be unseen from viewing your story but might want to avoid reading a message you sent because they will have there reasons!

    15
  • RaZeFeiXX

    If you don't want people to read the channel's chat while they are being invisible you could get a bot that sets their role to "offline" and removes ability to read messages in that chat as long as they are "offline". 

     

     

    In my personal opinion, if we can't know if someones invisible or not, we should at least have the option to block users from accessing the server completely until they are "online".

    14
  • Jestdie

    I see no good reason a user should be unable to go into invisible status. I have read though all of the comments that have been posted so far. From the people that agree with this idea, they all sound overly obsessive. In what world does me or anyone else going invisible affect your life? One dude said this feature could destroy communities. I am really curious to know how in the world that is possible. 

    At the end of the day the one who proposed this change and everyone agreeing to it seem like all they want is the ability to force people to respond to their messages. I image it is something like, "I know you are online! WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME!". I would bet my bottom dollar that this is the exact thing that made the original poster propose this shitty idea. If this is not the case I would love to hear the reason that someone being invisible is affecting you or your community. 

    No one should ever have the power to decided some else's level of privacy.  If someone is somehow disturbing your server by being invisible kick them. This is the power you have as server admins, you have no need or right to force someone to appear online.  

    14
  • Twy

    So I read the title and original post with immense doubt and after going through 2+ pages of comments... I can say that mentality has remained. Reading through all this I have yet to see even a single comment in support of this that cannot be torn apart by a stiff breeze. I feel like the most appropriate answer for most of the comments in this thread is "Just no. Simply no. Have an inkling of common sense or reasoning." but I will try to address some of them in detail anyways...

    ----------
    "It stops creepy stalkers reading all my server logs." - It really does not. Whether someone is invisible or visible they will 'creepily' read all your logs. Nothing really changes. Now they are just 'creepily' reading it while set to online. Stop whipping it out in front of them if you do not want them to see it.

    ----------
    "I want to know when people read messages!" - Discord does not have read receipts. This is absolutely impossible.

    Whether someone is online, offline, invisible, away, or DnD then you have absolutely no way to tell whether they have or have not read a message. With, I suppose, the exception of sitting and staring unblinkingly at their status to make sure they do not hop on their phone for 15 seconds to respond to a message in PMs before continuing on with their life, still not having read it. Trying to claim 'They were online so I know they read it' is just baffling and absolutely wrong. 'I even sent out a ping so I know they saw it!' No, you absolutely do not. I assure you that you do not know when they might turn to pet their dog or be away for 2 minutes getting a drink or any other countless scenarios where you are not the center of their life.

    ----------
    "<Anything at all about community engagement>" - Status has no bearing on community engagement. Unless perhaps they are set to DND as people in this thread demand, at which point engagement/activity will likely drop quite a bit on average.

    If you have an issue with people sitting on your server not interacting then I am afraid that is your problem and entirely on you. If you have a problem with it then remove them. The idea that someone would magically start interacting because they are forced into an online status is simply wrong. They are still going to sit there avoiding/ignoring interaction just as much. Put a bot on your server to kick people if the issue keeps keeping you up to all hours of the night or waking you up in a cold sweat, since you are not capable of pruning inactive members yourself.

    No one gauges community involvement on how many hours you are logged in and the fact that so many people seem to be suggesting exactly that is bizarre. Community engagement involves ACTUAL community engagement. Complain about someone for not interacting enough, not for not meeting your designated quota of hours logged on ignoring the server. Message count and active time. Just... wow.

    All the arguments about online status promoting engagement are just so utterly absurd laughable. I can only assume that people think that because someone talks a ton and is more chipper when they are online but then sometimes are not in the mood (tired/chill/sad/busy) and so switch to invisible and far more quiet... that somehow people think that forcing them into being online will force them into being chipper and talkative all the server owner wants.

    You would be better off throwing a fit that users should not be able to mute your server and that you should be able to ignore DND mode and send notifications to people anyways. Protip: People who are invisible and do not already have your server muted are incredibly more likely to engage in the community than people who are set to DND as you demand.

    ----------
    "They should just set themselves to DND! I would respect that!" Obviously you would not since you are not respecting their choice to set themselves as invisible.

    People set themselves to invisible because they do not want to interact and you are entirely disregarding it. People in this thread talking about stalker alt accounts to pursue individuals VERY obviously have even less respect for the people around them. Discord is a COMMUNITY. Not the miniscule community of your server but a collage of countless communities covering countless topic. And more than that it has PMs, it has personal communication and networking. There are a number of solid situations where the invisible status provides a lot of utility, perhaps the biggest of which is simply having a bad day, days, week, whatever it may be. Going invisible removes expectations for a response and leaves you to your own matters however you might feel. Turning on DND pushing away your friends and community who you might need most at the time. Not only that but it very openly declares that you are online/around, and as this thread illustrates individuals care very little about those who want to be left alone or take time away from things. Fix your broken expectations of 'offline'.

    ----------
    There are privacy issues to this, obviously, but more alarming that that, perhaps, are the issues it brings to light... Just a deeply disturbing emphasis on control and a demand for attention. You want to know when people see your messages but you are unwilling to accept that even if they are online there's a good chance they will not see them? You are demanding absolute devotion. Same for complaints about admins? Unpaid workers should not be allowed to take time for themselves, I understand. All for your cause. If they are awake then they are yours. Lunch break at their real job? They do not deserve the luxury of talking to friends without you breathing down their neck. A surprising and disturbing amount of paranoia and controlling attitude in this thread. Stop obsessing over whether people are online or not. Or better yet consider someone more 'together' and less insecure to take control of your server, it might do an immense amount of good for the 'community engagement problems' you have. Stop being creepy stalkers spying on everyone and keeping records of who is online and who is offline.

    All in all this is a proposition that can only -hurt- the community as a whole, even if only slightly, and more for the server that participate while catering to a small number of overly controlling individuals. And sure people can just leave servers that have this implemented, as they rightfully should, but it is wasted time and effort of a dev team who could be doing countless other things to actually help the community and it is nothing but a path for abuse and a middle-finger to the community members. Just can not downvote this enough. None of the deep and alarming personal issues in this thread/suggestion would be solved by the proposed change.

    10
  • Saluki

    As other have already said, this would be a horrible violation of our privacy, and shouldn't be implemented for that reason alone. If someone wants to be invisible, then let them, otherwise you are defeating the point of invisible mode.

    9
  • Misa

    and people supporting this are still maintaining the trend of crying "I want the people in my server to do exactly what I like" instead of looking at it from the ACTUAL logical perspective

    again, don't like people having their own choice of status? then don't invite people to your server

    "take responsibility and start unfriending/blocking people" .... who are you to demand from people that they should just unfriend and block others?

    6
  • Misa

    oh dear god, I don't start my sentences with a capital letter on an online thread... I must have had no education....
    please stop making yourself look worse with every post, it actually hurts to see.

    well you're right about roles and permissions not being the issue, there is no issue to begin with other than your whining about other peoples statuses (yes it's as sad as it sounds)


    also @Muse, business degree or not, common sense still applies here. saying things like 'privacy violation isn't a logical objection' really doesn't make you look very smart... just saying

     


    Edit:

    it's pretty amusing to see how you both have to resort to calling people dumb when you can't handle the fact that they have a different opinion than you and probably come with much better suggestions than "boo hoo everyone is invisible and I'm a control freak and everyone has to listen to me so take away the invisible status now or else I cry!!!"

    but hey no matter how much you try to argue, fact is discord will never ever have a feature where you can change a person's status, because discord developers probably DO have common sense.
    sadly you're both gonna have to continue crying about people being invisible.... cause it's not going to change

    6
  • Dr Beesu 🐝

    "being part of a community means interaction" you realise what that means right? it means interaction between members. what it doesnt mean is forcing people to interact when they dont want to which is @misa's point I believe. that will NEVER work you cant just remove something like this and expect people to start interacting more, infact people will interact less because instead of "appearing offline" they will just go offline, fact is alot of people just dont have something to say alot of the time and that is fine.

    also removing or blocking someone who you dont want to speak to right now is a terrible piece of advice and shows to me you have no understanding of how people interact it is a huge overreaction alot of the time, say its late and you need to be at work the next day and someone messages you, do you want to respond and keep yourself up? no ofc not, do you hate that person and wish to block them? also no...

    saying this feature has no purpose shows you two have a very narrow view point and dont see the bigger picture and have resorted to personally attacking the person rather than their argument.

    at this point it looks like you are both nosy server owners who have been ghosted before by someone, got butthurt and are now crusading against the feature and think being able to violate someone elses privacy is okay to do if you are a "server owner" which it is not.  (btw thinking being a server owner gives you any type of real power is a completely pointless considering how easy it is to create a server.)  

    6
  • Dr Beesu 🐝

    sorry @muse but you are not above anyone here if you look back at your own posts you can see you are the one who started with the insulting language here describing those who use and like the feature and skulking, creeping around and calling them "sick" and "perverts" not sure what type of server you are running there if people looking at posts without you knowing are perverts...

    also looking at that list those things you said must better describe yourself than anyone considering you have done nothing but resorted to insults now calling people "narcs" for disagreeing with you this is textbook inflated ego and "delusions of grandeur"  eg you thinking because you are a server owner you are entitled to additional perks and have the right to violate their privacy 

     

    6
  • Hulk

    If I may, allow me to suggest another alternative solution: just bring out the ban hammer and smash the inactives. :p

    Also, anyone invisible could just use the IDLE status instead and you still won't know whether they're actually on, active, or not, any way. So this suggested feature is awfully pointless.

    6
  • KalooNie

    Seems like an invasion of privacy but I can understand there are certain uses for it as each server is different. I suppose if anyone has issues they can just avoid the servers using it, I know I would.

    5
  • kyoko

    no one wants to come into your weird erp shit and lurk.

    5
  • Misa

    this is the dumbest suggestion ever, "let's dictate people into doing whatever we want in our server". 
    If you want an actual solution to the problem where you want to know who's read a certain post or posts in a certain channel, then suggest a function where you can keep track of who's seen or read a certain post.

    as a server owner wanting to take away the ability to appear offline is like you just wanna be a dictator, nothing more. 
    if you don't like that people can set their OWN status to whatever the heck they want, that's really your own problem. 
    can't handle that? don't create a server or invite people to it

    5
  • Tigre

    Welp, guess i'm being antisocial right now. If you remove the users ability to go invisible, you'll end up turning away a huge amount of the userbase. As a server owner if you don't want people skulking around then just remove them, as simple as that.

    Also, @Muse I don't know why you are complaining about invites and "Sketchy perverts to skulk around my servers invisibly" when discord grants you the permissions to disable invite links and remove people, just do that.

    Last thing, taking up space when servers don't have a membership limit and trying to enforce certain values of "Netiquette" on people is just laughable and this has really made my day.

     

    Stupid suggestion, don't add it.

    5
  • Misa

    @Muse act like a poor victim all you want, truth remains that you change/delete your posts whenever you've been shut down by facts.

    Edit: who's obsessively downvoting my posts and upvoting their own now?

    5
  • Misa

    @Muse you're just getting pathetic at this point...
    everyone who downvotes you or has a different opinion than you is a 'troll' ok

    lol 'deceitful' 'inessential' , I feel bad for you that you've been ignored by people appearing offline, but I completely understand based on what I've seen from you, why they would do that tbh


    Also nice edit, here's mine:

    someone already suggested the channels being invisible to people appearing offline. maybe you should read the whole thread first

    5
  • Misa

    you must be offended if you give so much thought about a random person on an online thread...

     

    anyway going back to the actual topic rather than this pathetic butthurt kiddo throwing idiotic personal remarks that he himself started in the first place (which ofcourse he deleted or edited out because let's be honest, it's just plain idiotic)

    personally I like to stay in busy mode due to pings and notifications, but majority of people do actually want the invisibility feature

    calling them 'lurkers' or 'weirdo's' or 'perverts' (as those two kids above were saying) really doesn't apply here, someone having an online status could just aswell not be socializing and just be a weird lurking pervert.

    5
  • Misa

    @onethesigma a quick google search gave me this result:
    https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360029554971-Be-invisible-on-one-server-but-online-on-another-

    it's a suggestion on choosing to appear invisible in some servers and not in others.

    if you read through the thread you will find that alot of the people actually find the invisible status very useful, even if it may not be perfect

    anyway ... I think I made my point so it's really up to you now to throw more personal remarks or just accept the fact that others have a different opinion than you 

    5
  • kyoko

    No one cares about your RP servers! Your weird erp only makes a small userbase of discord. The rest of discord have no problem with it and wouldn't want it removed. Discord has no time to add features that benefit a minority when the majority want it back

    4
  • Misa

    @Muse nice edit in your post there bud, but hey invisible mode is what enables antisocial behaviour... because having an online status is going to make people 'interact' in a server. some logic 

    4
  • Misa

    also if everyone in this thread who has used the term 'spying' refer to people just reading content in a discord server, then I guess everyone on discord is spying....

    set up some roles and permissions if you're so afraid of people reading your channels

    4
  • Misa

    @onethesigma I agree, having the server owner force-turn-off the invisibility status on their members (or admins, doesn't matter tbh) is just a massive violation and will 100% guaranteed be abused. 

    it sucks having your admins who need to be approachable most of the time appear offline, but to me that just seems like a case where you need to make that clear to your admins before you assign them the role. (and not just straight up enforce an online status). 

     

    Edit: btw being online but setting your status as 'busy' and ignoring someone will alot of the time offend the person being ignored

    4
  • Misa

    @onethesigma

    I don't think it's just been 'copied' from other social media. it's actually a very wanted feature, if you ignore the few control freaks around here

    4
  • Hulk

    Imagine being called an invader of privacy because you appear lower on a list.

    To be honest, the entire argument is nonsense. The addition of this as a feature would literally change nothing, and therefor its just pointless.

    3
  • argonautilus

    Someone wanting to be invisible isn’t always personal or “sneaky.”
    “Online,” even in “do not disturb,” is typically taken by users to mean “present and able to see your communication.” People who are frequently harassed, or simply popular, are more likely to be DMed or pinged if people think their message will be seen immediately. It’s less exhausting and frustrating to stay hidden. People who tend to dip in and out of chats rather than sit down and participate for a few hours at a time may also prefer an “invisible” status to avoid giving people false expectations. Especially in RP servers, it’s not unreasonable for someone to want to quietly catch up without giving a false sense of “presence.”
    Simply asking for this feature sets an uneasy precedent. “If you’re online and in do not disturb, why didn’t you read my message first???” People are allowed to be in a hurry, or too exhausted to do certain activities while wanting to do others, or need or simply want to be in their DMs/other servers without signaling they’re active on Discord. People do not owe you a signal of activity.

    If you’re a mod sending a server-critical message, require users react with a particular emoji upon reading the message. After a certain number of days, DM members who haven’t reacted.

    3

Please sign in to leave a comment.