2022-01-05
How to Join Discord Server
Discord users have increased significantly over the past years. In 2021, Business of Apps reported that Discord has reached a total of 350 million users with 6.7 million active servers worldwide.
We have shared in the previous article on how to use Discord for newbies. In this article, we will explain what is a server, how to join them, and the necessary privacy measures to be taken.
A Discord Server refers to a space or a group that facilitates interaction with your fellow community through text or voice channels. One user account can have multiple servers to connect to. You can join an existing Server to be part of that community group, and also create your own Server if you wish to establish one.
If you want to join an existing Discord Server, you have to find the invitation link of that particular Server. A website or community would usually show the link to the Server on their public social media platform. When you click on that link, you will be directed to their Discord server.
Meanwhile, to search for a Server, you can only do that through Discord's web browser or application on a PC. This search feature is disabled on the mobile app. Next, click on the compass icon located at the bottom of the sidebar which brings you to “Explore Public Servers”. Type in the Server's name that you are looking for in the search box.
You can also create your own Server. Simply click on the [+] icon located on the sidebar, and a pop-up window will appear asking you to choose a template or create your Server from blank.
After joining a Server, you can start to interact with your community through the text or voice channel. If you are the Server owner, you might want to invite the people you wish to get together with by giving them the invitation link.
Text channel is denoted by hashtag (#) icon, and in this channel, you will be interacting with your community through text messages. There can be many text channels under a category, which are usually intended for different topics of conversations in the Server. For the text messages, you can interact with a reply and/or emoji, as well as tag another person and upload GIFs.
The voice channel is denoted by the speaker icon, and you can connect with other members of the group by voice or video calls. You can also share your screen and camera input at the same time. Once you enter the voice channel, you can hear all the participants of the virtual meeting.
You can modify the notification and privacy settings for each of the Server and channels. Click the Server icon of your choice, go to the top of the window, and click on the arrow down icon beside the Server name. The menu will open a list of options, which include Notification Settings and Privacy Settings.
You may wish to be undisturbed when logging in to Discord at certain times. For that, you can mute the whole Server itself or any specific channels from the server and you will not receive any pop-up notifications.
Simply right-click on a text channel, server name, or server icon and look for notification settings or mute channel. Muting a channel does exactly what you expect it to do, which is disabling any notifications, and you can choose how long it should stay that way.
For a Server with large community members, you may not be acquainted with all of the members whether in real life or virtually. Sometimes you just want to keep the conversations on the Server without anyone sending you a private message. To prevent this, you can right-click on the server icon or the server name and choose Privacy Settings. Then, you can choose to disable any server members to send you a direct message.
You can have a different avatar and nickname on each of the servers that you joined. Similar to privacy settings, you can right-click on the server icon or server name and choose "Edit Server Profile". Next, just type in your preferred name on that particular server. You can also choose a preferred avatar, but this option is only available if you subscribed to Discord Nitro, which is a paid membership plan allowing you better access to other features on Discord.
Image: Discord
Although Discord is exciting and user-friendly, please be reminded that the more server you enters, the more exposure to scammers you will receive. Hence, always be careful and ensure that safety measures have been taken before entering any public server.
CrepeToast