An Analysis of the Discord Servers I'm In

[metaparadox]

So, I've had a bunch of friends express shock at how many Discord servers I'm in recently. I tell them that I have most of them muted, and that many are for specific events or tools. It got me thinking about what types of servers I'm in and how to categorize them. So I decided to make a private database in my Notion account, listed all the servers I'm in there, and came up with a tagging system. Then I counted the tags in each category and made some graphs.

 

First of all, here's the tags I ended up with and what they mean, in order of how many servers had each tag:

 

61 tagged Game Dev or Design - A server with a focus on game development or design, whether analog or digital

48 tagged Queer - A server with a focus on at least one queer identity

44 tagged Event - A server focused on a specific event or series of events

43 tagged LARP - A server with a focus on live-action roleplaying

39 tagged Gaming - A server with a broad focus on playing games, whether analog or digital

34 tagged TTRPG - A server with a focus on tabletop roleplaying games

22 tagged Aspec - A server with a focus on asexual or aromantic spectrum identity

19 tagged Organizations or Companies - A server focused on or run by a formalized organization or company

17 tagged Clubs and Groups - A server focused on a more informal club or group

15 tagged Art and Writing - A server with a major focus on creating art and writing

15 tagged Specific Websites - A server with a focus on a specific website or part of a website (for example, a subreddit)

15 tagged Creator-Specific - A server with a focus on a specific creator or collective of creators

13 tagged Servers I Run - A server where I either do the majority of running the server or I created the server

12 tagged Zines - A server with a major focus on zines (self-published booklets)

12 tagged Disability and Neurodiversity - A server with a major focus on disability or neurodiversity

11 tagged Networking and Professional - A server with a focus on professional development or networking

9 tagged Specific Tools or Programming Languages - A server with a focus on a specific creative tool or programming language

8 tagged POC - A server with a focus on POC (people of color) identity

7 tagged Personal - A personal server for someone (or a group of people) and their friends

7 tagged Gender - A server with a focus on gender as an identity

5 tagged Testing - A server that is focused on testing Discord or bot functionality or playtesting something specific

4 tagged General Nerdy - A server that has a broad focus on nerdy interests

 

In total, there were 460 tags across 192 servers on my two Discord accounts, which is an average of 2.4 tags per server.

 

Here's a pie chart of all the tags:

Comments

[brainwane]

Thank you for the analysis!

I am curious: about what proportion of these servers have no or nearly no activity over, say, the past 2 months?

[metaparadox]

Hmm... I'm not sure off the top of my head. Lots of servers I'm in are for events that happen at most a few times a year, so are quiet otherwise. And there's lots of servers I only go in if I need to ask a question about a specific website, tool, or programming language, so I wouldn't know enough about their activity unless I went in and checked. As for more general community servers, I am in quite a few that have gotten quiet over time, even if there's still lots of people in them. But I've also seen servers come back from that quietness. A server is more likely to go quiet if there's fewer people in it, but I've seen both servers that are small and very active as well as medium sized servers that are super quiet. I try to avoid very big servers unless they're something I need to occasionally access for promotion or asking questions and I keep them muted. If I notice a year-round community server I'm in has had almost no activity in the past year, I will probably leave it as soon as I notice this.