Discord changed their TOS to disallow class-action lawsuits and enforce arbitration. It’s possible to opt out but you have to email them at arbitration-opt-out@discord.com with the email you signed up with, within 30 days. The devs are spinning it as protection from frivolous suits, but in all likelihood it’s a precursor to a move toward selling your personal info like other social media sites.
if you need an explanation of why arbitration is bad see below
Here’s a useful copypasta from redditors 3ybex and CreatorKami (Compiled by me)
Dear Discord,
By this email, I am opting out of the agreement to arbitrate as authorized by the new changes to the Discord Terms of Service Agreement.
I DO NOT AGREE TO THE AGREEMENT TO ARBITRATE FOR THE ACCOUNT(S) LISTED/DESCRIBED BELOW:
XXXXX#XXXX (Your discord name and #number), and in the event I should change my username or discriminator, ID XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXX (Your e-mail) +X XXX-XXX-XXXX (Your SMS/Phone and country-code. +1 for United States)
Please let me know immediately if there is additional information needed to implement my opt-out request. Finally, I would like to ask for a written confirmation that you have received and processed this notice.
Sincerely, XXXXX XXXXX
To find your ID, follow CreatorKami’s instructions below:
“The reason being, if you change your username or the 4 digit discriminator after your name, this email is no longer valid in a legal court of law because it isn’t the same anymore as what you sent in your opt-out. The only ID that is unchanging between each Discord account is the hidden ID. I’m sure most people know where to find it, but just in case, go to your settings > appearance, turn on Developer Mode, and then right click your own name in a server userlist. At the very bottom, you’ll see the option to Copy ID.”
I find that if I’m wearing Real Adult Business Clothes my worksona can do things like call people and check my inbox, whereas pajamas hellen mostly wants to shovel hamburgers into her face and set things on fire.
taking a shower is a great help in getting my ass going tbh
The point is not to win. The point is to do the right thing. The point is to try and maybe we win. The point is that not trying is guaranteed failure.
The point is doing our best to make the world better for ourselves. It’s not about victory, it’s about effort.
So you take a breath, you grieve your losses, and you don’t give up. Because we’re all in this together and the very least we can do for the least among us is to say we tried.
Real failure is when they convince you to give up.
As a critiquer, your job is not to “make this piece of writing better” but to understand what the writer wants to achieve and help them to achieve it
Applies beyond writing as well.
Also applies to editing. I was recently talking to another writer whose editor (at a publisher) almost destroyed her desire to keep writing. Writers, know the signs of a shitty editor versus one who actually wants to help you achieve your vision, and don’t be afraid to ask for a different one. (Or fire a bad one if you’re indy.)
I started and re-started my answer to this ask half a dozen times. Because it’s a really, really important question, but it’s also a hard question to answer in a useful way. I’m going to do my best.
Nothing is as important as what you believe is true. If I can control what you think, I can control every decision you make. I can control what products you buy, who you vote for, which of your friends you trust—and which of them you distrust; I can choose which social causes you apply yourself to, and how effectively you champion them; to a very great extent I can even decide what you’ll major in in college, who you’ll marry, IF you’ll marry, if you’ll STAY married if the marriage goes bad, what job you’ll go for, how well you’ll do in that job, how you spend your leisure hours, how you treat your children, how you feel about yourself when you look in the mirror, what you’ll eat for dinner, and if you’ll respect yourself in the morning.
EVERY DECISION YOU MAKE is based on what information you’ve accepted. So if I can make you believe what I want you to believe, I own you.
And make no mistake: my best interests are NEVER the same as your best interests. The most you can hope for from ANY source is that their interests and your interests align. If I’m a company, then it’s in my best interest if you buy my product. I am only interested in the quality and safety of my product to the extent that you will not buy it if it’s garbage, or too dangerous. If I’m a newspaper, believe me, my goal is not to make you a more informed citizen of the world. My goal is to sell newspapers.
However, it may be that my reputation is an important part of reaching my goals: and if I feed you misinformation, my reputation may be damaged. And so a degree of trust may be invested in sufficiently reputable sources, since their goal (“to maintain a high reputation”) and your goal (“to learn something”) are aligned. Be VERY CAREFUL when bestowing this kind of trust on a source, and NEVER let them act as your ONLY source. You can never know for sure how important that reputation really is to them, or for what ends they may be willing to compromise it.
“But this information is from a random Tumblr post, not a news corporation, or a professional blog. Nobody’s making money, here. So why would they lie to me?” Attention? Attention’s a big one. Those posts you see going around, full of SHOCKING CLAIMS, usually have tens of thousands of notes. Tens of thousands of people shocked – shocked! – to learn that feeding bread to ducks makes them sick, or that Charlie Chaplin was a Nazi, or that bleach mixed with baking soda can eat through concrete. It doesn’t matter that none of those things are true. It doesn’t even matter if the OP, or all of the people reblogging it, BELIEVE that they’re true. What matters is that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE had in their own interest something that was more important to them than “make sure the things I’m reblogging are accurate.”
Maybe they wanted the prestige of being the first to bring interesting new information to their social group. Maybe they were alarmed by what they read, and they wanted to keep their friends and loved ones safe. Maybe what they read reinforced some bias that they had, and so they disseminated it because they wanted it to be true. Maybe having this surprising intel on their blog made them feel more intelligent, or more socially conscious. There are lots of reasons, because there are lots of people, and every single one of those people had their own best interests.
And none of those interests are yours.
So because what you believe is SO important, and because you are the sole guardian of your own best interests, I think it’s downright reckless to accept any piece of information as fact without asking two questions first:
– Who is telling me this? Do I have reason to trust them? Should I trust them SO MUCH as to let them be the sole arbiter of what I believe on this subject?
– Who benefits if I accept it as the truth? THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. A lot of information masquerades as being in the interests of one thing when really it’s in the interests of something else. Really think about it.
When you choose to believe someone – anyone – about anything, you are giving them power over you. And skepticism is the only thing that protects you from giving that power to people who don’t deserve it.
When you choose to believe someone – anyone – about anything, you are giving them power over you. And skepticism is the only thing that protects you from giving that power to people who don’t deserve it.
And this is why we research outside of tumblr before reblogging posts that claim something as fact, and why we research by looking at more than one source.
Well, the beauty of fandom is that nobody’s voice is needed. Fandom doesn’t need my voice, if I stopped writing tomorrow there would be plenty of people to say anything I could have thought of saying, and then some. The nice thing about fandom is that we’re all here because we want to be here, and when we talk it’s because we want to say things.
So I think look at it this way instead: is there a story you need to tell? Is there something you need to say? Or even just want to say? Fandom can be as much about us as it is about the canon we’re writing for. What has always driven me in terms of fandom is that there’s a story in me that wants out, or I have something I want to say about the canon, and there’s no reason not to say it. That’s how I write – out of compulsion and desire. Those aren’t things anyone outside of me can inspire or control.
So I guess I write by making it about me, and not giving a crap whether the canon needs what I have to say. 😀 It takes a healthy ego sometimes, I admit. But that’s how I do it.
legos don’t need you to build a spaceship out of them, you do it because you feel like it. minecraft doesn’t need you to ride a pig. yarn doesn’t need you to turn it into a sweater. birds don’t need you to spot them with binoculars and look them up in the bird book. a hobby is something you don’t have to do, that you do because you feel like it.
is it FUN? i’ve poured hundreds of hours into fics that got maybe six reviews. but i had FUN. write for yourself, write the stories that YOU NEED. then it doesn’t matter if six people like it or if six hundred people like it. fandom should be fun because people deserve to have fun and you, specifically, right now, deserve happiness and satisfaction and to do enjoyable things just for the pleasure of enjoying them.
“When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you. You walk around ashamed of being yourself. You try hard to make up for the way you look, walk, feel. Decisions are agonizing because if you, the person who makes the decision, is damaged, then how can you trust what you decide? You doubt your own impulses so you become masterful at looking outside yourself for comfort. You become an expert at finding experts and programs, at striving and trying hard and then harder to change yourself, but this process only reaffirms what you already believe about yourself – that your needs and choices cannot be trusted, and left to your own devices you are out of control.”
Man I have never known straight dude writers to shy away from putting out stuff like ‘my thinly-veiled self-insert goes on a mediocre adventure but more importantly ends up in a love quadrangle with these four female characters who are all incredibly hot to me’, but most of the lady writers I know get nervous if they write one (1) love story where *gasp* two whole dudes compete for the same lady’s love!
So listen.
Listen.
Go out and give your warrior witch lady a magic talking panther that flies and five hot elf boyfriends (or girlfriends, or datemates, whatever) who all happily share her. Or fight over her. Whichever. Make each of them as smoking hot as you please. Indulge yourself. Live.
And this goes absolutely double for WoC and trans ladies and queer ladies and everyone else who has extra troubles with being shamed for your indulgence.
If you’re going to worry about stuff in your story it should be things like ‘is that trope racist?’ or ‘how do I fix this plot hole?’, not ‘am I putting in too many elements that I personally enjoy?’
just moving along like everyone else 