namrog84

Hi HN,

I've been a Discord user (namrog84) since Jan 2016 and it's crucial for my personal friendships and professional game dev work. Three months ago, I was permanently banned (Oct 2026?) without any warnings. Apparently because an old server I created for the game Dark and Darker was left abandoned and unmoderated.

Now, not only have I lost contact with friends and collaborators, but I'm also cut off from essential support channels for development tools and communities. Despite multiple appeal attempts (all seemingly automated rejections), I don't think I've had a real conversation with Trust & Safety. I acknowledge as a server creator I share responsibility for moderation, but without any prior warnings a permanent ban seems disproportionate.

Discord was my primary social outlet after I left my role at Microsoft, so losing that network has been personally tough and professionally limiting.

Is there any proven path forward or guidance from the HN Community? Are there lessons from others who've faced similar bans and found success either in reinstating their accounts or otherwise? any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated.

Full additional details (timelines, appeals, screenshots, and such here): https://gist.github.com/namrog84/684f5e8ea854d7d04c149854b84bdce7

For context, I'm a former Microsoft employee turned full-time indie game dev: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-gorman-b3544412/

Thanks for reading and any tips or advice is welcome.

Adam (namrog84)

I have been interested in starting a hobby project that could one day maybe become something more.

I've been considering a Discord alternative as 1 possibility of a project and to do a few things differently.

MS Teams and Slack still seem more business oriented still. I have heard of Revolt but it feels like it's going just direct Discord Alternative, and not trying to change it up too much, at least not yet.

What features would you consider a worthwhile differentiator instead of doing 'more of the same' that discord wouldn't likely ever do?

Obviously, aside from all the standard-esque things from text to voice, etc..

The few features that could make a discord alt more compelling of a platform.

1. More public facing community features (Don't be a blackhole of information). e.g. Allow public facing announcements/channels to be viewable without an account on the web. Some game companies use Discord to share announcements/patch notes but having to 'have an account, join a server, to view patch notes'. This blackhole of information just feels challenging for no good reason.

2. Allow a few more 'advanced users' type scenarios, even if it results in inconsistent or degraded user experiences. e.g. Allow P2P video screen sharing without needing to go thru middle re-broadcast. I know this doesn't scale with multiple consumers but with 1-2 proper users it be allowable. Saves a lot of upfront server $.

3. Support Channel/Chat aggregation (mostly cosmetic). Have a single view for quickly going between channels/private messages. Without having to go to each individual server first.

# Differentation

What features would you consider a worthwhile differentiator instead of doing 'more of the same' that discord is ever likely to do?

Also, any recommendations on technologies or frameworks to help me jumpstart? I have my professional strengths, but would rather stay open minded to all suggestions.