Forum:Citing from Discord

Forums: Yew Grove > Citing from Discord

This page or section is an archive. Please do not edit the contents of this page. This thread was archived on 22 June 2018 by JaydenKieran.

As Jagex have gotten more involved in communities on Discord (e.g their own Discord server for RuneScape, the RS Wiki Discord server, Deep Sea Fishing, etc), it has become more common for information that may be notable enough to include in wiki articles to be said by one of their employees. Here's an example of a Discord message being used a citation on the wiki.

I think that while the information would be acceptable in any other circumstance, Discord is a medium that just isn't suitable for being used as a citation in an article. Even if someone takes a screenshot of a message, that message could be faked, the person who sent it could be someone pretending to be an employee (e.g changing their name and photo). There is no "public record" of Discord messages on the internet that can be linked to (in the same way that Twitter or a Reddit thread could).

As such, I think it is unacceptable to allow citations (and thus information taken from a Discord message that could be construed as speculative) from Discord. As this is inevitably going to come up on future occasions as Jagex interact more via Discord, I think it is necessary to amend RS:FUTURE to explicitly state that sourcing from Discord is not permitted.

Discussion

Support proposal - https://i.imgur.com/xHR7zpA.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/6encXAo.png 12:49, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

Support - Srylius (talk) 12:57, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

Oppose - I think citations from Discord should be allowed unless any other public source can be used. Sources can be faked anywhere, screenshots, twitter messages etc. It's pointless to block discord citations just because of "people can fake sources" as anyone can fake anything these days. Maximus Gugu of Armadyl: Your Friendly Neighborhood Artist. 13:02, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

Discord is not a public source. That's the point. It is marginally harder to fake a tweet or any other of our sources because we cite an actual, public website which a person can navigate to themselves to verify that it is legitimate. We also archive them using a trusted tool (web.archive.org, archive.is). There is no equivalent for Discord - it's the same as citing a WhatsApp conversation, Slack message, iMessage, Skype message, etc https://i.imgur.com/xHR7zpA.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/6encXAo.png 13:06, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

I think I didn't explain my point right. I wasn't saying Discord is a public source, I meant we should allow Discord in the last cases where a public source isn't avaliable. And do you really think someone is gonna fake a hint to a future update? And what impact could this cause? Maximus Gugu of Armadyl: Your Friendly Neighborhood Artist. 13:10, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

It's certainly possible that someone could do that. The impact it has is quite big actually - we're seen as a reliable source of information on the game and we should continue to take steps to prevent anything being inaccurate or just outright wrong. Wikipedia have a quite long policy about verifiable sources which helps explain why something like Discord wouldn't be acceptable there, and the general idea applies here. I don't think we need a policy like that, but we do need to explicitly rule out something that has started frequently being used as a source, especially around information on the Mining and Smithing rework. https://i.imgur.com/xHR7zpA.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/6encXAo.png 13:19, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

The M&S Discord is one of the main channels of communication with the JMods responsible, where do you plan on getting information besides the Discord server, Streams every 2 months? That's too little when we can use things JMods say on the chat. Maximus Gugu of Armadyl: Your Friendly Neighborhood Artist. 13:34, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

Support - 5-x ^Talk 15:52, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

Support - Salix of Prifddinas ^(Talk) 16:11, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

Support - If need be, ask the JMods to tweet the statement being cited Template:Signatures/Ciphrius Kane 16:17, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

Support - While a part of me wants to treat the stuff written on Discord as official statements since the developers normally are logged into their personal Jagex/Jmod-themed Discord accounts, I can understand the concerns about screenshots potentially being edited, taken out of context etc. If an editor wishes to add information about upcoming content mentioned on Discord they can always attempt to contact the respective developer(s) through Twitter, a Reddit thread or other platforms that are easier to cite and/or verify the legitimacy of.
Furthermore, I personally feel that something briefly being mentioned on non-official platforms isn't enough of a confirmation that it actually is going to make it all the way to the live game. During the most recent Gamejam I saw multiple Jmods state they personally 'wanted' to add something to the game. Should these statements also be considered official confirmations that whatever was mentioned *will* be added? Absolutely not. I believe that by the time an (upcoming) update actually has made it all the way to an official dev blog, Q&A stream, The Year Ahead video etc. it's much more likely to actually being added to the game. Frede^Talk 17:25, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

Support --Scuzzy Beta 21:57, June 13, 2018 (UTC)

Support - If you can't link to it so a random passerby can verify it, it's not a reference worth having. User:Cqm/Signature

Support - What cqm said above MAGE-KIL-R 11:48, June 17, 2018 (UTC)

Closed - Citing from Discord will be explicitly disallowed. https://i.imgur.com/xHR7zpA.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/6encXAo.png 13:21, June 22, 2018 (UTC)