Shout out to the community
So this MrPowerScripts thing is still rolling. Longer than I ever thought it would. There were large gaps in time between uploading videos when I was only making content on youtube. Then trying to blog to be a better writer, and learn more about SEO. Again, large gaps in content creation there. Then I made a freaking podcast - and I’m the least talkative person ever. So, per usual, large gaps in content. I’ll admit I can run my mouth on and on about subjects I’m fond of, but I can’t have a podcast entirely based around cheese, basketball, and Python. Or can I?
Despite the gaps, eventually, I always fall back to creating something. And the biggest reason for this is all of the comments, e-mails, and most importantly - the Discord community.
When I first started the discord server, I wasn’t quite sure why I was making it, but it was easy. You click the + sign, enter in some information, and boom - you have a Discord server. And I’ve always admired Discord as a company that knows how to develop fantastic software, even when I was only using it to chat with friends during games. I wanted to know more about the app and creating a server fulfilled the natural curiosity to learn what else it can do. Tons. So much stuff. Roles, Bots, Permissions, Channels, Categories, AHHHHHHHHHHHH. It was a bit too much for me to learn at the time. Many buttons. Very scary.
Still, despite not going all out customizing the server, I did manage to get it working enough to create some channels and invite links. I added the invite link to everything: all the youtube videos, the blog, and wherever else I could place it. And then, I pretty much forgot about it because that place was empty.
After some time, random people would trickle in here and there. Mostly silent, but some people were far more engaging. And they banded together and hung out to chat in the server, which is weird because it’s the Seinfeld of Discord Servers. It’s not really about anything. It’s people just hanging around. And the server existed for a long time as a small community of people sharing their technical achievements, and memes, and of course, the occasional troll.
Until a few of the early members told me the server sucks and I should make it better. I wasn’t using the server to its potential. All those things that scared me: The Roles, bots, and other settings were just too much for me to deal with, but they all knew how to set that stuff up. And they not only inspired me to clean up the place - but they also wanted to help. From that point on, the server had its first (and currennt) mods, and they’re why the server has grown to 800 users from the few we had chillen there for so long.
We organized channels, made info easier to find, added roles, added a bunch of bots. I learned more about making Discord bots myself. If it weren’t for their support, I would have never taken the initiative to build out the server we have today. With bots that let you run code right in the discord chat, and tons of roles to let people identify their skills, and channels with fun/educational/odd purposes. They’ve also helped maintain a respectful culture for everyone to hang out, with the use of fancy moderation tools.
I didn’t build the community. The community built itself. All I did was make the server and share the link. Watching that happen is the most memorable part for me. As the community grew, more people helped work on projects like the Reddit Karma Farming bot. There was more exciting stuff to talk about when people had great results from it. Seriously, check the pins in this channel. All the discussions and things people shared inspired me to code more and create new kinds of content. I remember a couple of weeks where everyone was making blogs. One person made a blog, and then everyone wanted blogs. So, naturally, everyone made blogs :D. People started making and sharing other things like bots, apps and Discord Servers themselves.
The server has it’s ups and downs with activity, and that’s okay. The important thing for me is the culture of knowledge sharing, creating things, and inspiring each other. So I wanna shout out to everyone who helped make the server what it is today and share some of the projects created and shared there.
IF I FORGOT ANYONE’S PROJECTS OR LINKS, TELL ME, AND I’LL ADD IT. It was kinda tough searching through lots of old discord chats.
An exciting project from one of the first members is disease.sh, which may be the most widely used COVID-19 API for statistics about the disease. You can learn more about it on his blog post. It’s kinda wild to watch what a simple Node app that was shared in the server has turned into. I hope more peoples projects grow into awesome creations, and that’s why it’s so important to encourage people to create.
A bunch of blogs have been made: https://elitedamyth.xyz/ https://zegs.site/ https://cosmicice.xyz/ https://taiten.de/
energy_sync made a LED strip that syncs to the overall color display of his monitor.
hallowed made a oneliner strawpoll bot in Python
I’m probably forgetting a lot more stuff, but I’ll treat this as a living blog post and keep adding more later. Huge thank you to everyone for inspiring me to do more!