knowledge-kitchen / course-notes

Discord Messenger - Use in a Software Engineering Course

• Roles
• Direct messages
• Channels
• Rules

Discord is a messenger / discussion application that we use for all course communication.

Learning to effectively use Discord and similar team chat systems is a key requirement of the course, not something optional.

See the official Beginner’s Guide for how to use Discord’s basic functionality.

Roles

Every user is assigned a role.

• admins-xx-yzz- all administrators for this course, where xx is replaced with a two-character course code, e.g. se and y is replaced by the term, e.g. f for Fall or s for Spring, and zz is replaced by the last two digits of the year, e.g. 27.
• admins - all graders, tutors, any course assistants in all courses, and the instructor are all given this role
• graders - all graders in all courses are given this role
• tutors - all tutors in all courses are given this role
• students - all students in all courses are given this role

It is possible to send a message to all users with a specific role by including @role in the message, e.g. @graders.

Direct messages

Do not send Friend Requests or Direct Messages (DMs) to anyone in this course. Discussions take place in dedicated channels.

Channels

Discussions in Discord take place in Channels. Channels are grouped into Categories. The categories are…

General Channels

Channels in the “GENERAL” category:

• admin - a channel for the admins to converse
• general - a channel for general conversation
• git-workflow-practice - a channel to help students find partners for the git workflow practice exercise
• grading - a channel moderated by the graders for discussion about grading
• project-ideas - a channel where students can post their proposed project ideas to find potential teammates
• pronouncements - a channel for official announcements from the admins… only admins should post here
• quizzes - a channel for discussion about quizzes
• team-talk - a channel where students can post to find potential teammates
• tutoring - a channel moderated by the tutors for discussion about tutoring

Student Channels

Channels in the “STUDENTS 01” category:

• fb1258 - each student must create a private channel - replace fb1258 with your own NYU Net ID. This channel will be for semi-private communication directly between you and the course administrators without other students. When creating the channel, grant access to the @admins-xx-yyy role so course administrators can view and post to the channel.

Discord only allows a limited number of channels in each category. If there is no more room in the “STUDENTS 01” category for your channel, please it into a channel named “STUDENTS 02”, “...03”, etc, instead.

Team Channels

Identifying Teammates

When working on a team project, you and your teammates may need to self-organize and find each other.

To find your teammates once you’ve been assigned to a specific team, do the following:

1. Create a Thread within the #team-talk channel titled with the name of your team and message each other there.

2. Once you have found each all your teammates in the Thread, оr within 2 days of the start of the project, whichever comes first, create a proper channel for your team following the instructions below.

Creating Team Channels

Channels in the “TEAMS 01” category:

• octapus - each team must create a private channel - replace octapus with your own team name. Add access to course administrators to this channel.

If there is no more room in the “TEAMS 01” category for your channel, please it into a channel named “TEAMS 02”, “...03”, etc, instead.

Avoid the Kitchen Sink Approach to Channel Permissions

Do not do the kitchen sink approach to permissions on your channels. Rather, follow the instructions. You only need to add one role to your channel: @admins-ad-s26. Do not add all other possible roles and people or you will have people viewing your channel who are irrelevant to you and this course. If you have already added many irrelevant roles, please remove them before next class. Note that @super (superusers) and @Bloombot (class chatbot) are automatically included into all channels.

E.g. do not set permissions to something like this:

Accountability

All messages sent in the course Discord server are logged and can be reviewed by course administrators.

Consistent use of our Discord server for all team communication will help keep team members accountable. In the case of conflict or disagreement within a team, course administrators may review discussions in Discord to see what was said by whom and who did or did not respond or participate in any relevant discussion. Messages sent outside of the Discord server, using any other communications system, will be outside the purview of course administrators and will thus be irrelevant to any such review.

Extracurricular Banter

Channels in the “BANTER” category:

• These channels may be shared with other courses and are for general discussion.

Rules

To learn to use a team messenger app effectively and to keep discussions orderly and focused, abide by the following rules:

1. students should never post to the pronouncements channel - keep this for official announcements only
2. student-created channels must be placed in an appropriate channel category.
3. if you are targeting a message to a specific person or role, use the @username syntax to notify them, e.g. Dear @Prof - great to see you!, or @graders - I have a question about my score on the Space-Based Data Centers quiz....
4. if your message is in reply to an earlier message, click/tap the reply button on the message to which you are replying rather than sending a new unrelated message from scratch. This way, everyone understands what your message is in relation to.
5. general messages and questions should be posted to a relevant public channel so others can see the discussion surrounding it.
6. if a message is related to your personal performance or grades, send it as a private message in your private channel or discuss in-person.
7. when posting documents or notes to share with others, write them with the same style you would any technical documentation, including, following the rules of grammar, writing like a human, using lists that look like lists, and sharing your writing as plain Markdown-formatted text supported by Discord, not as a screenshot or other file attachment.
8. direct questions about grading to the graders - they have the word, “Grader”, in their usernames and there is a @grader role that can be used to target a message to all graders.
9. direct questions about tutoring to the tutors - they have the word, “Tutor”, in their usernames and there is a @tutor role that can be used to target a message to all tutors.
10. direct questions about other matters to the professor (@Prof) and the course assistant if there is one for this course - they have the word, “Course Assistant”, in their username.
11. avoid using slang or culturally-specific abbreviations or shorthands when messaging with anyone you are not already friendly with… it’s easy to misintepret people’s intentions in textual messaging and your lack of formality may be interpreted as disrespect or insult by someone who does not know you as the kind gentle soul you truly are.

Students are expected to abide by NYU’s student conduct policies in all their communication in this course, regardless of the platform being used.