UPDATED POST: READ THIS FIRST

This message was originally posted on the MG Guilded server in the Announcements section. In the post, I refer to “here” and “this platform.” I’m referring to Guilded itself and not the MG web site or forums. Depending on when you’re reading this article, that server may be long gone. So, this post is archived on our web site as well as the forums.

For information on joining our chat network: MG Chat.

GUILDED, HOW WE WILL MISS THEE…

First off, I LOVE Guilded. From the moment I originally found this platform, it seemed a perfect fit for MG – especially with the integrated documents and forums alongside chat. It’s truly a one-stop-shopping community builder tool. So, after much discussion, we bailed on Discord June 30, 2021 after some of their questionable Terms of Service additions and joined Guilded.

Roblox, the company that acquired Guilded not long after we came here, left Guilded to be autonomous. Their developers suddenly had the money and time to push this platform forward – and they did. Admittedly, video streaming a game on here still isn’t great, but speed, performance, availability, and feature tweaks were happening at a pretty rapid pace, leaving Discord behind in many ways.

Fast-forward to today – Roblox announced that in order to use Guilded from mid-July onward, you will be required to open a Roblox account and link it to Guilded. Thereafter, in order to use Guilded, you’ll need to login via Roblox. This does not set well with many of us – and it probably shouldn’t with you either – whether you play the game Roblox or not.

Many of the MG staff are not going to create Roblox accounts (Full disclosure: I created one so we didn’t lose this server)… This means our tiny but mighty community will be fractured. We can’t have that.

Discord continues to make questionable ToS changes and has embraced a censorship campaign against servers who don’t comply with their ideology, but only if you get noticed by Discord (the company). We wouldn’t necessarily be safe there either. I’ve been on 3 Discord Servers that have been shutdown for alleged violations of “content that is against our ToS.” That’s not ideal either. We have people here with strong beliefs, and as long as the conversations and debate remain civil, I don’t see why anyone here should be censored…

I propose we future-proof ourselves so we don’t have to be in this situation again, and hopefully get on with growing our community. Note: This is a TEST of something new. We’ll see how it goes.

Enter MG Chat (powered by Matrix) & the eventual rebirth of MG Forums (powered by Discourse) (more on Forums later)

MG Chat is a “Matrix Homeserver” that can be accessed in a variety of ways. This system is hosted on MG’s very own servers. There’s no overarching entity that can simply pull the plug. It could be the community’s “forever home” but it would require moving – again. I invite everyone here, and whomever you want to bring along to help us trial the new system.

For information on joining our chat network: MG Chat.