Our Discord channel is finally working as is the sign up link :)

Hello all

We have been plugging away behind the scenes to get the Roboscopes Discord server up and running, and I think we're nearly there. Complete with a novel and interactive way to share your processed images, it's a brilliant way to build community and discuss what we all do.

One of the hardest things to do is to encourage interaction between our members. This is especially an issue with syndicates, because we need members to talk to avoid huge pier queues, duplication of work and dare we say piers sitting idle.

So what is Discord? You can think of it in its most basic term as a chat room. Users gather and can talk in lots of themed "Channels" within the Roboscopes Discord server. Channels are prefixed with a hash #, so if you were to type #astro-chat in a message hit send, that would create a link for people to click to go to that channel. Discord is very clever about things like that.

More simply, there are a nice list of channels on the left of the screen which you can simply left-click on to view. Depending on your subscription/hosting package, you will be able to view more or less channels than others.

It is good to just install Discord, join the server and have a play. Right click on things, (Discord has famously excellent right-click context menus), upload images, links, attachments. Dripping hot memes. There are lots of YouTube videos if you're struggling, or of course, Admins or Roboscopes staff are happy to assist!

Hopefully in the future, dataset notifications will go through Discord, which will allow your phone (if you so wish) to ping and let you know. Speaking of which, Discord has an excellent mobile app and is well worth downloading.

Have a look at the image-gallery there, and please do share your images.

You'll find that Discord allows quick answers to questions you may have in a way forums do not. Discord also has a mini-forum-like feature which you'll see if you're a syndicate member and click on a channel like pier-1-object-suggestions.

It absolutely does not replace a forum wholesale, but does allow us to build a camaraderie that is hard to do on slow-burner forums.

So, how to join? Simply click this link: https://discord.gg/GmCp6GKxKb

If you have discord, it will open the application and join you to the server. If not, it may take you to a less powerful web-based version of Discord. The application can be downloaded at https://discord.com/download

Choose a Display Name - we recommend the same one you use on the forums here, and please message an Admin (yellow names) or Roboscopes Staff (red names) when you have joined. For simplicity, in your message let us know what piers you are subscribed to or host at, and we will get your channel list more relevant for you.

Lots of companies and groups have Discord channels, it's an excellent way to get community support. We hope to do live processing sessions with screen share, run competitions and provide a great place to tap in to the knowledge of other members.