Guide to Discord

As you may be aware, the Ustinov GCR has created a Discord server.

Ustinov will be holding an online day this year instead of its yearly summer BBQ on our Youtube channel. On this, you will be able to comment and interact with others in real-time. In addition to this, there will be specific areas on Discord that you can join and comment e.g. discussing the quiz answers or playing games with others. The best way to think about this is as having smaller spaces online that you can have a conversation with friends/ new people without everyone else seeing. As a bonus, you can have the live event stream open in another window and so still listen to all the music and entertainment on this!

Quick Summary

To access the GCR Discord server, you will need to:

Register an account on Discord/ sign in if you have one
Join the GCR server using this link https://discord.gg/ANCv6eu
Check out the many channels such as the Virtual Ustinov Day Channel

The Ustinov GCR Discord server is not just used for the Virtual Ustinov Day. This is where the Ustinov holds many weekly events such as pub quizzes and movie nights, and alumni are welcome to attend.

Detailed Guide

Here is a quick guide to help you get started using Discord that should help those who haven’t used it before. You can do a lot of really amazing things on Discord, but if you haven’t used it before it, unfortunately, looks quite confusing. Hopefully, this should help introduce you to the basic terms, and provide pictures of what you need to click. You can use Discord on your browser or phone, but the computer application is probably the easiest for most people.

First things first—you will need to download the Discord application and create an account. Either use this link to the GCR Ustinov server: https://discord.gg/ANCv6eu or go to https://discord.com/new. After you have downloaded the application, open it.

You will then need to create an account using an email address. We suggest using a personal (non-Durham one), so then you can keep using Discord and attend future events once you graduate. Click the register button (see the arrow) and fill in the details on the next page. Ignore the email/ password boxes and QR Code for now. These are used to login once you have registered an account. You may well need to verify your account by email.

Once you have registered, make sure you are logged in, and you should see something like this.

As the programme suggests, this is looking quite empty right now, but we’ll quickly explain what some of the areas are:

This is the home screen, click the home button (red box) to get here)
The servers will come up on the left (yellow box) once you join some. You currently aren’t in any so this will be empty. You will be joining the Ustinov GCR Server, but if you like you can join many other public servers (found in the blue box) or servers your friends have made.
You can directly message your friends like in Facebook messenger or WhatsApp. You can select who you want to send the message to, or see your history in the white box, but this is empty for now. Once you have joined the Ustinov GCR server you can message people in this.
In the green box, you can change your online status by clicking on the small green button, mute yourself or deafen yourself (mute and stop yourself from hearing others), or click on the gear to change your settings such as your username.

To join the Ustinov GCR Server, go onto your web browser and use the following link. It should open in the Discord app if you are signed in with it open, but you might need to provide permissions to allow the browser to open the external link.

Link to the Server: https://discord.gg/ANCv6eu

If there are any problems with the link, please contact a member of the GCR Exec.

This should then open in your Discord App, click Join Ustinov GCR.

You will see a prompt by the JARVIS Bot telling you to click on the #welcome-mat. Once you do this, this is what you should see. You can tell I’m in the #welcome-mat because it is highlighted on the left.

Some things to note:

You have now joined the Ustinov GCR Server, and so it has been added to your server list (yellow box). If you join other servers, click on the Ustinov logo to get back to this server.
The Server is split into categories (such as Welfare, Information) which are further subdivided into channels (such as welfare-tips, contacts). If these are prefixed with a # then they are text only (such as welfare-tips), if they have an audio symbol (such as Welfare 1-to-1) then they are used for voice and optionally video (red box).
You can be in both a text channel and an audio channel at the same time, but only one of each!
You can see who is online and offline on the right (white box)

Now head to #role-signups on the left as instructed by JARVIS to choose your role. Click on the NEW, champagne glasses or platypus icon corresponding to your role.

Once you have done this, you will be able to explore all of the categories and channels in full. Most of these have an info channel giving some explanation as to what that channel is for. We also recommend having a read in the #guide channel for further tips.

Using the voice and text channels

You will notice that channels are preceded by a # indicate that they are for text/ images or an audio symbol indicating that they are for audio/ video only. To join a text channel all you need to do is click on the name of the channel, and then you should be able to see all current messages, or add your own.

Similarly, to join an audio channel please click on the audio channel you would like to join. Remember you can be in a maximum of one text and one audio channel at a time.

Once connected, this is what you should see:

You can disconnect by clicking the disconnect button (red box).
You can share your video from a webcam by clicking on the Video button (blue box).
You can share your computer scree by clicking on the Screen button (purple box).
You can mute yourself by clicking the mute icon (green box).

We hope that this beginners guide helps any new users who have any difficulties. If you have further questions, please email a member of the GCR, or message one of the GCR Discord Admins (the people with their names highlighted in gold).