General Definitions

Modifiers

Shall

This word (also “required”, “must”), in any context and word case, implies something that has to be followed under any circumstance. No exceptions are to be made.

Shall not

This word (also “must not / mustn’t”), in any context and word case, implies something that has to be never done under any circumstances. No exceptions are to be made.

Should

This word (also “recommended”, “ought”), in any context and word case, implies something that might be ignored in specific circumstances, given there is valid reasons or particular and justifiable circumstances. Before that, the following implications should be inspected, understood, and weighed against each other. When in doubt, the underlying rule should always be followed rather than not.

Should not

This word (also “not recommended”, “shouldn’t”), in any context and word case, implies something that, if possible, has to be avoided. Said rule is possible to be ignored in specific circumstances, given there is valid reasons or particular and justifiable circumstances. Before that, the following implications should be inspected, understood, and weighed against each other. When in doubt, the underlying rule should always be followed rather than not.

May

This word (also “optional”, “optionally”), in any context and word case, implies something that is truly just a general guideline. There is no need to follow a rule or action defined by this. Following said rule makes no difference in the validity of the action.

Entities

Community

A community (“communities”, “server”, “guild”, “servers”, “guilds”) shall be defined as a collection of channels in which users can communicate with each other.

User

A user (“users”) shall be defined as a communicator or account run by a communicator or an automated system that partakes in communication.

Member

A member (“members”) shall be defined as a user in a community.

Channel

A channel (“channels”) shall be defined as a place of communication where messages can be exchanged.

Message

A message (“messages”) shall be defined as a singular entity containing communication between two or more users.

Moderator

A moderator (“moderators”, “mod”, “mods”) shall be defined as a community member with elevated permissions to guide and influence conversation.

Content

Content shall be defined as any data, text, graphics, photographs and their selection and arrangement, and any materials uploaded to a Community.

Discord-specific

Snowflake

A snowflake (“snowflake”, “ID”, “IDs”) shall be defined as an integer used in Discord’s API to uniquely identify an object.

Community, Server

A Discord guild (“guild”, “Discord server”, “server”, “guilds”, “servers”) shall be defined as the common object that is to be found either in the client as “servers” (when using the “Join Server” or “Create Server” buttons, as well as when selecting one from the server pane which is located on the left side of the official client), or in the API under the GET /guilds/:id path.

Member

A subset of the guild object definable by the following identifiers shall be defined as members (“member”, “guild member”). In the official client, those are to be found on the right side, if the member list is toggled while having a guild selected. They are to be found on the /members/:id subpath of the guilds API.

User

A user shall be defined as any account on the Discord platform whose data can be obtained via the GET /users/:id path of the API.

Channel

A channel (“channels”) shall be any place in Discord where information can be transmitted. Be it verbally or in written form. These are to be found under the GET /channels/:id path in the API.

Message

A message shall be defined as any content shared by a user in a text-based channel that shares the same channel id, as well as the same ID for the /messages/:id subpath of its channel.