SynchRunning a community is harder than it looks.
We know, because we run one. Synch exists to support and help the people who run the rest.
Why Synch exists
Synch started life as Support Central: a place where people running online communities could come for help. That's still the whole point.
We're volunteers. We run our own Discord, and every problem we hit there, someone else is hitting too, usually alone and usually late at night. So when we fix something for ourselves, we try to fix it for everyone.
These are some of the problems we kept running into, and what we built for them.
Nobody teaches you how to moderate.
Most moderators get the role and a "good luck". They learn by getting it wrong, in public, in front of the people they're meant to look after.
Synch Academy is free training for anyone who looks after a community, with courses, exams and a certificate anyone can check.
One wrong permission, and your staff channel is open to everyone.
Discord permissions are a maze of roles, overrides and categories. Most servers are held together by settings nobody remembers changing.
The Architect sets up your server from a template and shows you every change before it makes it. A backup comes first, so you can always undo.
A quiet server is a dying one.
People don't come back to a chat where nothing is happening. A community needs something to share between the big moments.
Pondor gives your members birds to raise, dress up and battle together, so there's always a reason to drop in.
Every one of them is free.
That's what being here to help means. If you run a community and you're stuck, come and talk to us.