Setting up Discord

Out of an abundance of caution due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the 35th Annual ISSM Conference will be held entirely virtually. Old Dominion University has a robust, well developed distance education infrastructure, which will allow us to hold sessions synchronously, asynchronously, or as a mixture of both formats.

The conference will be facilitated through two technologies: Zoom and Discord.

The conference organizing committee has scheduled a number of test sessions before the conference begins. Conference organizers will be available in Zoom and Discord during these sessions so that you can insure that your technology is working.

Setting up Discord

Discord is a popular Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP) service that offers discussion forums as well as streaming capability. we’ve setup a dedicated discord server for the conference to facilitate informal meetings, conversations, and networking.

You can use Discord either through your browser, a mobile device, or through its stand-alone client. You can download the discord client here. Because the ISSM server’s voice channels require push-to-talk mode, we recommend that you install the stand-alone client.

Use this link to connect to our Discord server. Clicking on it will take you to the server’s launch page, which will then prompt you to either create a username (if you have never used Discord before) or login (if you already have an account):



Entering a new username will take you to the server’s home page, which will prompt you to enter your birthdate:



You will then be prompted to enter your email address and choose a password:

Clicking the “Claim Account” Button will send a confirmation email to your email address:

Click the “Verify Email” link when you receive the confirmation email:

Discord will display the following confirmation message in a new browser tab:



Clicking the “Continue to Discord Button” will take you to the server’s homepage. If you have already installed the Discord application on your computer, Discord will display a message asking whether or not you want to launch the stand-alone client:



Discord’s stand-alone client and its web-interface are almost identical. Clicking either “Open Discord” or “Cancel” will take you to an initial screen where Discord will ask you whether you would like to add a friend.

This step is optional. If you would like to add Kevin Moberly, the conference chair, enter his Discord tag, “SallytheMander#0854” into the window and hit the “Send Friend Request” button:



To join the ISSM server from this screen, click on the round ISSM Logo in the upper-left corner of the screen:

Clicking the round ISSM logo will bring you to the ISSM Discord Server’s home page:



Discord features two primary types of channels, text channels and voice channels. You can differentiate the two by their icons in the left-hand dropdown menu:

In order to speak in the server’s voice channels, you’ll need to enable Discord’s push-to-talk mode. Doing so will significantly reduce the chance of reverb and feedback in the channel. In order to enable push-to-talk, click on the gear (settings) icon beside your avatar’s name in the lower left corner of the screen:



This will open Discord’s setting’s menu:



Click on the link to bring up Discord’s voice and video settings menu:



In the input mode menu, select the “Push to Talk” checkbox, and then select the key that you will press in order to speak (either the right or left control key is a good option):