# Discord for Beginners ## What is Discord? [Discord](https://discord.com/) is a communication service - a place to chat, talk and hangout with your community of NFT enthusiasts, gamers and friends. It is similar to joining an iMessage/WhatsApp/Telegram/Facebook group but with wider engagement capabilities from messaging, voice channels to video and games. Typically, each NFT project has its own server (community) on Discord. Joining a Discord server first requires creating a Discord login, then accepting a specific server's Discord invite like [OCM's Discord server invite](https://discord.gg/ocm). ## Discord 101: Turning off Direct Messages (DMs) Direct Messages are conversations outside of a public setting, outside of a Discord server. Occasionally, bad actors use Discord DMs to scam, phish, or socially engineer situations via Discord DMs. For your security, we strongly recommend turning off your DMs in both Discord User Settings and per Discord server to limit exposure to potentially harmful links or phishing attempts. **Turn off DMs in Discord User Settings:** 1. In **User Settings**, go to **Privacy & Safety**. 2. Toggle to the left to turn off **Allow direct messages from server members**. \ This setting is applied when you join a new server and does not retroactively apply to your existing servers. ![](/files/ewdLSF2XSfnNlTaw5Hm2) **Turn off DMs within a specific Discord server:**
On desktop:
Right-click the OnChainMonkey server name, select Privacy Settings and toggle to the left to turn off ‘Allow direct messages from server members.’		On mobile:
Select the server that you want to modify; press and expand the horizontal kebab icon (…) then turn off ‘Allow Direct Messages’.
## Discord 101: Pinned Messages Pinned messages are similar to booking marking a message in a specific Discord channel, and accessible from the thumbtack icon at the top navigation bar. Note: Messages can only be pinned by Team and Moderators on OCM Discord. ![](/files/T3dd690MB3MpzRSLfJlN) ## Discord 101: Accessing Discord Threads Threads are sub-conversations branched from a Discord channel. A drop-down menu of all active threads within each Discord channel can be found at the top navigation bar in the clickable hashtag (#) icon. **Join a Thread** 1. **Click the hashtag (#) icon** located at the top navigation bar 2. Right-click the thread that you’re interested in joining and select **Join Thread**. 3. Once you have joined the thread, right-click on the thread again and go to **Notification Settings** to update your notification preferences. ![](/files/V1rhs4UdjbnrN3o2HfLQ) {% hint style="info" %} You can also post a message in a thread to automatically join the thread. {% endhint %} ## Discord 101: What are Discord Forums? We are migrating some OCM [Discord threads](#discord-threads) to Discord forums, a new Discord feature. Functionally, Discord forums is another chat space but it allows chats to be organized with less clutter, better visibility compared to the Discord threads, and focused search capabilities. {% hint style="info" %} [How to search for a Discord forum post?](https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/6208479917079-Forum-Channels-FAQ#h_01GCYC9M00A4SWTAHPK3VW4G78) {% endhint %} ## Discord 101: Customizing Channel Notifications Each channel can have separate notification settings customized to your preference. \ To customize notifications for specific Discord channels, **right-click on the channel** of interest and select **Notification Settings**. {% hint style="info" %} Want to learn more about Discord Notifications?\ {% endhint %} ## Discord 101: Turning on Developer Mode Each Discord profile is identified by their Discord Username (e.g. misskeeneye#6688) and Discord User ID (18-digit ID, ex. 981928333984757183). To help Moderators take action against bad actors on Discord, we may ask for the bad actor’s Discord Username and User ID. Usernames are easy to locate, but modifiable by a bad actor. However, the User ID is static and cannot be changed, but only visible in Discord Developer Mode. Developer Mode is activated in **App Settings > Advanced -** toggle the Developer Mode setting to the right to turn on Developer Mode. After activating Developer Mode, right-click on a Discord Username and select Copy ID, to copy a Discord member’s User ID. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://onchainmonkey.gitbook.io/wiki/nft-tips-and-essentials/discord-for-beginners.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.