It turns out that before Discord, we had project IRC channels, and they would splinter along various prosocial or antisocial lines over time. It was essentially guaranteed when the channel exceeded 150 regulars, but there were criticality points around 5-10 and ~50 as well. None of this excuses anyone from behaving badly, but certainly Discord is not the cause of communication breakdown and group shattering events — it’s just a chat server, same as all the ones before it. And as with all prior chat servers, they make horrendous technical LB replacements — but are a brilliant way to provide mentorship to (slash and infect enthusiasm upon) others, which is why they persist so strongly in the face of all of the problems these real-time group chain letters highlight in human behaviors: Hobbyists desire to socialize with other hobbyists.