Neurodiversity in Tech Community User Guide

Our ND in Tech Community is hosted on Discord. The community was created to help neurodivergent people in tech have a safe space online to connect, you could think of it as a big group chat with really friendly ND people!
It is free to make an account. We suggest using a personal, not your work email address.
You can access Discord through your web browser or various apps - https://discord.com/download
If you have used Slack before, it’s quite similar. There are lots of different channels with different purposes, for example you can ask for work advice in the #work-chat channel, or share a resource in the #resources channel. You can engage by reacting with emojis, replying to someones post or adding your own. You can also message people directly.

When you join through the invite link, you should get asked a question to confirm that you identify as Neurodivergent and work in tech. Once you’ve done this you will gain access to the private community members area with additional channels to the public ones everyone can see.
If you have any issues with this or can’t see the community members’ area, message Callum Fraser or Parul Singh.

You can remove a channel from your list by right clicking then “remove from channel list”. You can add it again any time by going to “channels and roles” in the top left.
Each channel has a description, which you can see by clicking the text at the top after opening it next to the channel name, which explains what the channel is for.
We encourage you to try to post in the most suitable channel, if you’re not sure you can always post in the general channel. No harm done if you don’t post in the right channel. The only exception to this is promoting products or services; this is strictly restricted to the #promote-or-request-stuff channel.
You can see any pinned messages in a channel by clicking the pin icon near the top right.
If you need to find information, it may be that someone else has asked about it before, so we encourage you to use the search function!

We encourage you to reply to people’s posts with the appropriate emojis (eg ❤️ for support)
If you hover over a post, you will see a little toolbar pop up on the right. You can use this to reply or forward a message. You can also click the 3 dots on your own message to edit or delete it.
You can upload files (including photos) by hitting the plus button in the bottom left.
You can message someone directly by clicking their name from a message in a channel, then type your message.

You may want to tailor your notification settings, you need to do this at a device level and at a channel level.
For example, if your system notifications for Discord are off completely, you will not get any notifications at all no matter how much you change each channels’s settings.
Change settings for each channel by right-clicking each one → notification settings → choose all messages, mentions only or none.

Right now, we are growing the community organically and want to ensure it remains a safe space, so there is no public invite link. However, if you want to invite someone to join, they can fill in the form on this page, and if they are eligible to join, they will receive an invite link by email.

Click your user in the bottom left to update your name and photo. Please use your full real name. (Photo is totally optional)
We also suggest adding your pronouns here. This is an intersectional community, and proudly displaying our pronouns helps others feel more comfortable doing the same.