Discord community etiquette, for people who find it awkward

The short version: the thing that makes people welcome in a community is not being interesting, it is being specific. "Hey everyone" gets no reply. A reply to something someone actually said gets a conversation.

The lurker's problem

You join, read for a while, and then the longer you wait the harder it gets. After two weeks of silence, saying hello feels like an announcement rather than a greeting. This is the most common experience in every Discord server and nobody talks about it.

The fix is to lower the size of the first move. You do not need to introduce yourself. You need to reply to one person about one thing.

How to enter a conversation you are not part of

Find a message from the last hour that you have an actual reaction to, and respond to that specific message. Not to the channel, not to everyone — to the message. Discord's reply feature exists for exactly this and using it makes your intent obvious.

A useful test: could your message only make sense after reading theirs? If yes, it is a reply. If it would work pasted anywhere, it is noise.

What reads badly, even when you mean well

The unsolicited DM. Sending a stranger a direct message in the first week is the fastest way to be read as a spammer, whatever the message says.
Posting your own content first. Sharing a link to your work before you have ever had a conversation is self-promotion, not participation. Post something in the community's own formats first.
Walls of text in chat. A 400-word message in a fast channel will be skimmed. If you have that much to say, use a forum or thread — that is what they are for.
"Anyone here?" It asks other people to do the work of starting. Ask the actual question instead.
Correcting people's grammar or spelling. It is never received the way it is intended.

How to become someone people are glad to see

Three behaviours do more than any amount of personality:

Reply to new people. The person who answers the nervous first post is remembered longer than the person who posts the best content. It is also the cheapest thing you can do.

Post work, not opinions about work. A photograph, a draft, a half-finished thing. Communities built around making things run on people showing unfinished things.

Be consistent in a small way. Showing up on the same day each week beats a burst of enthusiasm followed by silence. This is true of every community that has ever lasted.

When you disagree

Disagree with the idea, not the person, and do it once. Repeating a point in a channel where nobody is going to change their mind is how arguments become the thing a server is known for.

If a moderator is wrong, use the appeal path rather than the public channel. Public fights are won by whoever is more willing to keep going, which is rarely the person who is right.

Leaving well

You can just leave. Most of the time that is correct, and no explanation is owed. If you were genuinely part of something, one message is enough — a long goodbye post is usually about the person writing it.

What is worth doing: if you are leaving because something went wrong, say so to staff privately on the way out. The next person who has the same problem benefits, and it costs you one message.

Where to go next

If you have not joined anywhere yet, how to join safely covers the practical side. If you are deciding where, small versus large is the trade-off. And the main guide is how to judge a server before you invest in it.