Devclub

A screenshot of the Devclub channel.

The Devclub channel, formerly burn box, is a casual chat channel in the DevTalk Discord server where the entire contents of the channel are deleted weekly. The channel typically makes up somewhere between 40% and 70% of DevTalk's total message activity daily. It is well suited for conversations that don't need to remain in the permanent history of the community, and tends to have a tight-knit community of regular users, sometimes called Burnies (after the original Burn Box name).

Every Saturday at 12pm EST/1pm EDT, Plum deletes the messages in Devclub a few at a time, and users of the channel can witness this happening live. In the early days of the channel, they would continue to speak through the deletion process, trying to compete with Plum in order to 'prevent it from burning' as a game. This interaction inspired a Devclub minigame where the intention was to 'fight' Plum and prevent her from completely burning the channel's contents.

History

The original purpose of Devclub was to give space to heavier topics and prevent more negative attitudes and ideations from finding a permanent residence in the community. It was intended to be a place for DevTalk members to vent their frustrations about their personal or professional life, knowing that it would not be accessible later. The concept of such a channel was inspired by "vent" sections in forums, taking the idea a step further and permanently removing the messages from the community's history.

The channel was originally named Burn Box, and the "burn" occurred every night.

In June 2023, the channel was renamed to Devclub to remove the built-in encouragement to use it as a venting space. In late 2023, the "burn" was removed entirely, before being re-added in January 2024 on a weekly schedule.