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# Being Inclusive on Discord, Teams, and Slack
- URL: https://benjaminherrin.com/beinginclusiveondiscordandslack/
- Published: 2020-06-12T00:30:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-22T20:04:47.000Z
- Author: Benjamin Herrin
- Tags: Short Post, #SQSimport, #no-header

So I *LOVE* the discord community of [Off-Nominal](https://offnominal.space/?ref=benjaminherrin.com) and while we’re not super diverse I always try to approach things with diversity in mind. I’ll note that as a community we’re working really hard to improve our diversity and we **will** do better ([see more of what we’re doing to improve and help](https://offnominal.space/episodes/lets-make-space-better-qFymr6J9?ref=benjaminherrin.com)).

So one of the most common things that we all do on Discord is “react” to posts with emoji, everyone is familiar with this and [Slack](https://slack.com/?ref=benjaminherrin.com) popularized it years ago. This is what it can look like with a mix of faces, custom and animated emoji. 

![Adjustments.jpeg](https://benjaminherrin.com/content/images/2026/10/adjustments-jpeg-format-original.jpg)

While it might sound silly the biggest thing I do is only use the default color emoji when I react to a post. 🤘👍 I know that I would be hesitant to react using a darker skin tone “thumbs up” emoji someone had already used so I don’t want to make anyone feel that way. The default color is most neutral and is most likely to be used by everyone. I will use my own skin tone emoji when typing a post 🤘🏻👍🏻 but that’s my words and actions so I feel its okay there but in a reaction I want *everyone* to be able to quickly second a reaction emoji. 

Another thing that I do is to always use neutral pronouns I’ll say “I think *they* meant” instead of “I think *she*/*he* meant” that way I’m not using a gendered pronoun where someone wouldn’t like me to. 

These are tiny little things but I believe that it’s big and small acts that improve our inclusivity.