> For clarity, we will use the term “guild” to represent a collection of users and channels — they are called “servers” in the client. The term “server” will instead be used here to describe our backend infrastructure.
I still don't understand why you ever chose the name "server" to refer to something that is many things, but not a server. Guild is a way better name, and doesn't need disclaimers about your self-chosen terminology being confusing.
So yes, "guild" is a really bad name for the thing pretty much anyone in the target demographic is used to call "server", whether that thing actually was a physical or logical server or not. "Guilds" also used to have a voice "server" to host their voice chat activity, but they did never equal themselves to their voice server, so even if all games out there called groups of players "guilds", it would still be a really bad choice. Someone at Discord apparently learnt on the job that "naming stuff" is one of the two hardest problems in IT ;-)
We don't play MMOs, aren't very organized, have a very flat hierarchy, (admins, regulars, new users) and don't stick to one game very long.
The word guild comes with too much baggage, and that single word choice would likely mean we'd still be on Teamspeak to this day. I don't think I'm exaggerating that point either.
I never considered "server" a poor name, even knowing that it was probably not one dedicated physical server in reality. It's simply the right nomenclature for the target audience.
[0]: A Teamspeak server is definitely a server as I assume you define them.