Live data from Hacker News

How Discord Went Mainstream

theatlantic.com

121–130 of 155 posts

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That actually sounds like a good thing though.

It's great until you discover that Google's migration tool doesn't port Google Authenticator data when you switch phones. Ask me how I know. :-)

You can recover 2FA if you're already signed in on any other device though. You just have to enter your password on the device you are signed in on.

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#122
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first part of the TOS is standard, even something as simple as showing a thumbnail of a posted picture (which discord does) requires it. AutoHotKey have their own relatively active Discord server, so obviously, you can talk about it. What is banned is the use of macros on the Discord client itself. As for seeing every single message, then yes, certainly. That's how you get the entire conversation history when you…

This is the most well-thought-out response in the thread. My initial knee-jerk is too extreme. Thank you for the sanity check.

And that was a mature response from you. Glad to see this exchange :D

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#123
post #94
post #64

From the TOS: By uploading, distributing, transmitting or otherwise using Your Content with the Service, you grant to us a perpetual, nonexclusive, transferable, royalty-free, sublicensable, and worldwide license to use, host, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display Your Content in connection with operating and providing the Service. The Company doe…

The first part of the TOS is standard, even something as simple as showing a thumbnail of a posted picture (which discord does) requires it. AutoHotKey have their own relatively active Discord server, so obviously, you can talk about it. What is banned is the use of macros on the Discord client itself. As for seeing every single message, then yes, certainly. That's how you get the entire conversation history when you…

Not only is the first part of the TOS sort of standard, its the decent version. It ends with the "in connection with the service". Many TOS just give a carte blanche permission for any reason at all. This one is at least the reason you expect: You upload or write content into this, and Discord can act like Discord with that content.

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#124
post #64

From the TOS: By uploading, distributing, transmitting or otherwise using Your Content with the Service, you grant to us a perpetual, nonexclusive, transferable, royalty-free, sublicensable, and worldwide license to use, host, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display Your Content in connection with operating and providing the Service. The Company doe…

I honestly found it very refreshing how explicit and upfront they were about their data collection. There are plenty of "free" products that try hard to hide the fact that they are doing it too; this time I felt like I was actually engaging in a fair transaction.

For a lot of my less tech-savvy friends, it has been a blessing too. Discord is incredibly easy to set up, the audio adapts without tweaking, and new chatrooms are just a couple clicks away. Really my only other option was Skype and that is seemingly much worse.

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#125

The majority of people I talk to on Discord went the route of AIM/MSN/Yahoo -> Skype -> Discord. The big thing that I found was that the concept of Discord server was so significantly better then using group messages on anything before it that everyone immediately flocked to it. Just the concept of channels is a new one to a lot of these people. The majority were not gamers (never used Teamspeak/Vent/Mumble), or part…

This is exactly what my group went through. The text channels were nice, but the real killer feature for us was the seamless voice channels. In Skype you had to be very careful to not call the whole group, you had to manually construct voice chats every time. Being able to see who's on and who's hanging out in a voice channel is huge. Wanna play games or just have a chat but nobody else is on right now? Just drop into a voice channel and people can see that you're there so they can jump in without having to pee-arrange anything. Another live saver has been the ability to control, on your side, how you hear other people. Friend has a new mic that's too loud / quiet? You can adjust their volume. Somebody being inconsiderate / distracting? Mute them, or turn their volume down super low.

The general stability was also just fantastic compared to Skype. I used some Skype last year as part of a teaching role and good grief was it torture in comparison. Constant dropping, terrible quality, and painful to arrange.

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#126

Is there a reason why they don't just keep a fork their code and rebrand it as a "serious app" for corporate use and charge money for it? Discord has the best service for voice chat and screen sharing I've seen and I'd love to use it with clients instead of all the other weird apps I've had to use. The least painful so far has been Google Meet but even that one has its issues and likely an expirement date.

Because more often than not losing focus kills companies. The greed to do everything leads to doing nothing well.

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#127
post #45
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also an issue that there doesn't seem to be any way to mute @ mentions of roles you're assigned to. So if a server admin assigns you to a role and then mentions that role you'll get a notification even if server mute is on and suppress @everyone and @here is on.

I wonder if this is the reason I am still getting notifications on 2 servers. It sounds plausible, as they are game related servers, so quite possible I was assigned a role. I don't recall investigating this, although it is several months ago since I last tried solving mute issue. This does not solve my mute issue, but great to know that this might be the cause! Thanks for this.

Yeah. You can mute @everyone and @username, but you cannot mute @role. It's really irritating in lots of gaming servers where they assign roles by game rank or something similar.

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No strange rituals involving NickServ or ChanServ. True but God help you if you ever lose your discord 2fa seed; you'll have to throw away that identity and start over. [1] From their FAQ: Note: If you do not have access to your backup codes, we are unable to remove 2FA and you will have to create a new account. Discord cannot remove 2FA or issue you new backup codes. *1 https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/artic…

That actually sounds like a good thing though.

Agreed, this is exactly how 2FA should work. Allowing support staff to deactivate 2FA is a massive security weakness.

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#129
I came on to Discord before hearing about it from HN or other news source. I was invited to a "server" by members of my play-by-post RPG group. I had the impression it was a small and "rebellious" startup with a great product. Word of mouth is the best kind of growth. In a matter of weeks, I moved most of my chat to discord....though for chats with my brother (one of my closest confidants) we still run our own Mattermost server, which has honestly been great.

Re: How Discord Went Mainstream

#130
post #118
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first part of the TOS is standard, even something as simple as showing a thumbnail of a posted picture (which discord does) requires it. AutoHotKey have their own relatively active Discord server, so obviously, you can talk about it. What is banned is the use of macros on the Discord client itself. As for seeing every single message, then yes, certainly. That's how you get the entire conversation history when you…

Why are macros banned? What kind of stuff can you do with macros? Spam?

Discord is primarily "gamer" focused, so macros are often pointed out as a means of cheating or otherwise gaining unfair advantage. AutoHotkey (https://www.autohotkey.com/) could be used to chain a bunch of actions in a game together and perform some sort of difficult action with minimal effort, so that's discouraged.

But the rule is very odd. Most "gaming" focused mice/keyboards have software and buttons dedicated to performing macro functions, and they're present on major brands like Razer and Logitech equipment.

Post reply on HN