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Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

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Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#591

Post by jrootabega »

sneak wrote: post #511
jedberg wrote: post #70

Oh please do. This seems like the perfect time to bring this up: I had a piece of software that used Discord for support. They required that users be verified, which requires you to give you phone number to Discord. I gave them my Google Voice number, which is the only number I have, and they rejected it because they don't support VOIP numbers. I asked them if there was any other way to verify my identity. They told…

I simply don't use services that demand a phone number to use them. It won't get better if we keep caving.

And hope we can find a way to educate the staggering masses of children who are growing up thinking this is normal and good.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#592

Post by qwerty456127 »

12ian34 wrote: post #573
qwerty456127 wrote: post #566

Classic forums never actually felt convenient. IMHO the best could be a StackExchange-like UI + HN-like hierarchical comments + allowance and convenience of repeating similar questions as the time passes (as the old answer may be inapplicable to a newer version or just not complete enough for a new person facing the same problem even why satisfactory for the previous one) + more permissive policy in regard of opinion…

Have you ever used a Discourse forum? I've found them to be by far the most convenient, and would rate above old Reddit.

Not really. Any example I could take a look at? I generally hate every more-than-2-user discussion engine which doesn't enforce hierarchical threads (making message-response relation always defined and clear and the whole chain easily traceable) and/or encourages real-time communication.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#593

Post by openfuture »

smashah wrote: post #420
grayhatter wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maintainers should do exactly what they determine is best for them and the project. 100% in agreement! > open-source puratism isn't a guiding principle for maintainers believe it or not. No, it's not, but in my experience, about 50% of the people who contribute code I want to merge avoid proprietary garbage whenever they can. Why increase the friction for them? > Running a discord allows maintainers to foster somew…

> I'm not sure I got that from his, this needless insult did make me feel that way about yours though. Just a little joke, didn't mean it in a bad way. > No, it's not, but in my experience, about 50% of the people who contribute code I want to merge avoid proprietary garbage whenever they can. Why increase the friction for them? PR critical discussions stay on PR. Would be silly to have that discussion off platform i…

Discord does not allow third party clients. In my book that is as user hostile as it gets and due to my FOSSisms I'm effectively barred from using it.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#594

Post by Zak »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #383
errantspark wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I constantly run into this problem, I've used my google voice number for everything for years (yeah it's not a great move but very hard to migrate away from) and a frustrating number of services recently have been rejecting it for verification. I end up having to take the sim out of my laptop and put it in my PinePhone. It's such a hassle. This whole "you're not a human unless you have a phone number" thing sucks. Sa…

Using SMS as a login verification thing is just so irritating. My bank asks me to enter an SMS OTP every time I login to the website. I know my username and password! Let me into my bank account!

Credential stuffing is a widespread problem. Im sure everyone on HN uses a password manager and different passwords for every service, but many people don't.

It's makes a lot of sense for a high-value target like banking to require 2FA, but SMS is the worst way to do it.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#595

Post by openfuture »

RNCTX wrote: post #490
verve_rat wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a developer and I understand the need for person-power to continue the development of software. But that doesn't mean I have unlimited time (or money) to support the development of all of the software I might engage with. If a new user (including devs using libraries) needs to join real time chat in order to get help with a "I tried X and I thought I'd get Y, but I saw Z instead" type problem then that seems pre…

> Most users are going to be transactional in their engagement with the software, open source or not. Yeah, that's the problem. Just last week I saw a GH issues post in which someone was reporting problems with the HTML output of an MIT licensed email template editor, and someone had replied that he fixed all of the tags/CSS, and then edited his link to a gist with the changes, saying that "his boss told him that was…

Bravo, great essay on the tragedy of the commons.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#596

Post by lxgr »

majani wrote: post #516
julianlam wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that subreddits have a very low barrier to entry, but all that comes at a cost. Among other things, one of those costs is that your content is no longer owned by you. Should Reddit decide to take itself private, or make ethically questionable decisions, etc., you are locked in due to the networking effect.

Telegram group/channel can take care of those concerns

How is Telegram different from Reddit in that regard? If anything, it seems much less accessible while sharing all the risks mentioned by GP.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#597

Post by noneeeed »

adwww wrote: post #565
mmcclure wrote: post #19

I think "less capable moderation tools" is really underselling how purposefully useless and nonexistent Slack's moderation tools are for open communities. I cannot overstate how terrible Slack is in this regard. To be clear, I really and truly don't fault them for this: Slack's always been clear that their focus is on business communication, which is a totally different animal when it comes to moderation needs. Disco…

Not even for open communities. I'd love an ability to mute annoying sales colleagues boasting about this week's big win, etc. I have no professional reason to communicate with this team, why should my day be interrupted with their whooping and macho sales competitiveness.

Do you not have seperate channels for that sort of thing? We have a channel called "big-wins" where the sales people can flag up new/extended deals. I have it muted but check it out from time to time to see if we've bought in any interesting customers.

Channels and channel discipline are the key to keeping Slack manageable. Have lots of channels with specific purposes and people can choose what they care about and ignore the rest.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#598

Post by Cthulhu_ »

buro9 wrote: post #557

I run forums, I write forum software, I am pro forums. However I'd also add that it's important how to engage with a forum. My top tips: 1. Financially fund a forum, but have the enthusiasts run it so it is arms length but official. If you run it, spin it up as a distinct thing so that future independence is possible and easy. 2. Bless it fully, point everything you have at it and have your support staff answer quest…

I think #3 ("don't moderate away dissenting voices") is a pretty good line / tactic; it makes the community look more independent, instead of a "my product, my rules, I am absolute" community. I mean by all means be on staff, but stay out of forum politics - you are inherently biased towards e.g. criticism. Get some staff to help enforce rules / CoC / etc - if people are being dicks then ban them, but if they're providing feedback you don't like then just... leave it?

Having a community as a third party of sorts helps keep you unbiased.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#599

Post by goodpoint »

nirvdrum wrote: post #76
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Discourse is the first real attempt to bring forums in-line with "modern" UI expectations, which is why it feels like it won. There's probably lots of room to grow here. There's forums out there that allow SMTP-only [1] or SMTP and NNTP reading/posting [2], there's forum skins atop mailing lists like [3], there's distributed forums like Aether or Lemmy like [4, 5]. Unfortunately these are all new/raw. [1]: ht…

I really miss NNTP. I appreciate that spam was a huge problem, but it was really nice being able to discover and subscribe to a large number of topics and navigate them all from the same tool. And there was innovation in the client space. Reddit is probably the closest alternative I know of today. But, several communities treat an associated sub-reddit as unofficial in favor of their Discourse instance. However, I si…

> I really miss NNTP

We really need a new NNTP, designed for p2p or federation.

Lemmy/ActivityPub or Briar are the closest thing we have.

It's amazing how quickly the software community forget lessons from the past.

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