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Discord is a black hole for information

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Re: Discord is a black hole for information

#31

Post by PretzelPirate »

Aerroon wrote: post #17
opdahl wrote: post #7

What is strange about Discord is this great discrepancy between the ones that love it and the ones that hate it. If I were to guess on the reason of why that might be it would be that Discord is probably really good for the people that are constantly on it, and don't really miss any communication going in. These people have probably been there for some time so they don't feel the problem of not knowing where the past…

But do you need to know the past discussions? I don't really see why this would scare away newcomers to a group any more than usual.

If you go to technical discords you’ll find that there’s someone joining almost everyday who asks a set of questions that was aksed the day before.

These people annoy existing servers members and get angry replies because people are so tired of answering the same basic question multiple times a day.

Some servers have created processes where you can only access the FAQ channel until you prove your knowledge, and only then you can enter ‘general’. That clearly shows that something is wrong with content discovery on Discord.

Re: Discord is a black hole for information

#32

Post by Ekaros »

tovej wrote: post #29
Ekaros wrote: post #25

Discord is the modern IRC. And at least you can see history there, unlike with IRC where it is just gone if your client fails.

IRC is almost always logged, and if you need to log things yourself, you can use a bouncer or set up a server.

And if your bouncer or server fails? Where do you get the history then?

Re: Discord is a black hole for information

#33

Post by JonathanMerklin »

opdahl wrote: post #7

What is strange about Discord is this great discrepancy between the ones that love it and the ones that hate it. If I were to guess on the reason of why that might be it would be that Discord is probably really good for the people that are constantly on it, and don't really miss any communication going in. These people have probably been there for some time so they don't feel the problem of not knowing where the past…

I'm not sure if "click" is intentional wordplay or not, but if it isn't, the word is "clique" FYI.

I'm also strongly of the opinion that tying core business functionality and information transfer to a third-party chat application is a massive footgun, and other than the fact that I use it out of business needs and not just for voice, I think s/Discord/Slack/g applies. I've both heard Discord described as "Slack for hobbies" and Slack as "Discord for the employed" (although obviously it's not a perfect distinction and I've seen e.g. Netrunner groups on Slack and e.g. some startups communicating through Discord).

That said, the number of teams and departments I have either encountered or heard about from engineering friends elsewhere whose primary - and sometimes only maintained - deployment interface is a Slack command clearly means that I'm the dumb one for trying to work the UNIX philosophy into most of my life's tools and nobody else is blinking twice about vendor lockin and memoizing solutions in a chat application. I just try and take any question/answer that was sufficiently obscure or anything asked more than once and shove it in an "OAQs" ("occasionally asked questions") on Confluence or whatever the knowledgebase application du jour is, but it still feels like teardrops against the ocean sometimes.

Re: Discord is a black hole for information

#35

Post by netr0ute »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #31
Aerroon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do you need to know the past discussions? I don't really see why this would scare away newcomers to a group any more than usual.

If you go to technical discords you’ll find that there’s someone joining almost everyday who asks a set of questions that was aksed the day before. These people annoy existing servers members and get angry replies because people are so tired of answering the same basic question multiple times a day. Some servers have created processes where you can only access the FAQ channel until you prove your knowledge, and only…

> These people annoy existing servers members and get angry replies because people are so tired of answering the same basic question multiple times a day.

From the numerous Discords I'm on, this problem is either fixed by making the members answering have a mindset to always help, or by using a bot with canned responses.

Re: Discord is a black hole for information

#36

Post by tluyben2 »

scrollaway wrote: post #34

Is there a concrete reason that we can't build a search engine for discord public content? Archive it? We used to do this for IRC as well. Anyone remembers https://ibot.rikers.org/ ?

It just needs to export to html every 24 hours and dump that on a server; then it's indexed by DDG and Google etc. It's not like that costs money or anything.

Re: Discord is a black hole for information

#37

Post by unpopularopp »

Discord "won me" over the voice chat. It's just so easy to use and setup for people. I know it's a hard pill to swallow on HN but NOT everyone wants and/or can run their own TS/Mumble/Ventrilo server. That's the number 1 reason Discord became popular in gaming groups. Want voice chat for your WoW raid? 2 clicks. Going to play CSOG with your friends? Here is the voice chat channel.

Discord is not perfect for sure (the search function is atrocious for example) but more intuitive and easier to use than the other options. And you can also stream, share screen, rich embed things etc.

Re: Discord is a black hole for information

#38

Post by rcarmo »

binwiederhier wrote: post #13

As a maintainer of a small open source project I have to disagree. The hurdle for someone to join Discord and ask a question is much lower than signing up to a custom forum and posting there. I also love interacting with people that use my stuff. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy to see that people are actually using it. I can see the other side of course. There are a few things that are repeated questions or useful conte…

Check out Discourse, which is a proper, modern forum and a way better experience.

Re: Discord is a black hole for information

#39

Post by selfhoster11 »

qayxc wrote: post #24
Aerroon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do you need to know the past discussions? I don't really see why this would scare away newcomers to a group any more than usual.

Do you remember IRC? It had similar issues. Past discussions are invaluable for providing context. The worst thing that can happen to a (technical) discussion is new people repeating points that have been resolved already while the discussion has since moved on. Admins and regulars alike may waste time and screen space repeating past conclusions, something a quick forum search avoids.

Discord also has a search feature, and it works across channels.

Re: Discord is a black hole for information

#40

Post by morceauxdebois »

Ekaros wrote: post #32
tovej wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC is almost always logged, and if you need to log things yourself, you can use a bouncer or set up a server.

And if your bouncer or server fails? Where do you get the history then?

What if the discord servers fail and your history is lost?
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