Couldn't this be solved with a service that automatically archives Discord chat in a forum format and hosts it online?
At that point, why not just use something else?
Discord is a black hole for information
211–220 of 396 posts
Re: Discord is a black hole for information
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m old too and use slack without any notifications or sound. I just am in a habit of checking it frequently during the day. I too have never been able to get into Discord, nor ever been able to participate in multiple slack organizations effectively.
Amen. I have all sounds and notifications disabled on all devices. I own the device. The device doesn’t own me. What pisses me off about slack is it’s actively user hostile. With notifications off it won’t let me mute channels. I’d like to meet the asshole from their product team who designed that.
Try long tapping on a channel name in iOS and you’ll get a mute option.
Re: Discord is a black hole for information
#213As 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…
As far as I can remember, I've never been able to use Discord at all as a guest through any device on my home network (always demands verification; never used Discord before through the ISP, and undoubtedly my dynamic IP has changed many times throughout).
This isn't helped by the infuriatingly opaque 'Invite Invalid' screen that is shown whenever I follow any invite link, for which the help link doesn't even include the case of being seemingly IP-range-blocked across all of Discord.
Doesn't give a great impression for any of the large open-source projects that are the main reason I follow such links.
Re: Discord is a black hole for information
#214The worst part about Discord is that it is against their ToS to use third-party clients (and there are reports of people's accounts being banned for them making the black hole effect worse). In particular, you can't have a client that has local chat history, local search, or just better information density on the screen:
>All 3rd party apps or client modifiers are against our ToS, and the use of them can result in your account being disabled. I don't recommend using them.
Re: Discord is a black hole for information
#215Discord channel sprawl is a strange phenomenon. It happens to each server I’ve joined, just gets worse over time. I think park of the issue is that you cant /part a channel in discord. Every channel you have access is automatically joined, you can’t leave and you have to adjust notifications for each to avoid an overwhelming number of messages. That and the communities are usually small-ish so you have the same peopl…
The solution I use to combat this is right click > mute server for every server I join, and also check the box under notifications > suppress @everyone and @here notifications. Then if I want notifications (either just the visual dot indicator or an actual ping for messages) I can do that on a per channel basis.
The only notifications I get are when I'm explicitly tagged or if a role I've opted in to is tagged. This cleans up the notification spam almost entirely, I only wish there was a way to set that as the default for any new server I join.
Re: Discord is a black hole for information
#216My main problem with Discord is its atrocious way of handling logs. There's no (that I know of) to export channel logs from Discord, nor to log to an external text file. That means that if I'm interested in something that was discussed at some point in the past, I have to either use Discord's crappy search feature, or manually scroll back and manually scan through text to try to find what I'm interested in. Discord's…
I don't know a way to export logs, but I am in some Discord channels which have a bot joined to connect them to an IRC channel in a 2-way echo. The IRC side of that could be logging everything from that channel with standard IRC logs.
> "The only substantial advantage of Discord I can see over IRC is inline images and voice chat."
Inline code blocks with syntax highlighting using ```python markdown syntax; replying to a message brings a clickable line of what you are replying to which jumps back up to the previous line in the chat.
Re: Discord is a black hole for information
#217”Every time I go to grab a mod or something on Github, have an issue and see the tickets replied to with "Closed, join the discord for help!" I want to cave my own head in with an iron.” Nothing to add!
Re: Discord is a black hole for information
#218It's not Discord's fault as much as it is the fault of lazy owners who don't know how to set up a Gitter or IRC or a stackexchange clone.
Re: Discord is a black hole for information
#219As 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…
One of my biggest issues is that the principles and ideas that come with the open source community are practically shutout by the use of discord. Information does not flow freely, it's locked in a server and it's not easily accessible by other people. It's not indexed by search engines. It might as well be missing completely. Half the time I plan to learn an open source project and learn that the majority of the disc…
This is the argument that most of these comments are making. But Discord isn't supposed to replace a bug tracker or documentation. It's supposed to replace IRC or a mailing list.
The Linux kernel-dev mail list archives might technically be accessibly by anyone, but they're still not going to come up in a web search. And IRC history isn't stored at all.
And if you really need some piece of information in the Discord server, you can join the Discord server and search for it, all you need is an email.
I've been using Discord for a couple of years and greatly prefer it to forums or IRC.
Re: Discord is a black hole for information
#220Twenty or so years ago I was running Hotline and KDX servers, and loved having "my own place" where people could visit and hang out. Recently, I started a Discord channel to rediscover some of that same feeling, but it's mostly become a persistent chat for my friends (in lieu of Messanger, Telegram, etc). Some other channels I've joined are quite quirky and fun though.
The main difference being that you could only be logged in at one server at a time – unless you had multiple client installs – and there's something nice about that limit; you have to choose a hangout and tend to engage more because of it.
I agree with the OP though – I wouldn't rely on Discord as a knowledge repo…