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Show HN: Answer Overflow – Indexing Discord content into the web

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Re: Show HN: Answer Overflow – Indexing Discord content into the web

#91

Post by TeMPOraL »

esafak wrote: post #90
TeMPOraL wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For regular growth, maybe, but not for investment-fueled hyper-growth.

Every big, lasting company has a product portfolio: Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft... A single product will leave you vulnerable to disruption, and the aforementioned problem.

Correct. However, I feel the specific companies you mention didn't aim for hyper-growth, and had space to diversify their product portfolio. Discord, much like Reddit, is a one-trick pony. The weird thing to me is, Reddit feels like it should've been in the Google/Amazon/Meta/Microsoft bucket - yet somehow, through all these years, it failed to diversify.

Re: Show HN: Answer Overflow – Indexing Discord content into the web

#92

Post by throwaway675309 »

chillfox wrote: post #62
Grimburger wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what easy alternatives can you recommend to them Github discussions. A project I follow moved all their Q&A from discord and it's a joy to both search and ask now. Discord is actively hostile to anyone simply wanting to browse.

I would much rather engage with a community on Discord than on Github discussions/Reddit/a forum. The inability to easily browse historical posts is a feature to me that makes it much less risky to ask questions and join a community. I don't have to spend a lot of time searching and effort to phrase my questions just right to avoid getting yelled at by someone that I should have used the search instead of posting.

In my experience, most people on GitHub discussions seem to be more than happy to help out, and over time it also builds up a reservoir of information that anyone else can tap into. GitHub discussions search is relatively good.

Whereas on discord, you might get a great answer which helps you and anyone who is immediately following that conversation but that's it.

Re: Show HN: Answer Overflow – Indexing Discord content into the web

#93

Post by chillfox »

Geezus_42 wrote: post #88
TeMPOraL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. However, some things should be preserved forever and accessible. It's really nice to be able to put a piece of scientific jargon, or a text of an error message, into a search box, and get back links and references to material you can peruse at your own pace and discretion - as opposed to having to join a closed community and keep asking people, hoping someone who knows the answer and is willing to help spots…

Also, there's the perpetual issue of people who just want to be assholes to other people on line and not actually help. This has existed in internet based chat platforms and is why they will never be better than documentation.

docs/man pages should still be made, and people who are assholes should be banned.

Re: Show HN: Answer Overflow – Indexing Discord content into the web

#94

Post by fomine3 »

Grimburger wrote: post #48
hutzlibu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently because it is very easy to setup and offer a place where people can join. More and more open source projects are using it and I don't really like it, but what easy alternatives can you recommend to them? Genuine question, as it is an open issue for me. I want to focus on my project, not setting up and maintain a forum, mailing lists, etc. on top of that.

> what easy alternatives can you recommend to them Github discussions. A project I follow moved all their Q&A from discord and it's a joy to both search and ask now. Discord is actively hostile to anyone simply wanting to browse.

Gitter is an ignored solution.

Re: Show HN: Answer Overflow – Indexing Discord content into the web

#95

Post by Karrot_Kream »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe I'm too old, but I hate the "cozy web" with passion. I don't know if you remember the net/web split but that's exactly what it felt like. Net people would crap on port 80, demand you install a news client and add some byzantine undocumented header or join an IRC channel and send custom DCC commands. There was also a lot of gatekeeping and making fun of the normies ("I may be a nerd but look at Bill Gates, one…

I came on-line at the tail end of it, when the denizens of the old were trying to find their footing in the new. IRC, mailing groups, early phpBB boards. This means I could've missed some stronger forms of gatekeeping, but the ones I do remember were all what I'd consider pretty good and desirable: it was gatekeeping based on knowledge, or interest in getting one. That is, all natural gates where the act of crossing…

> I came on-line at the tail end of it, when the denizens of the old were trying to find their footing in the new. IRC, mailing groups, early phpBB boards.

Ah you're actually talking about a time slightly before I'm talking about. I agree with what you mean when it comes to good-natured acculturation. A lot of those people left to the Web (or used both.) Later on a lot of the people that still used non-web services became more defensive about their parts of the net and doubled down on it.

> While the "revenge of the nerds" memes, "Jocks being bosses in high school, nerds being bosses at work" was a good joke / dream to discharge some frustrations over, it didn't materialize either.

The reason I didn't like it was because it classified the world into two types of people. Were band kids nerds or jocks? I never identified strongly with either end of the spectrum due to growing up in a low income area, so I found the entire thing to be problematic and exclusive in the wrong way.

Re: Show HN: Answer Overflow – Indexing Discord content into the web

#97

Post by Zetobal »

mavhc wrote: post #66
esafak wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not made for knowledge discovery; it's for gamers. Just look at that busy UI! The content is assumed to have no historical value.

But because it's free, and forums suck, people are using it for knowledge

Forums don't suck it's accessibility the biggest strength of discord is probably that they let you discover the communities and even take part in the conversation without signing up. It's just like IRC back in the day choose a username and of you go and if you like it converting the temp account to a normal one is just 2 clicks.

Re: Show HN: Answer Overflow – Indexing Discord content into the web

#98

Post by mavhc »

Zetobal wrote: post #97
mavhc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But because it's free, and forums suck, people are using it for knowledge

Forums don't suck it's accessibility the biggest strength of discord is probably that they let you discover the communities and even take part in the conversation without signing up. It's just like IRC back in the day choose a username and of you go and if you like it converting the temp account to a normal one is just 2 clicks.

Forums are terrible compared to Usenet, multiple clicks to see new posts, at least Discord has alt-shift-up/down

Re: Show HN: Answer Overflow – Indexing Discord content into the web

#99

Post by captaincrisp »

chillfox wrote: post #64
teolandon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather have the tools to find things without having to interact with humans.

No one are automatically entitled to get the output of a community while sitting on the sideline, although a community may chose to make it available. Perhaps you should consider getting your answers from ChatGPT in the cases where a community has decided to be for themselves instead of the greater internet.

The alternative here is that people are more of a burden on the community, not less. It's more disruptive to have noobs asking the same questions and having to be answered by community members every time. At least from where I sit.

I don't think asking noob questions makes you part of the community in the way it matters here - actually contributing.

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