Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

I've had 0 scams on Amazon in 15(?) Years of using it. I had one "new" product that was clearly opened, and two clicks on their website later I had a pickup ordered from my door the following day and a replacement in the way.

That's why people praise it.

> On discord, I had to log in and join their group to ask about an error message, only to find it’s a common issue and there’s a few troubleshooting steps.

Did you try searching for the error message on Discord? If so, what was the experience?

Discord is a trade-off. Don't apply on the wrong problem.

Some pros, I'll pick three. (1) I think the appeal for something like Discord becomes more obvious when documentation feels like a moving target. For example, as a long time back-end developer, I have never disliked StackOveflow more than when I decided to learn front-end JavaScript. Every answer seemed attached to an expiration date. Anything older than 2 years and I'd wonder is this still in effect? I actually wished that JS would have its own special SO where answers can be sorted by "number of votes this year" or a "deprecated" flag. (2) The immediacy of chat, you ask and don't have to wait half a day for someone to notice. (3) No search. It could just be an impression, but my search experience seems to just increasingly suck. Engines seem to struggle to find relevant bits, particularly if the tech is fairly recent and results are flooded with meaningless articles, that just echo the same "Hello, world" from the official documentation. With Discord, I don't have to sort through the junk.

Now the cons.

The chat format for support certainly has its highlights, but you don't have to wear blinders about its downsides. If you allow for time to improve information, information accrues interest. Chat doesn't allow for time. And Discord doesn't particularly care about the quality of information. Discord cares about (authenticated) users showing up on the platform now, now, now. The problems highlighted with the chat format (as it's implemented on Discord), are very focused (though they have ramifications): archiving and searching capabilities are subpar. You show up on some chat channel and ask a question. You get the benefit of immediate advice, by the most authoritative voice that happens to be present. It may be good advice or it may be moot. You just have to take it at face value. On StackOverflow that advice would go unchallenged for a few months, but allow for time and you allow for scrutiny. Eventually, if there's contention, there will be a discussion. Answers are commented upon, improved, deprecated. You can simply show up years later and benefit from the maturation of the different perspectives that contributed to crystallize our current best understanding of the issue.

Obviously, YMMV. Still, don't apply on the wrong problem.

Add this point too: you can’t just google the problem for example and find a similar post and the resolution, you never know if the problem was addressed or resolved, even back in the days with locked forums where you needed to register or even reply to the post to see the solution, you know there’s some sort of issue and how to solve it, with Discord, nothing.

So my rule of thumb, if that service or software that I’m trying to use list a discord as the mean of communication, I simply don’t use it, what’s next, holding meetings over Twitch and discussions over tiktok?

The discord should clearly state the community standards, including some variant of "don't be an asshole". Most importantly, the standards must be enforced.

These people, while knowledgeable, drag down the community with their toxic personalities and discourage others from participating. Who wants to ask a question if there is a high probability of being called stupid.

Warning and then ultimately kicking these individuals improved things as a whole. Others stepped up to answer questions and mods handled fewer complaints about the asshole's style of communication.