Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop Using Discord

malenfant.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 244 posts

Re: Stop Using Discord

#181

Post by theshrike79 »

anymouse123456 wrote: post #70

This. "Join my Discord" is a 100% hard pass for me. Every time I've made an exception, the entire experience is a net-negative. Half the time, I can't even get authenticated and then once I'm in, everything is awful. The notifications, the constant chatter, the dozens of topics, the useless search, it shocks me that anyone over the age of 14 uses it at all. Add to all the broken basics, the fact that your data is now…

> it shocks me that anyone over the age of 14 uses it at all

Our group of 40+ old farts uses Discord exclusively, because we can do it all under the same roof.

Want to chat about stuff, we've got a few channels just to keep them contained (one for each RPG campaign we're playing and separate ones for the few PC games we have time for).

Need to chat during an online game? Discord has video and voice chat as well as screen sharing.

Want to keep a log of a RPG campaign? You can do a "forum" post about it after every session, it's all there in a nice format under the same platform.

When we play online games, like Helldivers 2, everyone can use Discord for voice even when I play with PS5 and the others are PC players. Discord works cross-platform.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#182

Post by skydhash »

lairv wrote: post #156
kwanbix wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been using computers for 40 years and I cannot see a single feature of discord that I cannot have on a forum or even reddit. In fact, the UX of Discord is abismal.

What I like about discord is that, in my experience, it lowers the barrier of entry to get a reply on an issue. On forums or GitHub issues, you usually need to be more formal and thoughtful in your posts, you don't want people on stack overflow to tell you that this is a dumb question, and even then you might wait days or weeks for a response. The instant chat format encourages people to simply reply even in informal…

That’s because you were expected to read the manual, and then afterward ask your question. That reduced the number of questions and it’s more likely to have an answer. The forum was an extension to to the manuals (for isolated cases) and a window to how the software/project is being used in the real world.

Look at the VIM help as an example of great manual. Or the GNU software documentation. Now, you see “Join our Discord” instead.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#183

Post by theshrike79 »

kwanbix wrote: post #59
NeutralForest wrote: post #37

I feel like we have this discussion every month, one way or another. People use Discord because it's useful and they like the experience. Discourse is nice for purely written communication but if you want to setup a call, direct message and, more importantly, write bots (presentation, topic organization, news, modding, now even AI Q&A); people will fall back to Discord. Pointing at Discourse when it doesn't have the…

I have been using computers for 40 years and I cannot see a single feature of discord that I cannot have on a forum or even reddit. In fact, the UX of Discord is abismal.

Voice and video chat on a forum? How would you do that sensibly? Embed Jitsi?

Re: Stop Using Discord

#184

Post by morjom »

michaelt wrote: post #88
morjom wrote: post #58

Use a matrix bridge to discord instead. Jokes aside the discord ux is good enough for the average user, it already has chokehold on its users and there is no equivalent. I would also prefer things to be easily searchable, archivable etc but consumers consume.

> it already has chokehold on its users and there is no equivalent. There are plenty of equivalents - Slack, Microsoft Teams etc offer the same IRC + persistent messages + searchable + persistent user accounts & admin + multi-device + image sharing + file sharing + spam protection product. They're just even worse , by most of the metrics that make people hate discord.

If they're worse are they equivalent?

Re: Stop Using Discord

#185

Post by astromd »

Discord isn’t the right tool for a knowledge base, but it’s great for communities. I run several servers but I wouldn’t recommend it for developer projects.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#188

Post by azangru »

viraptor wrote: post #144
azangru wrote: post #132

Has anyone remarked on the irony that this appeal to stop using discord, because it isn't searchable from the outside, is published on mastodon, which is also not searchable from the outside? I tried to google for things I had earlier seen on Mastodon, but was never able to find the relevant post again. Even modern-day Twitter, which is impossible to just browse these days, is more googlable.

> on mastodon, which is also not searchable from the outside? By default . You can turn on indexing for your account if you want to.

Does this mean indexing within the database that drives this Mastodon instance, or indexing by web crawlers such as googlebot?

Re: Stop Using Discord

#189

Post by Ekaros »

CivBase wrote: post #85
lulzury wrote: post #26

I don't like Discord as much as the next person, but people use Discord because it's convenient. Why do people prefer Discord to IRC when the latter is free, open source, and indexable?

Features. Is there any other tool that offers persistant text, voice, and video chats plus screen sharing? I've gone looking and there is simply no alternative with core feature parity.

There is, but who wants to use Teams or others for hobbies...

In the end there is nothing special about Discord, but it does most things people want well enough.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#190

Post by AlienRobot »

slimsag wrote: post #136
iforgotpassword wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried discord only once, but to me it was a disorganized chaotic experience. People seem to really think that well organized faq sections on traditional websites and properly searchable and indexable forum threads should be replaced by "just search through two years of chat backlog on discord". Or something like that.

I run a large discord. I am in several large discords. I do not know anyone proposing replacing a traditional FAQ with discord. If anything, I would argue discord tends to improve website-based documentation because people ask the same question over and over again, leading to a need for a quick way to link the answer. Who do you think is replacing FAQ's with Discord?

The forum threads ARE the FAQs.

When enough people make the same thread to ask the same question, that is a frequently-asked question.

Post reply on HN