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Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

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Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#191

Post by kitsunesoba »

cblconfederate wrote: post #181
danr4 wrote: post #28

As discussed in a recent comment I made [0], I think the problem is that a good modern forum software simply does not exist yet. imo discourse doesn't cut it, feels almost as ephemeral as in slack/discord. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29016033

analysis paralysis. PHPbb works fine, it 's only old if you re ageist.

It’s been over a decade since I ran a forum but I recall phpBB specifically being chock full of security holes, probably more so than even Wordpress. If you didn’t stay on top of keeping it up to date you’d get hit with exploit-wielding bots that would cram your little forum full of spam designed to exploit Google’s ranking algorithms.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#192

Post by OJFord »

jedberg wrote: post #130
giancarlostoro wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? You literally put a sim card into a phone for it to be treated as a cell number? Thats odd and interesting to me how does that work?

The SIM has its own phone number, so when they put it in a phone they can do "phone" things like make calls. In their laptop it's just for data.

Or to be really pedantic, 'is currently assigned a particular' phone number.

Since you can change phone number without changing SIM (I don't know if it's global, but in the UK you just text a certain number for a transfer 'PAC' code) and clone them.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#193

Post by bsder »

dreyfan wrote: post #121
RHSeeger wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vBulletin is still available, isn't it?

Yep, works great. Nobody uses it for anything new though.

Presumably mobile compatibility was the issue, no? Everybody nowadays wants to do everything on their phone.

Also, didn't vBulletin have a lot of spam and security issues? It's kind of like WordPress in that using it is nice but managing it is hell.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#194

Post by Gigachad »

ejj28 wrote: post #141
PeterCorless wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they allow the user a chance to send an appeal or out-of-band alternative method to verify then this becomes less of an issue. It's when people presume certain baselines — like a phone number — that it becomes a showstopper to community.

I have seen Discord servers that use 3rd party verification systems, but very rarely. An alternative to phone numbers would be ideal, but there will always be flaws similar to the flaws of phone verification in my opinion.

I totally get all the frustration over phone number verification but it simply is the easiest and most effective method. It's really hard and expensive to get more phone numbers while every other method is easy to get unlimited accounts. Almost every country has phone numbers tied to ID as well so you can report the worst of users to local police.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#195

Post by mjrbrennan »

ipaddr wrote: post #107
kobieyc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use Discourse's hosted solution and it's effectively zero maintenance

Why not use a facebook page? Super easy to maintain and some moderation

Not the person you are replying to, but I would think that in this day that the answer to that question for most people would be "because it's Facebook". Giving more data over to their walled garden is probably not palatable for most people, regardless of the network effect.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#196

Post by formerly_proven »

jcelerier wrote: post #36
danr4 wrote: post #28

As discussed in a recent comment I made [0], I think the problem is that a good modern forum software simply does not exist yet. imo discourse doesn't cut it, feels almost as ephemeral as in slack/discord. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29016033

Yeah discourse feels like such a regression when compared to the phpbb and vBulletin of yore

Does vBulletin have a way yet to jump to the first new reply in a thread?

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#198

Post by Gigachad »

jetpackjoe wrote: post #100
jedberg wrote: post #70

Oh please do. This seems like the perfect time to bring this up: I had a piece of software that used Discord for support. They required that users be verified, which requires you to give you phone number to Discord. I gave them my Google Voice number, which is the only number I have, and they rejected it because they don't support VOIP numbers. I asked them if there was any other way to verify my identity. They told…

sounds like they are more interested in keeping bots out than verifying identity

It's also not required by discord. Discord doesn't even require that you have an account. They leave it up to "server" admins. You can pick options from allowing guests, allowing only accounts, and requiring only phone number verified accounts.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#199

Post by DantesKite »

danr4 wrote: post #28

As discussed in a recent comment I made [0], I think the problem is that a good modern forum software simply does not exist yet. imo discourse doesn't cut it, feels almost as ephemeral as in slack/discord. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29016033

I suspect you’re right. It just doesn’t exist.

Discord and Slack both fulfill interesting niches, but everything else is composed of chewing gum and tape.

The closest thing is Reddit, but it’s not great because subreddit names can be taken over and it’s hard to topple moderators that refuse to give up power.

Re: Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community

#200

Post by OJFord »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #93
Oddskar wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way? As a lurking user I think it's miles better.

I know of roughly 0 ways discourse is better. Its slower and has vastly less information density

Security-wise etc. it's probably better than a pile of (I'm guessing) mostly abandoned/assumed 'done' dependencies.

But yeah mostly, user-facing-wise, I agree.

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