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Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

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Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

#21

Post by jrflowers »

jhatemyjob wrote: post #15

Terrible post. 1. This is what the "Ban" feature is for. 2. Anecdotal. Not really an issue in my experience. 3. This is what the Discord API is for. There's a really simple API to dump the chat history. Just make a cron job to dump every 10 min or so, and host that on a static site. Problem solved. 4. See 3.

> This is what the Discord API is for. There's a really simple API to dump the chat history. Just make a cron job to dump every 10 min or so, and host that on a static site. Problem solved.

I don’t see why anyone complains about Discord user experience when you can just manually implement basic functionality that the Discord devs didn’t see fit to put in.

Why would anybody post on a forum when you could just write a custom client for Discord from scratch?

Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

#23

Post by bredren »

tilne wrote: post #14
nonethewiser wrote: post #11

So long as we don’t lose sight of its utility as a chat app. I like that projects have that sort of communication channel.

Why? I think chat is a terrible way to organize this information. I don’t understand why people so readily accept working in that medium. It is all for the sake of people who don’t care enough to find the proper channels, or worse yet set them up in the first place. Even for small side projects, GitHub issues is just so so so much better than an unorganized chat history. There is no reason besides laziness to not imp…

I suspect people are using it partly to deliver a more regular and visible heartbeat.

Going to a project’s discord that has active messages feels like the thing is alive, and getting engagement from the maintainers or project owners feels more connected than replies in issues.

GitHub issues is mechanically better but is (properly) spare in comparison.

Creating an issue, (which occupies a number that can not be taken back), is heavy compared to a chat message.

Discussions are GH’s answer to this but I think those muddy the waters. Having Discussions enabled on only some repos makes them unreliable. And each repo has different criteria for what should go in a discussion.

As much as I avoid Discord, I don’t think the chat based medium is going away. If anything, I could see GH finding a way to enter that fray.

Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

#24

Post by SubGenius »

MitPitt wrote: post #17
SubGenius wrote: post #7

I'm building (with a fellow HNer) a publicly accessible Matrix server with forum-like features. Hoping to make it a decent foss alternative to discord and other closed-off community apps. [0] [0] - https://shpong.com/shpong

Looks very neat, how feature complete is it?

Not a whole lot, but getting there. For now, we have:

- matrix spaces not hidden behind auth

- indexed by search engines

- chat channels

- subreddit like posts with nested replies, voting etc

- private invite-only spaces

Hoping to get voice/audio working soon, along with encrypted DMs. Experimenting with activitypub integration too.

Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

#26

Post by MitPitt »

jrflowers wrote: post #21
jhatemyjob wrote: post #15

Terrible post. 1. This is what the "Ban" feature is for. 2. Anecdotal. Not really an issue in my experience. 3. This is what the Discord API is for. There's a really simple API to dump the chat history. Just make a cron job to dump every 10 min or so, and host that on a static site. Problem solved. 4. See 3.

> This is what the Discord API is for. There's a really simple API to dump the chat history. Just make a cron job to dump every 10 min or so, and host that on a static site. Problem solved. I don’t see why anyone complains about Discord user experience when you can just manually implement basic functionality that the Discord devs didn’t see fit to put in. Why would anybody post on a forum when you could just write a…

What are you talking about? You can't write a custom client and the official one is closed source. Scraping chat history is also against the TOS and get get you blocked.

Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

#27

Post by PaulHoule »

One trouble w/ things like Discord and IRC for support or community building is that frequently you get somebody with nothing better to do who "leans in" and spends more time (all the time) logged in and ends up being the face of your forum for new users.

(Full disclosure, I've been that guy)

Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

#28

Post by EdwardDiego »

PaulHoule wrote: post #27

One trouble w/ things like Discord and IRC for support or community building is that frequently you get somebody with nothing better to do who "leans in" and spends more time (all the time) logged in and ends up being the face of your forum for new users. (Full disclosure, I've been that guy )

It's like that on a FOSS project Slack I'm on. He's not the most... ...personable person, and tbh I think it's a control thing.

Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

#29

Post by spankalee »

This article (and the comments here so far) don't mention Discord Forum Channels which solves the two actual usability/discoverability concerns listed

Forum Channels FAQ: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/6208479917079-...

Forum Channels are a type of channel that's structured as a more traditional forum. It's similar to channels that tried to enforce that everything is a thread, but much better.

* The top level shows posts only - no standalone messages

* Selecting a post opens the thread to the right - it's very easy to browse posts and threads

* Posts are sorted by date or most recent activity

* There's a tag system and you can quickly filter by tags

* There's a combined new/search field so you're forced to see search results

* Your active post threads show up in the left nav section like other active threads, making it pretty easy to see new replies.

I don't know if it's the best forum system ever, but it's pretty good and it's right in Discord. And like another poster said, our users want Discord.

Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum

#30

Post by eddythompson80 »

Operyl wrote: post #18

I don't know, a lot of the people that interact with my projects _want_ discord. They don't want a forum, they don't want Matrix. It's a matter of knowing your audience. I've been working on ways to better archive support/question threads, and the discord search isn't that terrible.

I found that part of it is the informality of it all. There is no expectation that someone will search the chat history for an answer. When you don’t get an answer, but someone after you does, you can ping on it maybe once more. Those who don’t know the answer might chime in with “hey, I don’t know but look there”

In general it has a much lower barrier of entry. With all the good and bad that brings.

For the record I think it’s a miss in general. But YMMV.

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