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Stop Using Discord

malenfant.net

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Re: Stop Using Discord

#201

Post by aaravchen »

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?

I'm guessing you don't interact with the development community very much then? Almost every open source project I encounter at least has a Discord server, it's the new easier and more accessible version of "find me on IRC", but most that are less than 10 years old that I've encountered also don't have a forum and direct you to the Discord for even the most basic info. In fact I've had multiple popular GitHub repos that directed me in an Issue I was offering to file a PR for to go check Discord for an explanation of how the project was even used.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#202

Post by mxuribe »

theshrike79 wrote: post #173
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 have the same feeling about Matrix - and I've used IRC since the 90s so I'm used to jank. Discord has a clear segmentation where a "server" (community) has multiple "channels" (and "forums"). I can easily context-switch between servers. With Matrix there is no clear way (at least to me) to get all channels from a specific context - that is provided by someone else. I can of course manually organise channels somehow…

I'm an admitted matrix fanboy, but i hear ya about organizing in the matrix world! There certainly are opportunities for improvement. That being said, i feel like the challenges are 80% ~ 90% UI/UX challenges that need to be evolved, and maybe 10% ~ 20% protocol/architectural challenges. I have a feeling that there will be improvements from the client/app side that will create a positive jump in experience in the matrix world...of course i am biased. :-)

Re: Stop Using Discord

#203

Post by hprotagonist »

hu3 wrote: post #191
theshrike79 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voice chat, Video chat, emojis, embedded gifs, smart embeds of links.

also: - edit/delete messages - code highlight - notifications - fast search that works for everyone: https://discord.com/blog/how-discord-stores-billions-of-mess...

most of these things are client-specific but available with IRC. (edits aren’t)

Re: Stop Using Discord

#204

Post by aaravchen »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #155
slimsag wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't want to throw dirt at the project in question, but I signed up specifically to ask a question regarding a configuration problem, and the reply was "search for in the channel." like they apparently already had enough people ask the question that they immediately knew how to find the relevant discussion containing a solution. Versus in the old days, asking on irc and getting a link to a forum thread, or even be…

That is the exact reason Discord isn't sufficient. I've had to support enough projects as a maintainer to know that you will always get hammered with the stupidest questions and the same questions all the time. The less you have to repeat yourself the better, and Discord, or any chat application, ensures you have to repeat yourself as much as possible. There's virtually no way to retroactively follow the stream-of-consciousness that is a chat-style discussion with no single topic instead of the post-style single-topic threaded discussion.

I have seen exactly 1 project ever have a solution to this, and ironically it was actually on Discord. Of all the many many chat applications out there, Discord seems to have the most flexible admin control of retroactive chat organisation, and 1 huge development community I'm in has actually proactively created threads when a reoccurring topic comes up again and then moved them to a common FAQ channel.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#205

Post by jhanschoo »

I don't understand the need to move away from discord. It seems to me that you can have your cake and eat it too if you 1. Have your community accept a TOS that allows you to reproduce and distribute content that they contribute to the server, and 2. have a bridge or logging bot to mirror all conversation on the server.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#207

Post by Springtime »

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.

My understanding when I looked into this a couple years ago is the optional wider scope search is only possible to enable for one's own posts/account and while logged in[1], but still limited. At a server level the only search possible (using the regular Mastodon) is for user-added tags on posts rather than full text and this was an intentional decision[2].

I'm not familiar with indexability outside Mastodon instances, though can't really recall coming across them naturally in search.

[1] https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/elasticsearch/

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Mastodon/comments/yv1cl4/global_sea...

Edit: updated with links from my prior research.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#208

Post by lacoolj »

Discord has features similar to these forums with their threads, etc. Might be worthwhile to pose a feature request that allows these threads to be public and searchable (or at least crawl-able).

The chat logs, etc clearly would be a problem but these isolated areas could be prime candidates for a bridge of this gap.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#209

Post by hammyhavoc »

joenot443 wrote: post #124
Springtime wrote: post #54

Ultimately someone has to pay for things. Many communities have apparently decided they don't want to use even modern forum software and become a webmaster, along with avoiding the costs and time associated, or use someone else's existing forum (which may or may not suit their needs). The quite liberal free file attachment limits (25MB each), ease of communication and ironically the fact Discord is closed off in natu…

My sad realization is that in today’s nerd world, there just aren’t that many teenage webmasters. Unix and DNS and Apache just aren’t very sexy or fun to learn when the other cool kids are playing with LLMs and Flutter and WebGL. Obviously _we’d_ prefer if they learned to setup vBulletin and do it our way, but when Discord is free and all their friends are on it, it’s a tough sell to the other nerds. It’s not a “kids…

I don't know if skills are actually being lost. Skilled kids were always an anomaly when it came to tech on a meaningful level.

You might even be able to argue there's greater skills than ever before as compute is so cheap and FOSS is so readily available.

I was 1 of maybe 3 nerds in a school of 2500 people, 20 years ago. Being smart wasn't deemed to be cool, computers weren't cool—doing well in class made you a "swot".

The people who do productive things with tech for their own enjoyment and curiosity has always been small relative to people who just "consume" as an end user.

What is being lost is electronics design skills, despite KiCAD et al being available. Also not much interest in FPGAs and DSP from younger demographics, but at least MiSTer got some younger folks into FPGAs, but unfortunately, prices went through the roof to even get a foot on the ladder.

Re: Stop Using Discord

#210

Post by poulpy123 »

wavyknife wrote: post #135
poulpy123 wrote: post #19

I totally agree, and also stop using FB groups it's even worse. But the issue is no replacement is proposed by the author. Discord has the advantage of: - being free - being maintained by someone else - being used by a lot of people, so no need to create a new account for many users - being very useful as a chat and growing organically as support from there I don't see many competitors available. For example discours…

Hello! I work for Discourse, it's open source so you can self-host most sites on a cloud provider like Digital Ocean for ~$20/mo

I actually enjoy Discourse, it's the best software for forum that I encounter as a user, but someone who wants to create a forum using it must either pay at least 1200€/year or know how to manage a server, including securing it. I'm not saying that the price is not justified (it is) and it's great that it is free software for anyone to install it, but for most non pro usage it cannot compete with discord.
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