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.
What people want is a forum that doesn't require another blasted login and yet another inscrutable navigation system.
What forum owners want is to not have to deal with idiotic user logins and spam.
Both sides think Discord is good enough even though it isn't.
The problem is that everything else is so much worse.
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.
What people want is a forum that doesn't require another blasted login and yet another inscrutable navigation system. What forum owners want is to not have to deal with idiotic user logins and spam. Both sides think Discord is good enough even though it isn't. The problem is that everything else is so much worse.
I try not to argue against my users for "what is best for them." If they overwhelmingly want Discord, I'll give them Discord. The goal is to be ready to jump ship if need be, and there's a few ways to do that.
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.
Could be a bias too. I really dislike Discord. I'm on too many discords. It's just one of those network effect things that I wish wasn't everywhere.
I'm happy with searchable public chat support. Unfortunately, discord seems to be the best way to do this.
I think I do want a forum, but I probably wouldn't use it because signing in is too much effort. Maybe if forums had shared profiles and better mobile support, they'd be used more.
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 to…
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 )
This is a real problem. My project dealt with someone who dominated discussions and frequently responded with outright false information. We tried very hard to work with them, but they wouldn't change, and after asking a lot of other maintainers how they would handle it, and giving many warnings, we eventually banned them despite them not really breaking rules per se.
What ultimately convinced us banning was appropriate was people reminding us that it was within our rights and duties as community maintainers to create a welcoming environment for everyone, and seeing regular members stop participating because of them.
Last time a gripe about discord being bad for documention was posted, someone linked Answer Overflow (https://www.answeroverflow.com/) as a possible solution. Still requires people to use discords threaded feature and doesn't capture chats, but helps with atleast having the questiond indexed in google and not sitting behind a walled garden
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.
Could be a bias too. I really dislike Discord. I'm on too many discords. It's just one of those network effect things that I wish wasn't everywhere. I'm happy with searchable public chat support. Unfortunately, discord seems to be the best way to do this. I think I do want a forum, but I probably wouldn't use it because signing in is too much effort. Maybe if forums had shared profiles and better mobile support, they…
I tried launching a forum, I spent a _lot_ of time setting up Discourse and proper CDN/uploads etc. I didn't go all out, only a few categories based on what was commonly needed (like 5?). I did this _before_ I resorted to Discord as the only point of help. People begrudgingly used it... It got to the point where I was asked "why aren't you using Discord like everyone else in this space?" enough that I asked my power users on the forum, and the broader internet via other channels, and most people overwhelmingly wanted Discord. In particular, of note, my power users on the forums wanted it. After switching, the number of people asking for help significantly increased, and we gained a fair number of new power users willing to help those people out too.
I think proscriptive statements about what to use or not use are opinions masked to be pretend facts.
You should use whatever works for you and your clients/customers. All the channels come with plus and minus issues. It's the support version of CAP theorem: You can be reachable, focussed and structured but probably not all three at once.
I also miss email. Mainly because the expectation of "instant" was muted through delivery delays.
When I need instant, I should possibly expect to have to pay for it.
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.
I’ve done it in different communities. I don’t think it should be discouraged even though it can seem strange. There’s a person who wants their question answered, and someone who wants to answer it. Why make the sever worse by stopping it? At times, they might be wrong, but they’re going to realize they’re a problem if they’re always wrong. I do think sometimes incentives seem misaligned, like, I was in an enterprise…
It's only a problem because he can be an asshole sometimes, and he very nearly always gets in first, (I swear he never sleeps), so yeah, sometimes not a great intro to a community that does exist, honest, not that you'd know from the Slack threads.
To be fair, when he answers a question he's right 99.9% of the time.
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.
Could be a bias too. I really dislike Discord. I'm on too many discords. It's just one of those network effect things that I wish wasn't everywhere. I'm happy with searchable public chat support. Unfortunately, discord seems to be the best way to do this. I think I do want a forum, but I probably wouldn't use it because signing in is too much effort. Maybe if forums had shared profiles and better mobile support, they…
> I think I do want a forum, but I probably wouldn't use it because signing in is too much effort. Maybe if forums had shared profiles and better mobile support, they'd be used more.