Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, like IRC but with a better interface,
And no netsplits/nickserv insanity.
Or people purchasing a holding company and proceeding to take over the entire volunteer ran network a few years later. :)
Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum
61–70 of 355 posts
Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum
#62It’s interesting to see folks preferred solutions. Obviously, I don’t know any of you, but I’m willing to bet that most people’s preferences correlate with the period they started using the internet and what was popular at the time: mailing lists, Usenet, web-based forums, IRC, Slack… I wonder how long it’ll be before people are saying “I really wish we could just go back to Discord.”
I'm an old guy so I never made it past lists/usenet/forums/wikis (unless I was forced to use Teams or whatever at work). So FWIW:
Threaded replies, in whatever form, have been the killer feature for me to grok more data that may or may not be relevant.
Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum
#63[deleted]
Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum
#64I can just see people spamming emojis
Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum
#65I 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 probably wouldn't use it because signing in is too much effort
What if the forum offered the following three options for sign in:
- Sign in with GitHub
- Sign in with Apple
- Sign in with Google
Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
And no netsplits/nickserv insanity.
Or people purchasing a holding company and proceeding to take over the entire volunteer ran network a few years later. :)
Luckily since there is no expectation of an archive, migration is fairly straightforward if there is an alternative. If there are no alternatives, I guess they can try IRC ;)
Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum
#67If you don’t run a discord, one of your users will “helpfully” start one anyway and the community will go there. You’ve then lost control of your Q&A forum.
Or they start a subreddit because you only have Discord
Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum
#68One 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 appropri…
People should be reminded that rules are more of a guideline than a strict plan to follow, especially in the online world. Banning people is a crucial part of forming a community, and you should feel no shame for applying it where necessary to guide the atmosphere towards a better place.
Re: Don't use Discord as your Q&A forum
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 appropri…
What's wrong with banning someone you've asked repeated to change their behaviour while interacting in a space that you host? Nothing!
"not really breaking any rules per se"