•  klangcola   ( @klangcola@reddthat.com ) 
    196•3 months ago

    The biggest problem with Discord is that its an information black hole. Its not properly searchable and not indexed by search engines.

    Discord is fine for casual chat, but horrible when used for forum-type discussions and even worse when used for documentation.

    You see the same problems being discussed and solved again and again, but you cant just “link” someone the solution like you could with a forum thread cause its spread out over 3-10 chat messages that are interleaved in-between other topics being discussed in the same room

    Anything of long-term value for the project (forum-type discussions, documentation etc) should not recide in Discord

    •  Fisch   ( @Fisch@lemmy.ml ) 
      40•3 months ago

      It started getting popular years ago and that’s when me an my friends switched to it too (back when I didn’t know shit about privacy). You gotta keep in mind the alternatives back then were Skype, which was meant for 1 to 1 calls, had shit audio quality and issues all the time and TeamSpeak, which was complicated because you needed a server (we were kids, we only knew what a server was from Minecraft) and had a text chat that was only a small part of the bottom of the window that was full of connected and disconnected messages, so I actually didn’t even know you could write in that. TeamSpeak’s interface also isn’t exactly good-looking or very intuitive. Then came Discord, you could create a server for you and your friends for free, you saw who of your friends was online and playing what, you could see when someone was in a voice channel and could just join, you had multiple text chats where you could easily send a link or memes while playing and you could easily share your screen with the others. It was a major improvement over the other two. I know that it sucks from a privacy standpoint but there’s good reasons why people started using it.

    •  helenslunch   ( @helenslunch@feddit.nl ) 
      10•3 months ago

      Same as any of the modern enshittified services. It used to be really good. Once they got a large userbase it was time to extract value from the users. The users never have the self-respect to leave, so there they stay.

  •  db0   ( @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
    51•3 months ago

    As someone deeply involved in Foss for many years and with multiple large Foss services running on my back, these constant requests for purity from outsiders will go nowhere until volunteers people step up to do the hard work of setting up and maintaining the infrastructure and management of such Foss solutions in the place of the core developers

        •  Cataphract   ( @Cataphract@lemmy.ml ) 
          24•3 months ago

          I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make unless you’re saying no one has to create a Discord account, or have to download an app, or have to find an invite to locate the server. My keys are auto-generated and auto-saved, simple 20 second process. Forums are also a lot easier to sign up for than Discord, if you’re worried about making another account I don’t know what to tell ya because every service requires it.

          •  B0rax   ( @B0rax@feddit.de ) 
            13•3 months ago

            You set up a discord account once. When you want to join a project discord all you have to do is click the invite link and hit „accept“. Bam. Done. No need to join a forum. No need to keep track of another website and check if you got a personal message from someone or something. The benefit is that it is all one location.

            •  Abnorc   ( @Abnorc@lemm.ee ) 
              13•3 months ago

              It’s undoubtedly nice during that step of the process, but afterwards you’re on a platform that may not be well suited to the purpose. It’d be better just to make the new account on an actual forum. Granted, I use Bitwarden now, so I don’t sweat making new accounts anymore.

              This makes me wonder if there is a centralized system for forums. We have stackexchange already, but that’s really designed to be a question and answer site.

              •  poVoq   ( @poVoq@slrpnk.net ) 
                7•3 months ago

                Discourse, NodeBB and Flarum are all currently working on ActivityPub federation support. The first two have some basic support already available.

                Edit: I read “decentralized”. The “centralized” system for forums is obviously Reddit.

        •  Venia Silente   ( @veniasilente@lemm.ee ) English
          3•3 months ago

          I’m probably way out of the loop but from the perspective of devs getting to contribute, don’t stuff like Discourse ship with “login with your Github account” already? Or Google, or Facebook, or…

          Also, please, it’s 1 click nowadays to make your browser remember your logins for you, if it comes down to laziness

        •  Cataphract   ( @Cataphract@lemmy.ml ) 
          14•3 months ago

          I guess we have different perspectives. Ease, convenience = forums, existing userbase? = Do you prefer Reddit for this reason?, familiarity = forums lol, search-ability = forums, privacy = forums, etc etc.

            •  Cataphract   ( @Cataphract@lemmy.ml ) 
              13•3 months ago

              I think you might just be blinded by Discord for some reason. I’m not sure what “niche” you’re referring to with Discord that can’t be provided with forums (unless you’re worried about cosmetics I guess?). There are forums with real-time communications like chat, notifications, direct-messaging. I’m not trying to argue, getting your perspective is always helpful and might show something I’m missing, but your responses seem vague and not really a counter-point.

              •  db0   ( @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
                11•3 months ago

                My perspective is of a FOSS developer with multiple communities of thousands. If you can’t grasp it, that’s on you. It’s also why purity moralizing isn’t useful. I have only so much mental bandwidth to spend on organizing and self-hosting. If people are not stepping up to do the community management and infrastructure work, I will go with the past of least resistance.

                •  Cataphract   ( @Cataphract@lemmy.ml ) 
                  12•3 months ago

                  If you can’t grasp it, that’s on you. It’s also why purity moralizing isn’t useful

                  oh ok, thanks for the clarification.

                  If people are not stepping up to do the community management and infrastructure work, I will go with the past of least resistance.

                  That’s basically it in a nut shell, path of least resistance. Doesn’t refute any claims made in the article or arguments presented here. Just a shame another company has a stranglehold on a whole category of services that have to be used to participate in society … while developing FOSS.

  •  Caligvla   ( @Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English
    45•3 months ago

    Can’t wait for the day Discord backstabs everyone and people decide to get the fuck away from it. I seriously can’t stand having to search past troubleshooting messages, it’s a fucking mess, almost unusable. Whoever uses Discord as a Forum seriously needs a full force punch in the mouth.

  •  Archon of the Valley   ( @ChallengeApathy@infosec.pub ) English
    43•3 months ago

    Discord is only good for coordinating game events and helping to facilitate gaming community engagement. I’m so sick of everyone pushing it as the central hub of everything social and the idea of entire projects centered around Discord is absolutely ludicrous.

    •  lightnsfw   ( @lightnsfw@reddthat.com ) 
      7•3 months ago

      I’ve been finding this out at work recently. Got lazy and started doing most of my conversations via teams instead of email and now having to find shit from like a year ago is practically impossible. Even some conversations I know contained what I’m looking for just have random gaps where posts have disappeared.

  •  ryven   ( @ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English
    38•3 months ago

    I’m on board with this, but I may be biased because I also don’t like using Discord for anything else. Every time someone sends me a Discord invite I feel a little defeated, because it is usually after I have agreed to participate in something.

  •  Auzy   ( @Auzy@beehaw.org ) 
    27•3 months ago

    It’s getting a bit annoying honestly how people are telling other developers how to run their projects. And often these people don’t even contribute anything

    I personally hate discord, but I do use slack. Using discord or slack however doesn’t make your code any less open source

    If people want this, they can set up something for my projects, and convince users to go. If it’s successful I’d join too. Otherwise, it’s really just focusing on things that dont actually matter much. I’ve personally been part of a project which died because we focused too much on infrastructure

    •  Lemmy   ( @lemmylem@lemm.ee ) 
      17•3 months ago

      We shouldn’t be mixing FOSS projects with proprietary communication platforms. There are a lot of FOSS enthusiasts who want their setup to be entirely free and open, including Discord into the mix basically goes against the whole philosophy.

      •  Auzy   ( @Auzy@beehaw.org ) 
        13•3 months ago

        Great, well those FOSS enthusiasts can contribute something to the project if they want to dictate how it is run, or/and they can set it up and moderate it.

        Again, projects need to be super careful not to get caught up in overheads than actually producing results. One of my projects we spent so much time jerking around with choosing source code systems and such, that we didn’t really produce anything. You start nitpicking features, servers, long term reliability, etc, instead of just picking what you’re familiar with which might be closed source but super popular.

        I we go extreme, a hardcore FOSS user could even argue developers shouldn’t use VS Code and argue they should use another tool. Well, if you’re more productive with VS Code and produce more/better code though, use that, because its the results that matter.

        The fact is, most projects get 0 donations and people do them as a hobby. If people seriously want this, they can contribute donations to projects to get them to switch

        Also, this link is basically a Sourcehut advert…

          •  nexussapphire   ( @nexussapphire@lemm.ee ) English
            4•3 months ago

            But you can’t do that, the whole phone has to be open source Right down to the chipset! How are you going to know if it’s respecting your privacy the hardware is a black box it doesn’t matter if you have to create custom solutions to get your banking app working on it. That’s kinda the standard your holding these open source devs to.

            It’s not enough you spend your free time writing code with basically no compensation you have to maintain a server, pay for hosting, make sure security patches go through, troubleshooting when it goes down, write custom software to automate support tickets, and deal with people potentially trying to ddos your instance, etc.

            •  CrypticCoffee   ( @CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml ) 
              2•3 months ago

              Most users find mobile banking works out of the box on GrapheneOS.

              I’m not disputing the last stuff is not fun. Matrix works quite well and you can set up a bridge with discord. Using spaces correctly cuts down spam easier also. The problem remains, even if you set them up, my experience is 92% of users come in through Discord. I’d love that to change, but it’s just a fact of the matter.

              •  nexussapphire   ( @nexussapphire@lemm.ee ) English
                1•3 months ago

                Yeah, I don’t have foss painted on my chest but I like the idea. It’ll become more mainstream once people figure out a system to get devs paid and reduce the drawbacks of someone cloning a project, injecting ads, and providing it as a free alternative. If all those things and the issue of paying people to provide professional support for companies using it get solved. I can see a bright future for foss.

                EDIT: I’ve also heard graphene is is pretty good, I like my android auto though.

        •  toastal   ( @toastal@lemmy.ml ) 
          2•3 months ago

          Exactly. You should consider it too… at a bare minimum have a bridge. If you are a small project that doesn’t have the funds Libera.chat & OFTC exist to be used for this exact purpose.

            •  toastal   ( @toastal@lemmy.ml ) 
              3•3 months ago

              It’s not more work–it’s often what should have been chosen in the first place as it meets the minimum requirements for the task, is ‘free’ to use, & isn’t wasteful on resources (both their servers & users’ clients). For those not in a the free/ethical software space this may be untrue, but in the space it’s hypocritical to say your software believes in those values but our communication platforms have a different set of rules. It’s also not just just “purity” but accessibility as Discord has ToS not everyone can agree to & has to comply with US sanctions on who is allowed to use the service that something self or independently-hosted don’t have to deal with. It feels more of the reverse in that you are suggesting communities be poisoned by proprietary platforms.

              •  db0   ( @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
                1•3 months ago

                It is absolutely more work. Like undeniably so. I’ve used both matrix and discord. Matrix is absolutely more work. Especially since there’s even less people to help you run it. Irc is even more. Again unless people volunteer to do it, I don’t have the time.

      •  Auzy   ( @Auzy@beehaw.org ) 
        3•3 months ago

        I don’t use Discord actually…

        In fact, my most popular project made Slashdot front page 20 years ago, and I was actually using IRC. No help… Just submitted issues or suggestions. The only donations I got were from people I knew. And donations aren’t common for most projects honestly until they get much bigger, or they are operating an online service

        There is nothing stopping people setting up communication channels and such on IRC and such though if they don’t want to use the others

          •  Auzy   ( @Auzy@beehaw.org ) 
            1•3 months ago

            Not going to say lol. But it got mentioned in a magazine too… It wasn’t massive… But, got a lot of attention for a short period… But honestly, gave it up because I got sick defending it against haters. That being said, the same idea got adopted by a few distros soon after. So it’s actually good that I did (as it would have ultimately been a waste of time)

    •  pop   ( @pop@lemmy.ml ) 
      1•3 months ago

      Because most opensource enthusiasts cry foul on the internet, want everything open-source, free and privacy centric but never contribute anything of value.

      Did the author start a matrix instance yet? No?

      Yes, not much has changed.

  •  Venia Silente   ( @veniasilente@lemm.ee ) English
    23•3 months ago

    I get that people want a “simple way to chat” and Discord does that well, I guess. I mean, everyone’s talking about the forum aspect but what’s the alternative for chat? Mumble?

    Just, please, don’t hide documentation in the Discord. A neocities page costs literally $0. Please. Think of the poor SEO consultants!

    •  Archon of the Valley   ( @ChallengeApathy@infosec.pub ) English
      3•3 months ago

      I find that some Matrix clients make it easy to build and interact with a community. Even Element has a lot of Discord’s core features, it just lacks the streaming and some of the gaming-related stuff. Otherwise, Matrix rooms are sufficient for building an “easy to chat” community.

  •  Brayd   ( @brayd@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
    19•3 months ago

    I love Immich and Sharkey but both use Discord. Sharkey even used Matrix in the beginning but eventually switched to Discord. I think their reasoning was that they were often attacked by trolls etc. and that Matrix didn’t had good options for moderation etc.

    And while I love Matrix I fully agree. Yes there are moderation bots like Draupnir and they’re good but you will need to self host them and register a user for them and and and. It’s not as easy as with Discord or even Telegram bots. Also there are many Discord bots providing very fun elements like levels, reputations, roles etc. which simply do not exist or aren’t even possible in Matrix as it currently is.

    On top of that we have the decentralization “problem” for end users who aren’t technical. They simply don’t care much about privacy and they don’t care if Discord stores every single message and picture in clear text forever on their servers. It’s easier to create a Discord account on a centralized platform than understanding Matrix understanding which server to choose, understanding which client to choose and understanding how encryption, key management etc. works. Yes decentralization is important and great but for the average user it’s still something that they do not really know which “overcomplicates” it for them.

    And another point is that Matrix spaces are simply not the same as Discord servers. Channels are not as easy to manage because they are rooms on their own in Matrix and a space is not a server but rather a way to organize multiple rooms. Not every client supports spaces yet. Clients implement them differently. Then there’s Element and Element X on phones confusing people new to Matrix etc. In Discord several channels can be grouped in another category. In Matrix you’d use Subspaces for that giving you the same issue as with normal spaces.

    And most clients don’t implement simple things on mobile like…sending multiple images at once. From the perspective of an end user that fact annoys the heck out of anyone wanting to send several pictures.

    So yeah I think it’s a mixture out of those things.

    Matrix especially needs better bot support with bots that could be used by everyone as it is with Discord instead of being only usable by server admins or the bots creators as it is with many Matrix bots. And it does need a better solution for spaces with rooms or another thing in the specs that replicates how Discord servers work so that it’s a “space” with actual “subchannels” without every space technically being it’s own room dangling around in limbo and just being “sorted” into the space.

    And it needs better moderation tools.

    •  KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ   ( @Kushia@lemmy.ml ) English
      11•3 months ago

      Matrix sucks, that’s why most people won’t use it. I’m already giving my software away for free and providing free support for it, why would I want to take up even more of my free time running and maintaining a Matrix server as well?

      Sure, I could use an already available Matrix server but I already have a Discord account, all my friends and contributors do as well and the entire thing is easy to set up and use, plus I’m already running the Discord client too.

      On top of this, the argument about searchability is irrelevant. Projects have been giving support via IRC forever which has all the same problems. The best thing to do for any non-trivial support inquiries is to direct the user to lodge a support ticket and always has been.

      Matrix just isn’t a compelling option, even if it had feature parity with Discord and was easier to use, it doesn’t have any real inertia anyway.

        •  KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ   ( @Kushia@lemmy.ml ) English
          5•3 months ago

          It could install itself and I still wouldn’t use it. Nobody I care about is on there and inertia is important too. This has been true since the dawn of real-time communications platforms and isn’t going to change either.

          •  chebra   ( @chebra@mstdn.io ) 
            10•3 months ago

            @Kushia 🤷‍♂️ I have the opposite situation, nobody I care about is on discord. So discord sucks? See the thing is if one matrix guy wants to talk to one discord guy, one of them needs to install a new app. And I think the world would be better if we all had more free/libre apps and less walled gardens, so I will strongly resist installing discord. Just yet another proprietary walled garden waiting for the rug-pull. Why? Just convince the other guy to use Matrix and over time our world will improve

      •  fmstrat   ( @fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com ) English
        5•3 months ago

        From the article.

        Free software matters — that’s why you’re writing it, after all. Using Discord partitions your community on either side of a walled garden, with one side that’s willing to use the proprietary Discord client, and one side that isn’t. It sets up users who are passionate about free software — i.e. your most passionate contributors or potential contributors — as second-class citizens.

        Maybe you’ll take up more of your time answering lazy user’s questions than speaking with those that are helpful with solving issues.

        Your argument about time is more in favor of Matrix, and even more so in favor of just using your code hosting’s issue tracker.

        •  KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ   ( @Kushia@lemmy.ml ) English
          2•3 months ago

          The article is wrong, you disrespect your users by forcing them to use a platform that they otherwise wouldn’t just to engage with you. Github isn’t free either, but the majority of us use it for free software too.

      •  poVoq   ( @poVoq@slrpnk.net ) 
        11•3 months ago

        The elephant in the room is IRC. Which continues to work fine and hosts huge FOSS communities. Self hosting it is even better as you can use a more modern version like ergo.chat than the large networks sadly utilize.

        •  toastal   ( @toastal@lemmy.ml ) 
          2•3 months ago

          IRCv3 has a lot of features & is good, but if you need encrypted chat and/or want to support decentralization XMPP MUCs can fit the bill similar being just a bit less lightweight.

        •  Brayd   ( @brayd@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
          1•3 months ago

          But IRC doesn’t really support E2EE in 1:1 chats right? Because that’s something very important for me. I don’t want to use an app only for public channels I ideally would like to use it for everything. Including messaging the people I know.

          •  poVoq   ( @poVoq@slrpnk.net ) 
            1•3 months ago

            There are some ways to make it work with OTR, but realistically speaking no.

            Personally I get around that by using XMPP and connecting to IRC via the excellent Biboumi gateway. Thus I get the best of both, as XMPP is working really well for e2ee 1:1 chats.

        •  fmstrat   ( @fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com ) English
          1•3 months ago

          I use IRC in Matrix, and have used IRC since the 90s, but IRC lacks many modern features, even simple things like configurable push notifications and universal encryption, perhaps ergo is better? But then again, the reason I chose Lemmy was distribution, so…

          •  poVoq   ( @poVoq@slrpnk.net ) 
            3•3 months ago

            Heh, push notifications and universal encryption are about the opposite of simple and fail to work on Matrix most of the time. Most of the actually simple and useful features for a public chat are supported by Ergo though.

              •  poVoq   ( @poVoq@slrpnk.net ) 
                1•3 months ago

                Large public rooms have constant issues with encryption, and since you can’t turn it off once enabled (yeah 🤦‍♂️) most public rooms are not e2ee. Besides the fact that e2ee doesn’t really make sense in public rooms as anyone can join.

                Push notifications in Matrix clients only work with the help of Google’s or Apple’s centralized infrastructure. This is of course only partially the fault of Matrix, but XMPP for example can do it without pretty well.

    •  haui   ( @haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com ) 
      4•3 months ago

      Matrix has great bots (moderation and otherwise). You just need to make your own matrix server or join one that has this stuff enabled. Developers arent „users“ they’re tech and they should absolutely be able to configure mod bots and such.

      I get that matrix isnt as easy as discord and it never will be/should be. Corpo Media is an ad machine to make money. Thats why they‘re so streamlined. You can join matrix.org today and discuss with thousands of folks in many communities.

      Feel like making your own? Then do it. It’s becoming easier day by day to host your own.

      •  Brayd   ( @brayd@discuss.tchncs.de ) 
        1•3 months ago

        Ideally “users” wouldn’t only be IT guys but also an average person. Some of my friends use Matrix to message me. They certainly are no developers or have technical IT knowledge. They certainly don’t know how to set up a bot. With discord you just add a bot to your server (equivalent to a Matrix Space) and there you go. That’s user friendly. Matrix bots work yes. But they are by far not user friendly.

        •  haui   ( @haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com ) 
          1•3 months ago

          We‘re talking about wildly different things here.

          • A „user“ is not the person making a server (discord or matrix for that matter)
          • A developer (which are the people making FOSS projects, which were the topic) is absolutely a tech person
          • A matrix bot can just be invited to your space
          • Hosting your own bot is downloading a script, changing some values and starting it
          • Matrix is a couple years old and written by hobbyists, discord is a for profit product with dark patterns to suck people into paying for basic features

          Please dont use these ignorant arguments, its obvious that matrix is the better choice if someone can afford the time to get to know it or just joins a server.

  •  pixelscript   ( @pixelscript@lemmy.ml ) English
    17•3 months ago

    I don’t mind Discord being a centralized platform for open source project discussion, if and only if the only roles it serves specifically play to its one strength, which is real time discussion. Asking for live support (from the dev if they are there, or the community if they are not) and doing live bug triage are the two big use cases.

    Should contact for these things be real time? Maybe, maybe not. Async discussion like you get on forums or via email can do the job. But if you value real-time chat, Discord does it well.

    Everything else? Do it elsewhere. Do not make Discord your only bug tracker. Do not make it your only wiki. Do not make it your only source of documentation. Do not make it the only place you broadcast updates or announcements. Do not make it your only distribution platform for critical downloads. And for the love of god please do not make it the only way to contact you. I don’t care if you allow Discord to additionally do these things using integrations, that’s fine, just stop trying to contort Discord into your only way of doing these.

    Is Discord the only capable option for real time chat? No. But it has several things going in its favor, namely how one can reasonably expect a good sum of their target user base is already using it independently for other purposes, in addition to its numerous QoL features.

    It can also better integrate into the dev’s personal routine if they already use it independently. Like, do I have an email address? Yeah. Do I read my email on any reasonable interval? Hell no. My email inbox is little more than a dustbin for registration confirmations and online order receipts. I’ve had email for decades and I think I can count the number of non-work, non-business conversations I’ve held over it in that whole span of time on one hand. Meanwhile, I’m terminally online on Discord. So if I’m gonna be a small independent FOSS project developer, am I gonna want to interface with everyone over email? No. I’ll still make it an option, because being only contactable on Discord is cringe, but it will not be fast. Discord will be my preferred channel.

    Should I put more effort into being contactable on other platforms, because it’s the right thing to do? Meh. I have no duty of stewardship to be available on platforms available to anyone in particular. I maintain this hypothetical project for free, on my own time, of my own volition, and I provide it to you entirely warranty-free. I have the courtesy to make all static resources available in sensible public places, and I provide email as a slow, async way to reach me. But if you want to converse with me directly in real time, you can come to me where I’m hanging out.

      •  pixelscript   ( @pixelscript@lemmy.ml ) English
        5•3 months ago

        You’d certainly think so. But never underestimate a user’s ability to jury-rig a piece of software into doing something it wasn’t designed to do, ignoring any and all obviously better solutions as they do so.

        I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen documentation published on Discord and nowhere else. But I do very often see no documentation whatsoever except a “just ask around on the Discord” link serving the role.

        Discord probably isn’t used as a robust ticketing system either; usually if anything it’s a bot that will push all tickets to an actual GitWhatever issue, which is fine. But again, what I do see often is projects with no ticketing system whatsoever, and a Discord link to just dump your problems at. If the issue tracker on the repo isn’t outright disabled, it’s a ghost town of open issues falling on deaf ears.

        Announcements can be pretty bad. Devs can get into a habit of thinking the only people who care about periodic updates are already in the Discord server, so they don’t update READMEs, wikis, or docs on the repo as often as they should, allowing them to go out of date.

        Fwiw I’ve also seen several projects that have Discord servers with none of these problems, because they handle all those other parts properly.