• klangcola@reddthat.com
    5·
    8 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

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      4·
      8 months ago

      There’s going to be a lot of shocked Pikachus when the inevitable enshittification hits, and suddenly they charge to host all the documentation and wiki pages. All that barely maintained stuff will just vanish overnight.

    • Kayday@lemmy.world
      1·
      8 months ago

      I have all the issues with Discord that you mention, but struggle to find a better alternative. Do you have any recommendations?

      • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        8 months ago

        Forums. Phpbb, Mybb, hell even discourse is better than discord. If you’re specifically dealing with a coding project, most git repositories offer an issues page and wiki you can use.

    • Fisch@lemmy.ml
      1·
      8 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.

        • NateSwift@beehaw.orgEnglish
          1·
          8 months ago

          Not when discord launched. Discord had far better audio quality, multiple text and voice channels, and some moderation tools. Skype was basically a group chat with a group call function

    • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      Chat and forum are different things and serve different purposes. Even matrix doesn’t solve the search problem. Use a forum for this.

      • ardi60@reddthat.comEnglish
        1·
        8 months ago

        yeah that is why discord should not be used for problem-solving or archival purpose. Hell, even mastodon,reddit and lemmy can be indexed properly on search engine.

  • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    8 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@lemmy.ml
      0·
      8 months ago

      ? What’s the difference between setting up a free forum (they’re everywhere) versus setting up Discord channels? It’s the exact same process.

        • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
          0·
          8 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.