In addition to the reasons described there (which are valid, and I agree that they are good reasons to avoid Discord), there are others, such as, you might not have a telephone number (or you do, but it cannot receive SMS), and you might not want to require everyone to register with someone else unrelated to your project. (Also, I have seen that apparently Discord will require face scan, so that is another reason to be avoided; if you do not have a camera (or if you do not want to send a face scan to them) then that will not work.) (And, you should also avoid needing Facebook, etc)
However, I think that IRC can be useful. IRC is not the same as Slack and Discord like they mention, but often the other things are not needed, and IRC also is not too complicated to use and does not require a large web app or other stuff like that, which is a significant advantage of IRC. Also, another thing they did not mention, which can be helpful, is NNTP, which can be used both for announcements and for discussion, like email can be. This way, no web apps are needed, and email subscriptions are not needed; however, it can also be bridged with email if needed.
Good thing anyone is allowed to make a more user-friendly IRC client so that can be improved on, then. As long as we all follow protocols my choice of client doesnt concern you even as we chat in the same room. IRC does not proscribe any particular UI or UX.
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For vertically integrated propriatery closed Discord it's both forbidden and made difficult. There is one alternative and you take it or leave it. Hopefully the latter. There's a reason clients like ripcord never make it.
2020 and you got banned instantly off of Discord.. Last year I tried Windows 11 in a VM and I couldn't even get to the part where I create a local user. Turns out I needed a Microsoft account which I tried with a disposable email only to be told that I couldn't sign up because the 'email address has suspicious activity', despite only being created there and then. How funny
What zzo said though, IRC is simple and many free software projects already use it (eg Tor, gentoo) but I think there's a different barrier to entry since users may want old chat history (bouncers), IRC-specific spam and client choices (GUI, CLI, no mobile??) (& I'm pretty sure IRC networks used to be somewhat anti-Unicode? correct me if I'm wrong). Then again I should expect hackers to actually know how to use that, but probably less so of an enduser
Few things will make me choose against using a tool/framework/software faster than seeing that I need to join a discord server to get necessary information to use or install it. If Discord is the primary method of user support I am greatly apprehensive but if documentation is locked inside a server, I'm out. There is no software or tool I have seen that's good enough to make me brave the headache that comes with that knowledge all being locked inside of a discord community.
What I never understood is why product owners of any kind would want to hide the all the knowledge created in their product support forums.
Discord hides everything from Google, and now from LLMs. So, the end-user asking "how do I __ with __" with their most common search tools cannot find the answer.
I see that Discord generally isn't good enough for open communities. It's designed primary for private communications and thus a person with no access to a particular server can't even read its contents (and sometimes one can't get access, like due a ban).
Good old forums are much better. They are readable without even creating an account and they are also indexable by search engines.
using discord as the only way to reach a project and find documentation about it. the author mentions sending private messages right after joining. i would not have joined discord to do that, i'd have searched for their emails. if they or other ways to reach the developers can't be found then that is where the problem lies. the author doesn't mention if he tried that, and he doesn't point out the difference exclusive and optional use of discord.
but beyond that, communities form where the people are. many FOSS projects are on discord because the people are already there. there are lively communities for fedora, debian, javascript, golang, to mention just a few. they are not the central space of those projects but they reach a number of people that probably would not participate in those communities otherwise.
one community that is important to me has the core developers on a forum that is gated to a mailinglist, while the wider user community used to hang out on IRC, but eventually switched to discord. there are a few communities that did that because participation on IRC was dwindling and not getting new people. getting new people is a lot easier on discord.
bridging to discord is at least possible, even though not ideal, it does allow participation from people that don't want to use discord. we could for example create a bridge to the old IRC channel.
for some communities the choice is discord or no chat at all. github would have to integrate messaging for that to become a more attractive option than discord. but then github is not ideal for FOSS projects either. unfortunately the current reality is that the more aligned a communication platform is with FOSS ideals, the less attractive it becomes for most users. sometimes it is a tough choice.
side note: i don't appreciate that swipe against RMS. i don't care about your opinion of him. keep that to yourself please. backbiting is a vice that hurts us all.
13 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 36.5 ms ] threadHowever, I think that IRC can be useful. IRC is not the same as Slack and Discord like they mention, but often the other things are not needed, and IRC also is not too complicated to use and does not require a large web app or other stuff like that, which is a significant advantage of IRC. Also, another thing they did not mention, which can be helpful, is NNTP, which can be used both for announcements and for discussion, like email can be. This way, no web apps are needed, and email subscriptions are not needed; however, it can also be bridged with email if needed.
For vertically integrated propriatery closed Discord it's both forbidden and made difficult. There is one alternative and you take it or leave it. Hopefully the latter. There's a reason clients like ripcord never make it.
What zzo said though, IRC is simple and many free software projects already use it (eg Tor, gentoo) but I think there's a different barrier to entry since users may want old chat history (bouncers), IRC-specific spam and client choices (GUI, CLI, no mobile??) (& I'm pretty sure IRC networks used to be somewhat anti-Unicode? correct me if I'm wrong). Then again I should expect hackers to actually know how to use that, but probably less so of an enduser
Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46945663
2020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22384356
Discord hides everything from Google, and now from LLMs. So, the end-user asking "how do I __ with __" with their most common search tools cannot find the answer.
Why?
Good old forums are much better. They are readable without even creating an account and they are also indexable by search engines.
using discord as the only way to reach a project and find documentation about it. the author mentions sending private messages right after joining. i would not have joined discord to do that, i'd have searched for their emails. if they or other ways to reach the developers can't be found then that is where the problem lies. the author doesn't mention if he tried that, and he doesn't point out the difference exclusive and optional use of discord.
but beyond that, communities form where the people are. many FOSS projects are on discord because the people are already there. there are lively communities for fedora, debian, javascript, golang, to mention just a few. they are not the central space of those projects but they reach a number of people that probably would not participate in those communities otherwise.
one community that is important to me has the core developers on a forum that is gated to a mailinglist, while the wider user community used to hang out on IRC, but eventually switched to discord. there are a few communities that did that because participation on IRC was dwindling and not getting new people. getting new people is a lot easier on discord.
bridging to discord is at least possible, even though not ideal, it does allow participation from people that don't want to use discord. we could for example create a bridge to the old IRC channel.
for some communities the choice is discord or no chat at all. github would have to integrate messaging for that to become a more attractive option than discord. but then github is not ideal for FOSS projects either. unfortunately the current reality is that the more aligned a communication platform is with FOSS ideals, the less attractive it becomes for most users. sometimes it is a tough choice.
side note: i don't appreciate that swipe against RMS. i don't care about your opinion of him. keep that to yourself please. backbiting is a vice that hurts us all.
Relevant conversations moving off Discord is what's really needed and where I think effort is better spent though.