Yes, this exactly! I still cannot fathom how Discord took off. It offers literally no advantages over forums, and introduces some massive disadvantages.
It took off because it was objectively the best catch-all communication option for gamers at the time. It’s still the best option for certain use cases like that, but I’ll never understand why people prefer it for projects, troubleshooting, updates, etc. It seems incredibly lazy and unserious to me. And the current Discord mobile layout is absolutely horrible, making for a totally miserable user experience.
This. Whatever can be used on devices without admin rights, such as work or school devices, for “free”, will get picked up by normie worker drones and college students and minors in droves.
It’s been pretty handy in a lot of ways, but yeah I do hate what it’s doing to indexable information and it’s only a matter of time before it goes for IPO and suddenly gets way worse seemingly overnight…
I’m unfamiliar with Directional Chat outside of things like VRchat, how that work if you’re not manipulating your position in space relative to other users?
tbf discord is good for organizing activities in games with online multiplayer. definitely shouldn’t be used for documentation in place of forums though.
Modern web IRC clients like The Lounge or Convos can now display images, play mp3 and mp4 formats, and they have upload options. It can still be excellent for real time support, but I’m not so sure about documentation though.
Of course an IRC chat won’t be used for documentation, I meant for general chatting and support. Also I didn’t know that, hopefully I’ll be able to replace the absolutely proprietary discord with it.
Discord is better than IRC in any way except available clients, while also doing voice/video chat rooms so it replaced Teamspeak/Mumble. With the additional (at first) paid streamers and being free it took off especially with younger audiences. I remember how terrible Skype was and Discord just worked.
Joining via server invites that guide you through sign up, no dedicated server to host (I know, major downside for people who don’t want all their stuff centralized to Discord’s servers), GUI server admin tools, etc.
I think devs tend to vastly overestimate how tech-savvy the average person is. Bring up hosting, DNS, port forwarding, terminal, etc. and they’re going to nope out pretty quick. Provide an option that lets you do everything from a single GUI and they’ll use it. Enough people use it and eventually the tech-savvy folks have to follow because that’s where everyone is.
That’s absolutely not to say that it’s a good medium for documentation. I will always prefer well-written and organized docs first and searchable forums/issue trackers/SO second. But that second group has a lot of tech elitism and devs who are (perhaps justifiably) short on patience, so Discord seems a lot more accessible to newbies who are asking the most basic questions.
I may be getting old, but I think D*scord (I’m all for cencoring it like a slur) isn’t any more simple than a phpBB or something similar was. Quite the opposite actually, at least for any user trying to navigate the the darn thing.
Maybe navigating is the wrong term. It’s just impossible to find stuff relevant to me on discord. On any given larger server, there may be a few channels I could be interested in - but they are just a single chat log, often with lots of off-topic spam, and many different people having almost separate discussions at the same time. On any given larger phpBB, stuff is mostly separated into different threads with all the off-topic posts being delegated to a single thread. It’s better searchable and better organized.
What even is “relevancy”? Their search is just a search by matching keywords. There isn’t a magic algorithm discord uses. Every time I had an issue with some sort of bug or function I just search for specific keywords and 9/10 times I find something. On the odd-chance I don’t then I’ll behave like a human being and ask. I just don’t get what’s wrong with that? You can already limit those keyword searches with specific constraints so you don’t get much noise.
Yes, this exactly! I still cannot fathom how Discord took off. It offers literally no advantages over forums, and introduces some massive disadvantages.
It took off because it was objectively the best catch-all communication option for gamers at the time. It’s still the best option for certain use cases like that, but I’ll never understand why people prefer it for projects, troubleshooting, updates, etc. It seems incredibly lazy and unserious to me. And the current Discord mobile layout is absolutely horrible, making for a totally miserable user experience.
I hated back in 2015 when people were leaving other communication platforms for the lesser option of Discord
Even today Discord still doesn’t have directional chat and you can’t be in multiple calls at once
At least mods help mask all the other missing features
I left mumble, teamspeak, and Skype for Discord.
Discord is easily the better options among those choices.
I also can’t think of much use for being in more than one call at once. I dunno seems like you’re just looking for a different thing. And that’s okay.
Discord didn’t, and still doesn’t, require a download. Easier for people to pick up and easier to use on locked down computers.
This. Whatever can be used on devices without admin rights, such as work or school devices, for “free”, will get picked up by normie worker drones and college students and minors in droves.
It’s been pretty handy in a lot of ways, but yeah I do hate what it’s doing to indexable information and it’s only a matter of time before it goes for IPO and suddenly gets way worse seemingly overnight…
I’m unfamiliar with Directional Chat outside of things like VRchat, how that work if you’re not manipulating your position in space relative to other users?
Still manipulating space
In Axon you had a 2d plane with a picture you could drag around for where you were compared to everyone else
Images https://dolby-axon.en.lo4d.com/screenshots
Oh damn, thats cool! Never heard about that before.
RIP ventrilo and iirc 8(
My office has official chat (teams) and unofficial chat (Mattermost).
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a more casual discussion platform at work, which is what Mattermost had become.
At the beginning it originally had an appeal that anyone could create a voice chat server for free in a matter of seconds.
Teamspeak needed a hosted dedicated server. Skype was “calls” and not communities. Mumble was hardly known.
I completely accept why it took off but I hate where it has gone. it’s over complicated and feature creeped electron shite
Poor ventrillo. Not even a mention.
About as remembered these days as xfire
I feel ashamed. Good call out
tbf discord is good for organizing activities in games with online multiplayer. definitely shouldn’t be used for documentation in place of forums though.
Yea, I don’t get the documentation stuff. It’s like saying you’ll use Google Chat history as your documentation.
Also good for organizing D&D.
well that is a multiplayer game and can be played online
Also good for casual socializing
I’m glad doujinstyle realized their mistakes and revived the website after some time as discord only.
You can create a discord server instantly with a handful of clicks for free. That’s why.
Also, plenty of people use it for chat.
IRC > Discord
Modern web IRC clients like The Lounge or Convos can now display images, play mp3 and mp4 formats, and they have upload options. It can still be excellent for real time support, but I’m not so sure about documentation though.
Of course an IRC chat won’t be used for documentation, I meant for general chatting and support. Also I didn’t know that, hopefully I’ll be able to replace the absolutely proprietary discord with it.
Because it was easier to create a server in discord than ts3
Discord is better than IRC in any way except available clients, while also doing voice/video chat rooms so it replaced Teamspeak/Mumble. With the additional (at first) paid streamers and being free it took off especially with younger audiences. I remember how terrible Skype was and Discord just worked.
You don’t see its incredible simplicity as an advantage? That’s crazy
Simplicity? What fucking simplicity?
Seriously. My only interactions with discord are in ways that its replaced a simple web forum or IRC channel.
Well if that’s your only exposure to it, then yeah I could see why you think it’s not good.
But if you just want to hang out with a regular group of friends async and in voice chat, it’s pretty damn good.
Joining via server invites that guide you through sign up, no dedicated server to host (I know, major downside for people who don’t want all their stuff centralized to Discord’s servers), GUI server admin tools, etc.
I think devs tend to vastly overestimate how tech-savvy the average person is. Bring up hosting, DNS, port forwarding, terminal, etc. and they’re going to nope out pretty quick. Provide an option that lets you do everything from a single GUI and they’ll use it. Enough people use it and eventually the tech-savvy folks have to follow because that’s where everyone is.
That’s absolutely not to say that it’s a good medium for documentation. I will always prefer well-written and organized docs first and searchable forums/issue trackers/SO second. But that second group has a lot of tech elitism and devs who are (perhaps justifiably) short on patience, so Discord seems a lot more accessible to newbies who are asking the most basic questions.
Skill issue
Notepad is simple
Doesn’t mean it’s the best thing for documentation.
Actually… a readme file is probably better for documentation if you’re really going for simple.
Sometimes a readme is all a project needs
I may be getting old, but I think D*scord (I’m all for cencoring it like a slur) isn’t any more simple than a phpBB or something similar was. Quite the opposite actually, at least for any user trying to navigate the the darn thing.
Having used both, if you can somehow navigate a phbb board then you can easily navigate discord. The only thing stopping you is you.
Maybe navigating is the wrong term. It’s just impossible to find stuff relevant to me on discord. On any given larger server, there may be a few channels I could be interested in - but they are just a single chat log, often with lots of off-topic spam, and many different people having almost separate discussions at the same time. On any given larger phpBB, stuff is mostly separated into different threads with all the off-topic posts being delegated to a single thread. It’s better searchable and better organized.
What even is “relevancy”? Their search is just a search by matching keywords. There isn’t a magic algorithm discord uses. Every time I had an issue with some sort of bug or function I just search for specific keywords and 9/10 times I find something. On the odd-chance I don’t then I’ll behave like a human being and ask. I just don’t get what’s wrong with that? You can already limit those keyword searches with specific constraints so you don’t get much noise.
Counterpoint
Counter-counterpoint: He did eat something off his foot in front of an audience.
Would not have minded going the whole year without thinking about that.
I don’t think “simplicity” is in a FOSS evangelist’s vocabulary.
Using Discord to support code is like trying to teach sculpture over the telephone.
you don’t see a tool being too simple for the problem at hand to be a problem in tool selection? that’s also crazy.
simplicity is a double edged sword. convinence is nice, but the internet feels a lot more homogenous these days than in the past