Original comment, copy-pasted for convenience:

why do so many projects start with a discord and not with a wiki, or github, or web presence?

simply, discord is the fastest, most frictionless way to do the following:

  • garner a community of support ensuring that there is an audience for the project
  • provide access to idea validation for the creators of that project. rapid feedback for their project = rapid progress
  • provide the easy creation of (not necessarily accessible nor good, but) quick resources for the project

forums, websites, hell even github can only hope to match the value proposition of discord, and it’s something people fail to take into account when they criticise the move to discord as a file host/forum/wiki/project website

if you want people to make a file host/forum/wiki/project website, they’re directly competing with the frictionless, fast, yet unsustainable and frankly web-shit discord. the fast, frictionless nature is enough for people to use and accept, hell, even to make infrastructural to their project

a platform that could create a non-webshit, easy way to provide the value that discord provides, all while being just as fast and frictionless if not faster/more lubricated, would absolutely blow discord out the water

I am a sysadmin and my level of tech friction tolerance is different from the people referenced here leading projects, but I’d like to gather opinions on this, the fact that this regularly happens as described suggests there’s a whole lot of truth to it, but i feel like it’s overstating the friction, am i wrong here?

  • algorithmae@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    One big plus for Discord is that you can essentially lock it down to people who are interested in your project, instead of the entire public to browse. This hurts searching for answers, but helps immensely for projects that can be taken down like romhacks and speed running tools for example

      • algorithmae@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Forums, websites, and Github as mentioned in the OP. All those are publicly searchable and prime targets for takedown requests once they get big enough

        • ericjmorey@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Any one of those can be made invite only. And Discord can have public invite links that don’t expire (it seems that many servers do).