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Comment on Gaming chat platform Discord in early talks with banks about public listing

lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

It also has plenty of utility for non-information-storing purposes. It’s more of a cultural issue than an issue with the tool.

Besides, wouldn’t it take all the information there to its grave as well, making its death a net information loss? After all, information confined it is still information stored somewhere, just not as easily accessible directly from the Web.

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unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Information that cant be indexed by a search engine is completely worthless to anyone looking for answers. It might aswell not be there.

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- lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s still information. I agree that it should be available publically, but information available to few is still more than information available to none. I agree that you shouldn’t have to join a Discord server to get that information, but eliminating it entirely so that not even those who do join can access it doesn’t help anybody. It would only hurt a few, but a few is still more than zero.
  
  It’s an issue of culture, so simply eliminating one repository doesn’t fix anything. They’d find some other messaging service to congregate on.
  
  That’s not to say Discord are saints and there is nothing wrong with either their business or their platform. That is a separate issue I think we all agree on.
  
  My point is strictly about the hypothetical deletion of Discord over the drift towards opaque information silos: It won’t help.
  
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  - unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    information available to few is still more than information available to none
    
    If discord didnt exist, that information would just be elsewhere like proper forums, it doesnt disappear magically.
    
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    lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨46⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Well, you have one part right: it won’t disappear magically. If it does, it will do so quite naturally, unless someone actively preserves it, e.g. by archiving the chat histories.
    
    Of course, you might mean the people with the knowledge that wrote those histories in the first place. You know, the people that used Discord instead of forums. The people that left forums. The people that apparently didn’t want to use forums.
    
    Why would you assume they’d move to forums? Clearly there was some reason they chose to use Discord, so why wouldn’t they just find a replacement?
    
    Discord isn’t the issue. I mean, Discord has plenty of issues, but this particular one is a cultural one. Unless we find a way to entice people back to forums (or some other publically indexable platform), they’ll just keep going elsewhere.
    
    So maybe instead of condemning Discord we should ask “Why do people prefer it?” Then we can figure out how to address that and actually do something about the root of the issue.
    
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- bamboo@lemm.ee ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Maybe the search engines should start crawling and indexing discord
  
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  - unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Discord blocks all attempts at crawling their “public” servers
    
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  - TheBat@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    😐
    
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narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It would probably take a lot of information to its grave, but the more known “servers” would probably get crawled by archive teams.

Also - assuming Discord wouldn’t be replaced by something equally closed off from easy public access - all new information would be easier to access.

When Discord started, they marketed it primarily as a voice chat software for gaming. I remember them marketing it as “superior audio quality to TeamSpeak” or similar wording (which by the way wasn’t the case). It obviously has chat, video chat and screen sharing conveniently built in which TeamSpeak is only starting to add now in 2025 with the TS6 beta (they seem kind of lost atm).

I always preferred the decentralized nature of TeamSpeak and Mumble though and at least from my own experience, TS tends to work better with fewer connection issues and better autogain and voice leveling.

I don’t like the fact that most people happily gave up decentralized voice chat for a centralized alternative and we still use TeamSpeak in most of my circles to this day.

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- lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  assuming Discord wouldn’t be replaced by something equally closed off from easy public access
  
  That’s what I mean by issue of culture. I don’t think the habit of gathering on discord-like services to quickly exchange info will change, and if the explosion of bsky is anything to go by, people will just find the next shiny, pretty and well-funded platform that totally definitely won’t enshittify somewhere down the line to pay back their venture capital investors.
  
  We’d be cutting the weed without pulling the root.
  
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Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Good, that will teach people to use such a shit platform to store “important” information. I hope tons of apps and programs and games crash and burn with it so the lesson sticks.

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- lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  They probably don’t intentionally use it to store information so much as quickly and conveniently exchange answers and questions. Forums have evidently proven inadequate for that purpose, so unless people find a better solution and make it stick, the lesson sure won’t.
  
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  - Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Oh but there’s a shit ton of documentation that’s only available on discord and that’s not searchable anywhere and that will just be wiped out of discord ever dies.
    
    Forums are the best for knowledge accumulation via user interactions, Reddit like platforms are second and then you’ve got whatever discord is and regular chat rooms…
    
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    lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨33⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    
    Oh but there’s a shit ton of documentation that’s only available on discord and that’s not searchable anywhere and that will just be wiped out of discord ever dies.
    
    I absolutely agree. That’s part of the point I’m trying to make: The death of Discord might well cause those things to be lost. Hoping for it to crash and burn is counterproductive because thay will only do damage.
    
    Instead, we should figure out why people moved to Discord in the first place, because…
    
    Forums are the best for knowledge accumulation via user interactions
    
    …clearly, whatever makes forums “the best” isn’t enough. Then what is it that Discord does better? How can forums work to match it and entice people back?
    
    I don’t know. I’m not one of the people that preferred Discord and I can’t speak for them. But maybe we should listen first instead of wishing ill on them and hoping their favourite places die.
    
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