I’m not sure you understand what “objectively” actually means… Care to provide your data in support of your objective conclusion?
Comment on FLOSS communities right now
CliveRosfield@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Half this thread is mad discord saves messages and the other half is mad that discord doesn’t save messages. You can’t make this shit up lmao.
I’ll eat all the downvotes but objectively discord is the best chatting service available to the public for discussion. Blows irc out of the water easily. The only point I’ll concede on is the phone number bullshit but otherwise I’d take it over anything else.
starkzarn@infosec.pub 4 months ago
CliveRosfield@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Sure.
- FREE
- Messages, files, images, and videos are saved and searchable to anyone who joins a discord server since its inception. Some of my servers are from 2016 and all 100k messages up to this day are still there with each and every file untouched whenever I search for something.
That alone is the primary objective selling point of discord. For the subjective stuff it’s:
- Conversations are easy to follow in busy channels because of the ability to respond to specific messages and also start a thread.
- Extreme customization with a permissions system that makes each server quick to setup and very flexible for your use case.
- Unique channels that also have very customizable permissions
- Integrated screen sharing and voice chat
- Emojis, reactions, etc.
- Works on every single device I use without a single problem from my personal experience.
…And this isn’t even including the bots that make it even easier to use or the custom clients.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
this is not explicitly true, moderation is still a labor requirement.
Messages get deleted from bans, channels wipes cause problems, sometimes discord just decides people shouldnt exist anymore.
CliveRosfield@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Moderation is a requirement with anything involving people so I don’t see that as a discord specific problem. If anything it’s easier than a forum since I don’t have to deal with spam bots myself for the most part.
The channel wipe thing is fair. You’re right about that.
418teapot@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Good for you, you have a short list of requirements out of a chat service and discord perfectly fills your niche. But different people have different requirements for chat, and they don’t align. And network effects force people who have differing requirements to use the service with the most users which sucks.
For instance here are things that I require from any chat service that I use that discord completely falls flat at:
- Ability to run it on my linux machine without using an electron client (npm is a huge mess of supply chain attacks and I refuse to run any software that is likely to contain dependencies from it)
- Ability to run it on my AOSP phone which does not have any google play services installed
- Ability to write software to back up messages without fear of a company changing their API and breaking my backup system
technom@programming.dev 4 months ago
- Ability to search answers without having to join a ‘server’
CliveRosfield@lemmy.world 4 months ago
At the end of the day all of the reasons you stated maybe <1% of people care about and most of the points have nothing to do with the chatting features itself. If I’m honest it’s basically paranoia and fear for the insanely low chance something goes slightly wrong. It’s like refusing to leave your house because you can spontaneously get struck by lightning. 🤷
Whatever solution you’re using I would bet most people would find incredibly annoying to use from a usability perspective. As it would lack the 8 years worth of features and QoL discord introduced.
So we have a philosophical difference and that’s that.
xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 4 months ago
Do you want to alienate users who are banned from Discord or don’t want to use proprietary software?
CliveRosfield@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yup. I am not giving up that convenience for a tiny fractional minority.
mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Telegram would be much better if you want some chat based discusstions. Search indexable forums are the best to find help
EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 4 months ago
I don’t think it is better at all. Unlike Discord, which might allow you to exist without a phone number, Telegram requires it right upfront. And it removed the ability to register from desktop, at least without spinning up an Android VM.
mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Managing chats and pinning rules/important info in single chat is much better imo to “manage” a chat community. I agree your points though
13617@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The search has issues but I don’t fuck with irc channels because there is literally NEVER anyone there. I don’t understand IRC, either. I’m young, sorry
technom@programming.dev 4 months ago
IRC would have been the best tool if it did session logging instead of requiring the use of bouncers. IRC is text-only, nonproprietary and completely distraction-free.
But you don’t have to use IRC. There are more modern federated protocols like Matrix and XMPP that do session logging. There are quite a lot of FOSS communities on them that are very active.
However, the main complaint here isn’t about Discord vs other chat protocols. It’s about the use of Discord as a community support forum. Unlike forums like Discourse, Discord messages aren’t searchable on the web. If a person asks a question on it and gets a solution, it’s then lost forever. Another person with the same question has to ask again. It completely defeats the utility of FOSS - of reusing someone else’s solutions.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
the irony here is that discord quite literally has quantum state messages/posts, unless you NAIL the search perfectly, you’re gonna get everything but the exact message you wanted. I mean sure the keywords make sense, but try searching for two or three keywords in a server with tens of thousands of message, or better yet, not knowing what specific keywords to use.
i can’t tell you the amount of times i’ve tried searching for an embed with words only to realize that apparently, discord is completely incapable of searching through embed names.
Discord is alright as a chat platform, would actually be better if it were a universal platform base, like matrix, or get this, IRC. Not being stuck on a shitty broken electron app would nice from time to time.