Comment on FLOSS communities right now

• technom@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  After reading the comments on several communities including Lemmy, reddit, YouTube and several others, I don’t get the feeling that FOSS users are as enthusiastic about discord as you portray. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps it’s a restriction that you impose on your users?

  Besides, all the bells and whistles of Discord don’t solve the biggest gripe that I have with it - the searchability and discoverability of questions and answers. Despite the history recording in Discord, it acts essentially as an information black hole. People’s efforts in solving problems are just lost because they can’t be found again.

  And finally, there’s one thing that corporate social media has proven time and again. Eventually all of them pivot for some reason or another. Perhaps they want to monetize the platform on unacceptable terms (like reddit recently). That will happen to discord too some day. They are holding the community content hostage. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that they won’t ever try to make money off it, cutting the community from it.

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  • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I mean, I don’t disagree with you, but our forums are dead. Our users do seem to like Discord, we also have a Matrix and IRC but those are dead too. Discord is where our users seem to flock to.

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    • crispy_kilt@feddit.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Our users do seem to like Discord, we also have a Matrix and IRC but those are dead too. Discord is where our users seem to flock to.

      What is really happening is that people are looking for documentation or support, seeing that the forum, the IRC and the Matrix are dead, that the only other thing is discord, and give up. Minus some fraction who already use it for other purposes (gaming, probably) and don’t mind using it.

      But from your perspective, it looks like everybody is joinin discord and liking it, because all of the normal people just give up. It’s only a very particular demographic that uses discord. Most likely young, male, gamer, european descendent, and from a relatively wealthy western country.

      If you as the maintainer go and use the forums, and maybe announce this in discord, the users will follow.

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      • towerful@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Like a survivorship bias?

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      • JackiesFridge@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I’m a member of a Discord that is the primary source of discussion and information about a piece of hardware, including technical & usage tips, firmware announcements, etc. It’s a terrible way to track this stuff.

        That said, the only other forums that have decent communities around it are Reddit, Facebook, and Elektronauts - none of which are even close to as active, but in which many of us will post important info & tips to get the news out. Over 3 years into the project (which is not open source) it would be ridiculous to try shifting the whole community to a new platform. We’re kinda stuck.

        Luckily the community as a whole seems to realise this, so we happily answer noob questions over and over and provide links to the appropriate resources, discussions, and pinned posts without snark or judgement. We’ve all been there. It’s the nature of the beast, it’s not efficient, and it’s not the end of the world.

        Finally, with the state of search engines in decline due to monetisation, encroachment of AI bloat, and general enshittification, it’s a matter of time before very little real information will be easily searchable. Insular communities who decide to withdraw and do everything their own, better way will likely become the norm. The internet needs a reset anyway.

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      • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        We have been using the forums. It’s been announced in Discord, we have a webhook that posts in our main Discord channel every time there’s a post in our main forum section.

        We are using the forums. Our forums are still dead.

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    • tabular@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Is it worth the risk to just stop having a Discord. Users that really care will use something else?

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    • technom@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There is one possible explanation for that conundrum. There are two types of people who are looking for solutions:

      1. Those who want quick answers. They don’t want to do the research - to see if the problem has been addressed before. They don’t care about if the question has been asked before.

      2. Those who prefer searching for solutions. They don’t like joining any community just to search for those solutions.

      Group 2 is going to be very invisible to you (maintainers), because they ask questions only if they can’t solve the problem themselves and nobody has asked it before. (I know this because that’s me). This group isn’t a minority.

      Group 1 is the vocal type that you are more likely to interact with, since their first instinct is to ask. If you provide them a choice between forums and chat rooms, they always choose chats because that’s where they can get away with providing minimal background information on their questions.

      This doesn’t mean that the majority of your users are happy with chatrooms. It’s just that your observations are going to show this survivorship bias.

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    • expr@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You’re the maintainer and presumably you control the discord server. You can decide to move things to a more available platform by removing Discord as an option.

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  • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Why compare Discord to web forums when it’s more like IRC? What’s the searchability and discoverability of that?

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    • technom@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I didn’t advocate for IRC. I’m strongly on the side of forums. But in case you want to compare, IRC is still a better deal than Discord. IRC has loggers and searchable web archives where it matters. Discord on the other hand is holding the conversation hostage. Someday the closed nature of discord will come to bite. The honeymoon isn’t going to last forever.

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      • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I just think it’s a bad argument. Telling somebody to use web forums instead of Discord is ignorant of why people use Discord in the first place.

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• Telodzrum@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It just so happens to be where all our users end up

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