Welcoming Discord users amidst the challenge of Age Verification

Comments

• tyrant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Unless the servers can have separate channels and interface like slack or discord then it’s not going to work for most people. Correct me if they have implemented this. I tried using it for quite a while and it was just clumsy. Most people want/need a server with channels that can have categories

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  • nfreak@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This is my experience with it so far. The bones are there but the current clients are all far from a replacement.

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    • bear@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I’m holding out for a clear winner that will surpass discord. It can’t miss core features, be difficult to install, or use.

      I may have to pick one before that happens, but I’m fine waiting to see how Discord responds to the backlash.

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    • vogi@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I feel like cinny feels the most like discord.

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  • scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    They do have this, unless I’m not understanding. I run a space (same as discords servers) and in there I have channels that are just like discord’s.

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    • tyrant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      What client are you using? I set up a space a while back but have no way of putting my channels into categories so it’s all alphabetic and clumsy. It was less than ideal

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  • Blisterexe@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Afaik element has it as a semi-hidden option and cinny has it by default

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    • quips@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Its cinny.in, not .im

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    • tyrant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Just tried and failed to install cinny flatpak. Something about an error dispatching to Wayland display. The screenshot looks nice though

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• who@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  2026-02-12

  A couple things to keep in mind if you’re getting started with Matrix after having been on Discord:

  End-to-end encryption is available, but you might want to leave it disabled when you create a room. This will help keep things simple for your users as they get familiar with Matrix. Connections between client and server will still be encrypted using HTTPS, which is the same level of encryption that Discord has. (And if it’s a public room, e2ee wouldn’t have any value anyway.) You can always add end-to-end encryption to your rooms later.

  A few terms used on Discord are different in the Matrix ecosystem…

  Discord term	Matrix term
  server	space
  channel	room
  discord.com	homeserver (there are many)

  If you don’t like the first Matrix client you try, consider trying others. Much like email clients, the features and user interface styles vary. The blog post mentions Cinny and Commet. Element X is probably the simplest mobile client with Matrix’s recent fast-startup feature (though it’s still catching up on other features). More clients are listed here.

  Voice and video chat in Matrix are currently available only on some clients, and it’s done by integrating Jitsi. Not ideal, but still useful for at least some use cases. A better system is in development. Here’s a preview of it: call.element.io

  Matrix.org is by far the largest public homeserver. It’s convenient in that anyone can get an account without having to run their own homeserver, but it can also suffer slowdowns when an influx of users are arriving all at once, such as right now. You can choose to be patient, or look for a different public homeserver, or pay for a homeserver host, or (if you have the means) self-host.

  Matrix.org and some other public homeservers ask for an email address when you sign up, so that they have a way to recover your account if you forget your password. It’s not required by The Matrix protocol, though, and some servers might allow new accounts with no contact info at all. I don’t know which ones; you’ll have to hunt for one (or run your own) if that’s what you want.

  The blog post mentions account portability, which is not yet available in Matrix. This means that your user ID (@user:example.com) is currently tied to the homeserver where you create it (example.com). If you decide to switch to an account on another homeserver, you’ll have to get re-invited into any private chats you had joined with the old account. However, the rooms you create on your original homeserver are not tied to that server. So long as at least one room member is on another homeserver, the room will carry on (with its original ID) even if its original homeserver vanishes. This means, for example, that you could create a room on matrix.org today, and migrate its admin duties to an account on your own private homeserver that you set up a year from now. (Or even invite all your members to migrate to your private homeserver.)

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• recklessengagement@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  This did not inspire confidence in using matrix as a valid alternative.

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  • who@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I don’t think it’s meant to inspire confidence.

    I think it’s meant to moderate expectations, and give a peek into the current state of an evolving system.

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  • Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The reason no other alternative has taken off is that there is no other alternative. I hate Discord too, but there just isn’t a drop-in replacement.

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• subunit317@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I deployed a self-hosted matrix chat server recently (synapse + element call) for my probably-soon-to-be discord refugee group. I know it isn’t a 1:1 replacement for the average discord user, but honestly I’m really happy with it. It does the important stuff that we care about (private chat rooms and video calls). My only complaint is that it was an absolute pain in the ass to configure, lol.

  I consider the simplicity of the available apps to actually be a good thing. We had moved to discord a few years back from google chat. After that, a bunch of people didn’t interact in chat a whole lot because of what a busy pain in the ass the discord UX is. Several users have also consistently had major breaking issues with the discord app over the years. The element X app doesn’t do a whole lot, but it does work, so it’s an improvement for those people.

  Hopefully the recent interest in matrix results in it becoming a fully-featured discord alternative.

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  • bingrazer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    How hard was it for your users to connect? Were the configuration troubles just on your end? I am going to try to setup a home server, but some of my friends might not be willing to join if it is too much work

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    • subunit317@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      It’s a piece of cake for end users. It makes me really jealous lol. Just keep in mind that I’m making that claim based on using the ansible playbook that deploys synapse + element call and an element web UI. Some of our users like to use some combination of a web, desktop and mobile app. So having that come setup after deploying the playbook was really nice. The hard part for end users (for us at least since we’re running a private, defederated server) is pointing the client to the right URL. I made a PDF with a bunch of step by step instructions for how people can login with all of the apps.

      That ansible playbook did make deployment much easier, but it’s still a ton of reading because of what a complex stack of tech is actually required to run a matrix chat server. I had originally tried doing it with a bigass docker compose file, and manually configuring all the reverse proxies. After two days of failing to get that working, I went with the playbook. It’s much easier than doing it completely DIY.

      The only real difficulty I foresee with users down the line is what happens when people lose their recovery keys. Obviously there’s ways to log back in, but people probably won’t appreciate losing access to chat history. We’ll see how it goes, but generally the onboarding process is really easy. And it can be made easier by the fact that admins can just create users, so the whole registration process is optional.

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  • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    For anyone considering something similar, I’d suggest hosting a Movim instance over Matrix, as it’s far easier to set up and configure since it uses XMPP instead. Should be lighter on resources too.

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