Gregory's Serverstop using discord for your open-source communities
[EDIT: Check out my follow-up: https://aus.social/@mattcen/110657785643054886 ]
 96 comments
 @mattcen New game challenge: Stop using Discord for documentation. Level: Impossible. @borup@hackers.town @dragfyre@mastodon.sandwich.net @mattcen@aus.social mumble... and it has voice recording.  @mattcen Stop using Google docs for your open stuff. EFA I'm looking at you. Lists of academics by discipline on Mastodon I'm looking at you. @mattcen I really think that Discord is one of the easiest platforms to use and choose it for my open source stuff. I'm not worried about vendor lock-in because chat is ephemeral. I don't store documentation & code there it's just a way for people to get in touch. If it's a problem I can move elsewhere. I also use IRC because I like IRC, but I understand that people find IRC difficult. @pbone Honestly, one of my biggest frustrations with Discord is their UI. It seems every time I open it it's trying to advertise some "fun" new feature targetting people using the platform for gaming or recreation, and I Just. Don't. Care. I just need to be able to interact with whatever community has roped me into using it, and don't want all this extra noise. @mattcen That's one of my criticisms also, and the "fun chat features" that go with it like the attention grabbing animated things and why does everyone need their own colour? OTOH I still find it easier to use (my particular a11y needs) than Matrix's Element interface. But now I want to try Revolt, I vaguely remember trying it before. @pbone That's fair too; Element are still refining their UI for usability and accessibility. @mounderfod Yes, I understand that, which is why it's frustrating that so many non-gamer communities have adopted it and its UI isn't really catering to those. @gnumdk @mattcen Yes. If you're so principled that you only ever use FOSS things then I am concerned that you may hold principals too tightly and miss practical considerations. I want to work with people who can find a balance. Principals are great, they show us what to aim for, what we're working/fighting for. But my video card still works best with a closed binary driver, my hard disk has closed firmware etc... @gnumdk @mattcen Actually, I wouldn't say "by design", it's circumstance that I haven't yet found a platform that's suitable and open, and I also wouldn't say that *I* exclude them. They exclude themselves by their choice. I feel worse that Discord doesn't work well with screen readers. People who need those often aren't choosing based on an ideology, and I would like to include them.   @mattcen @pbone I paused on that last sentence. People find IRC difficult? Certainly IRC is simpler than Discord. But upon a tiny amount of reflection, I think I see it. If you go with protocols rather than platforms, people have choices, and choice can be difficult. "How do I get on IRC?" is a question with many answers, and perhaps some flame wars between competing answers. Not necessarily the most digestible breakfast.
 @pbone @mattcen @mattcen if the community is asking for a particular platform, it would seem weird to not use it, surely? @rachel_norfolk Perhaps, but I would interrogate *why* that platform is being requested. Is it familiarity? Accessibility or other UX? peer-pressure? Lack of awareness of viable alternatives? @mattcen Is Matrix ok? I heard there were problems with the company that did most of the development for it. @tokyo_0 I personally am a Matrix fan, and think it's generally a good alternative (especially since it can be bridged to so many other platforms). @mattcen @mattcen agreed in principle, but that's not how it works in practice. A discord community *will* exist, and it *will* (probably) be the biggest. That's just where people are. You don't have a choice of having or not a discord community. Your choice is: do you want it to be unofficial, and not enforce your code of conduct, and have random people represent your software, or do you want to control the culture and quality of responses?  @mattcen IRC is my preferred. And with a fully-featured client it's barely distinguishable from these "richer" platforms. Embedded media? Textual says hello. Multiline paste, use a paste service. Tempted to use a paste service for your actual question? @alice@marrow.haus textual is only available to people who can afford macbooks. All other native IRC clients suck, and I've tried them all, from irssi to hexchat @bulbyvr I'm aware, but they are occasionally prone to message delivery issues, and require the admin of the Discord server to approve them. Which isn't to say "don't use them"; I'd love of more communities did; just need to be aware of the pitfalls. @mattcen I can appreciate this sentiment, but these technologies can be hostile to new users, and most importantly beginner programmers. For these people ergonomics matter. This is why IRC and Matrix drop off quickly as options. Not sure the XXMP clients are that great either. @mattcen alas, once I moved from android to iOS, I found no usable irc client compatible with my bouncer. I stood up a matrix server and have been using that, but opening element on my phone it takes multiple *minutes* to sync enough to show me notifications it just received. It’s really not ready yet. @mattcen I've tried. Many times. I've run IRC channels, I have a Matrix gateway, I've set up XMPP, RocketChat, Mattermost, even a BBS with a teleconference! Nobody cares. Nobody uses them. But my Discord? 220+ users (and only one is on the Matrix gateway). It sucks.   @mattcen My god, I would love to boost this more. The discorse and talks for an open source project should be out in the open. That means communication channels that are easy to read and search. Discord isn't easy to search. Even when a user _does_ have a Discord account, they need to be a member of the server just to look for anything and talk. @mattcen also stop using github if you can because we have seen with reddit and twitter etc.. it *will* eventually crash and burn But i expect people just to call me alarmist over this Is there a federated GitHub replacement? I know stuff like Gitea is self-hosted, but then we run into the issue of having to have accounts on loads of different instances @mattcen Maybe, if there were OSS/FOSS options out there that spent 1/100th as much time or effort as Discord does to onboard/migrate users, onboard/migrate community managers, and allow simple community management as well as automation, you'd have a snowball's chance in hell of convincing anyone to listen to your argument.  @MorpheusB Not for open source communities. Content needs to be visible and discoverable. For private messaging, yes, absolutely. For a community where people come to find information? End-to-end encryption is a detriment, not a benefit in that case. @mattcen I do understand. I've used both for remote client group chats. I got so much junk using Discord, stopped using it.  @mattcen I hope for the return of wikis and random (but search-indexable!) text files in the "/docs/randomhints" directory of the git repo!  @mattcen I totally agree, but unfortunately the features that Discord has at the moment are unparalleled by any of the current open-source offerings - hopefully that changes quickly as the #fediverse becomes more popular  @mattcen and please consider https://discourse.org as well! Fully open source, decentralized. @codinghorror For sure! There are definitely lots of instances where forums are a better choice than instant messaging platforms for these communities; likewise, discussions happening on (ideally free and open-source) ticket systems that are searchable and accessible without an account are great too.  @skry Indeed; I didn't mention @RocketChat because AIUI it relies on you self-hosting it (I may be wrong), which can be a big barrier when you just want to write software and offer some level of community support for it, but don't want to become an impromptu sysadmin. @mattcen @RocketChat Indeed. As a non-sysadmin, if I were to try to start one I would probably do it via Sandstorm. What do you think about that as a solution for hosting apps? https://apps.sandstorm.io/ @skry I haven't looked into it in a long time, though I helped crowd-fund it (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sandstorm-io-personal-cloud-platform/x/4480284).    @mattcen   @mattcen @pearofdoom "Stop using Discord"... would've been enough, for me... I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it  @mattcen louder for GloriousEggroll in the back, who posts this in GitHub readme DUDE THERE'S AN ISSUE TRACKER LITERALLY ONE A CLICK AWAY @mattcen I guess by the same extension, anything beyond just git on GitHub too? Such as Projects and Discussions? @mattcen@aus.social The one and ONLY thing I use discord for... |
@mattcen So much this.