 Can we just stop using Discord and go back to using forum sites? I realize it's (comparatively) super easy to set up, but y'all realize it's just going to bite us all in the ass as soon as someone at Discord decides they need to turn up the profit ratio? It's a ticking time bomb. The whole thing is going to follow the enshittification process, and anything of value on there is going to be lost/sold/destroyed. 186 comments
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 @malcircuit discord should be replaced by a combination of forums and matrix. @tarajdactyl @malcircuit Hopefully by something that sucks less than Matrix. ๐ฌ But, yeah, Discord is going to go to shit eventually. @faithisleaping @malcircuit matrix is extremely rough around the edges, but i i like that is secure and it supports channels like discord. there's a reason i still use discord ๐ @faithisleaping @malcircuit honestly I'd settle for a combination of forums and irc like we had back in the day but idt that'd fly either. @tarajdactyl @malcircuit I mean there's a reason I'm still logged into IRC 24/7... ๐ @faithisleaping @tarajdactyl @malcircuit me too. Irc is useful and doesn't require many resources to run. @tarajdactyl @faithisleaping @malcircuit nothing to settle for. Irc isn't gone. Libera.chat oftc.net. Set up account on free and open libera. Set up nick. Set up and register channel. Or join existing. @smxi @tarajdactyl @malcircuit Oh, IRC definitely sucks. It lacks a ton of super useful features like emojis, file upload, link embed, and the like. It's also severely lacking in moderation tools. Matrix, though, only barely solves a couple of those problems and comes with its own giant pile of pain. @faithisleaping @tarajdactyl @malcircuit irc is for communicating in real time. Works as intended. You type. They type. No eye candy. Easy to run. Add irc bots for extra features. Like real time email except everyone on channel sees exchange. I have several channels. Libera is good. Oftc.net good. Not javascript based. Huge bonus. Very efficient to operate. When freenode tried to monetize entire userbase split to new libera overnight. Program irc bots for more features.  @faithisleaping @smxi @tarajdactyl @malcircuit For everyone criticizing Matrix, are the problems something that can be fixed with updates to the clients or is it more like system design problems? @macberg @faithisleaping @tarajdactyl @malcircuit I love not chasing this stuff and not wasting time relearning wheel building. I'm glad to say I've never heard of matrix til this thread here since irc works to transmit text live never needed to find solution to problem that didn't exist. Email also still works well. These were well designed open protocols. For sticky data forums good. Very good. Spam bots huge issue for forum operators. Not to be underrated. Hard to do now for amateurs. @macberg I'm glad I skipped that stuff. Imagine how many bytes I've avoided sending through cables by just typing text. I find it hard to take seriously a claim that emojis and gifs are meaningful communication devices. Not too long ago those were considered kid stuff lol. People can't type anymore is my guess. Touch typing was worth learning looking back. But good thing about never using such things is being able to truly not care about them. @smxi I can't say I disagree, but if a platform/service/whatever wants a meaningful market share they have to give the masses what they want - and the masses demand animated things and graphics in their chats. And to be fair, some things are much more easily conveyed with a suiting gif (although it can also make an unbelievable mess of a large group chat, but people seem to not care).  @macberg @flauschzelle @smxi Never even heard of it. I see it's FOSS so that's great. Voice can be kind of important though, depending on the use case. Is it properly secure and fully e2e encrypted? @macberg About the security/encryption: I actually don't know, never looked into it ๐คทโโ๏ธ @faithisleaping @smxi @tarajdactyl @malcircuit Oh yikes. That thing about protocol extensions sounds like a bad design choice if you're trying to create an entire network that is compatible with itself. Or at least it sounds like they made the base protocol way too bare. That's sad to hear. I'm still hoping it can be fixed though because I like the idea of matrix. @faithisleaping @tarajdactyl @malcircuit irc is a protocol. It has implementations. Libera handles spam well. I see basically none and few who slip through are nuked almost instantly. It's an open protocol like http or ftp or smtp or pop3. Saying irc sucks is like saying email sucks because you don't like aols implementation of the email protocols. Irc well designed. Servers good. Tools good. Stable. @faithisleaping @tarajdactyl @malcircuit Honestly not sure if discord will go to shit. Look at twitter. Look at reddit and instagram. They're all terrible, not even just because of the amount of assholes in it but actively because they're managed by assholes. They are entirely anti-consumer and yet? People use them because everyone else uses them, hell, I use them. Social medias are nearly unrivaled. Discord even has the benefit to have nice branding. Almost universally hated, yes, but "nice".  @mochsner @malcircuit I've only used it a little and it seemed like a nice modern forum @malcircuit @lisamelton Indeed. Itโs already an un-Googleable walled garden, and itโs only going to get worse.  @tezoatlipoca @malcircuit Whatโs the current state of things? I was never able to rekindle the magic of mIRC on Windows 95. @Ten @tezoatlipoca I feel like someone just needs to make a modern IRC client that feels like slack or discord and it could suck a lot less.   @malcircuit @lisamelton I am part of a few discords, but donโt post that often. For me I treat discord as entirely ephemeral, because searching and finding anything isnโt easy. But maybe thatโs just me. @malcircuit oh I can not get behind this moreโฆ as a thing for gaming, yeah itโs fine. As a community gathering place for every group everโฆ nope. Gimme a forum please. @malcircuit Solid agree. As someone who runs a creative & indie projects forum we're super happy to provide subforums within our forum space to projects that want it and provide moderation, setup, themes if needed, etc. And I'm always happy to advise on setting up new forums if people need that. I feel like the "Discord will blow up" discussion happens every few months, but I don't think we've seen a single project or user even test the waters setting up a space or joining us as a result. @malcircuit I agree with this. Would love a simple to setup audio chat program for gamers as a replacement for discord, unencumbered by capital interests. @adampetrone @malcircuit streams are expensivve. Server bandwidth isn't free. Hard to offer frre as in beer model without some income source. Text is cheap and scales well. Just some bytes per sentence.  FOSS projects be like: "This project is 100% GPL code." Also: "Check out our Discord, Disqus, and Instagram!"  @argv_minus_one @malcircuit No, moderators and killfiles kept spam effectively in check. DejaNews webified usenet, then Google bought them out and integrated it into Google Groups, which encouraged ISP's to drop news servers as part of their services. Then Google gradually blurred the lines between their own groups and the usenet groups. Then one day Google just shut down Google Groups. @malcircuit When the communities which I am a part of start moving, I'll move also.  @malcircuit I also like to promote the use of Matrix as 'discord but open/better', although I know some people have concerns with the foundation.  @malcircuit I'm dreading the day it collapses on us, for sure. It's already begun: trendchasing features nobody asked for (flirtations with NFT first, then bullshit generators; livestream stuff more appropriate to a Twitch style platform), more frequent and more intrusive begs for Nitro subscriptions, etc. I don't know that I'd turn to forums, as I do like the realtime chat and hangout focus of Discord. I feel like forums fill a different niche? But maybe an open/self-host Discordlike...  @kaliranya @malcircuit There were shoutboxes, but really the actual answer is: forums also had IRC channels and/or servers of their own.
@malcircuit For the moment I'm basically avoiding joining Discords to ask questions and just trying to use other public routes where I can. It probably doesn't make much difference but I think we need to try to make the open platforms seem useful. @malcircuit There is something to be said about the ease of getting into it, how projects can easily handle moment to moment conversations, and how well it supports community building. The only reason they aren't being completely disrupted by something like Revolt Chat, i think, is because they aren't twisting those profit screws yet. Here is to hoping that alternatives are up to snuff when they do. @malcircuit @gvwilson I'm with you regarding the lock in, but forums had such a terrible user experience. I don't think there was any other type of website I hated so much ๐คญ Also the use case is different I think. But now I'm getting too serious ๐  @malcircuit The only thing discord is good at is being an IRC alternative (bridged to the actual IRC server that is the official channel) for younglings. It's not horrible at that, and if it enshittifies too much you still have IRC. Using it instead of a forum is monumentally stupid. @azonenberg This one is the problem! People don't see Discord as a chat, but as a place where to ask and answer, like a forum. But try to find some kind of information in Discord is a pain. @malcircuit @justintime @malcircuit I don't think I've ever scrolled back in a discord further than "oh let me see who mentioned me when I was AFK".  @malcircuit Riot Chat was a decent self hosted alternative, but looks like that project has been shuttered ๐ @malcircuit it is growing increasingly annoying how every time I open the app, I'm encouraged to buy something before I can actually use the app @malcircuit @Discourse is great and has chat now.    @malcircuit @jack_daniel I mean to be fair itโs already shitty with a single bad client they control and no way to really mute @ Everyone and and and ..  @adamshostack @malcircuit @jack_daniel Do they have plans to at least release a lightweight client? Meanwhile I'll stay with #IRC, mailing lists and #NetworkNews with open protocols and plenty of different clients, some of them very light. @malcircuit yeah, and searching is the worst thing ever. Forums and NNTP, please! Oh, and stop technical tutorials on youtube! Set up a webpage, FFS  @malcircuit@thingy.social too bad matrix is often a total mess because with voice chats and group channels it could be close  @malcircuit you've hit the nail right on the headโ going with a proprietary solution like Discord robs you of data ownership by default, and far too many communities (and all of their built up knowledge) have been lost forever because #Discord is the "it" app du jour. Lots of modern forum solutions (like @nodebb!) have real-time chat built in already, although you can't really argue against the network effect of centralized solutions. @malcircuit What annoys me is stuff like mods that are hosted on Steam closing comments and only using Discord. If you don't use Discord, then you have absolutely no idea about the status of those mods when they break due to game update. Unfortunately for those creators, it means I'm more likely to just stop using the mod than make a Discord account. @malcircuit could you recommend us some free forum/chat-server hosting solutions? The main appeal of Discord is that 1. it's easy to setup Not everyone has the money to pay for and host their own forum or IRC server. Also, not everyone seems to like Matrix. Discord is an acceptable evil for the time being.  @postmodern @malcircuit libera.chat is already free and set up. No need to run your own IRC server really. Channels can be made to invite only or key required, and there are services to automate ops etc. There is a team that runs it and they will deal with abusers. @miah @malcircuit idk about IRC in the year 2024. Feels less accessible and clunky now, compared to the web-based chat options. Also, I like how you can create your own Discord "server" and populate it with as many channels as you wish. You could try phpbb, discourse, vanilla forum. Its been a while since I last set them up, but they should still be well maintained. @oxtyped @malcircuit discourse isn't actually free for everyone. You need X number of users and to be an Open Source project to get the free hosted version. I have an Open Source project, Ronin (https://ronin-rb.dev), but lack the required number of users to get a free discourse server. :( Also, what if I also want real-time chat, not just a forum? phpbb/other forums still require you to find a free hosting provider. @postmodern @malcircuit my bad! I did not realize that discourse has a tier to it. I think if resources allows for it, there are hosting providers that you might get away with for < $2/month. There's https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ for example which you could consider. disclaimer: I have not used them before, I've just seen them around since the early 2000s and always found them interesting. if resources are really tight, maybe you can hit me up a DM, I might be able to hook you up.   This right here - other people I have never met saying things I have been saying for a long time, with the same vehemence I have been saying it - is why I love this friggin place. The Frothing Imperial Fashion Critic in me recognizes The Frothing Imperial Fashion Critic in you. @malcircuit I find the most hilarious use of Discord is the meshtastic project. Here we have a project dedicated to independent, offline messaging with no reliance on third parties (or the internet) and the project pushes all discussion and collaboration through bloody Discord. What the hell happened to IRC?  @PCOWandre @malcircuit No way to upload images, no storage for messages when you are offline, no way to use it like a forum For me, Matrix and XMPP/Jabber do very well @malcircuit May I recommend https://discourse.org/ as great open source forum software? I've been running an active self-hosted discourse forum for almost a decade now, and it has been excellent. Also, one of the founders hangs out here on Mastodon. @malcircuit I would love nothing more, but migrating from the birdsite to Fedi had already cost me about 70% of my online contacts. The truth of the matter is that so many (not all) people are unwilling to learn the basics of how to use anything that is even vaguely inconvenient for them. The most Ive managed to get people to do with Mastodon is download a client and make an account, then they either can't get to grips with it or go "oh, seems cool" then never log back on :/ @malcircuit In addition, we're seeing new generations of kids who dont even know how to use a keyboard, they're only used to touchscreens. We are slowly slipping back into tech illiteracy, and that's a big wall to anything that hasnt got corporate backing. How many people are willing to learn a thing, how to sideload an app onto Android, etc? I'm willing to and have, but social media without others is just... an empty room. Not saying you're *wrong*, not at all. It's on my 2024 bingo card. @malcircuit This post has also reminded me - 2024, I need to get myself an actual website for my shit. I trust itch.io, and while I don't trust Linktree or Caard, there's plenty of alternatives out there. But it seems part of Web 3.0 is "make way for every service getting shittier, costing you a subscription fee, or both". ๐๐ซ  @malcircuit It should never have been used for anything beyond an updated IRC with pictures, voice, and video. @malcircuit @troodon Part of the problem is anything you install yourself requires so much maintenance or it will get wrecked. Iโm not sure the alternative of a central (commercial) forum site is any better, and previous efforts along those lines havenโt amounted to much.  @malcircuit What about an #NNTP based solution? #Usenet is still alive. Serious question. Alternatively, one could create a separate hierarchy with NNTP as the back end. Only frond ends and apps would need to be written. The protocol is extendable, so it's possible to do new things with it if clients are coded to support the extensions. @profoundlynerdy@bitbang.social @malcircuit@thingy.social something I've only seen once, in the 00s, but what not Web forum software with an NNTP interface? Seems that could also be a way to do federated sections for forums (much like BBSs in the 90s with a combination of local and fidonet based discussion sections). @malcircuit What youโve said + the search ability others have said. And, isnโt there a history loss problem? Isnโt there a max history that Discord (free) channels will hold? And after x number of post you start loosing the old stuff? Or is this just a (free) Slack problem?  @malcircuit well, they already boarded the AI hype train, so enshittification is in progress. I've deleted my account months back. @malcircuit For those (mis)using Discord as a Q&A forum or knowledge base, yes, absolutely move to a forum or some other persistent and searchable site. There's zero reason to be storing any information like that on Discord, of all places. @malcircuit What this really needs is for phpBB to take oauth, because only needing one account is what really made discord take off (and no hosting costs, but that just means they're getting covered somewhere else, like your data :3) @RethinkJeff @malcircuit or just go minimal account: no password, just click the emailed link to login. @lovestha @malcircuit I know scryfall does this, but I hate it. The reason I hate making a new account, is it means I have to log in to my email lol. @malcircuit I started trying to do something similar, at least on the information side of things (i.e. not a forum, not social, but good for searchable information) https://queenofsquiggles.github.io/squiggles-brain/ ^ This is with like 99% defaults of mkdocs and just one actual article Also wikis. The entire purpose of wikis is to gather and organize a community's knowledge.  @malcircuit I moved some friends to FreeFlarum for one of my groups. We use discord for like instant messaging but we're going to nix that eventually too @malcircuit I agree, but there seems to be a fundamental difference between a forum and a chat program. It would be nice to see groups/orgs/etc have both, and the discipline to know which to use when.  @malcircuit One day we will be running drills for popular service enshitification like we do fire drills ๐.  @malcircuit I tried hosting a forum once and despite my best efforts it got so overrun with spam that the web host called me to ask me what the heck was going on. @malcircuit forums for sure. Except the javascript ones that are not properly web searchable and archivable. @malcircuit For at least a year they charge money if a new user wants to upload an avatar for themselves.
 @malcircuit I donโt get the fuss with them. I briefly had an account and didnโt find anything particularly useful. Forums were great. I miss those. @malcircuit They already charge money if a new user wants to upload an avatar for themselves.
@malcircuit Not just Discord. Communities should also avoid Telegram or any other non-public platform. I don't want to make an account just to read an announcement.  Discord's alright for chatting, but I wish that I could convince a couple of people to use Guilded instead. 100% spot-on though. The enshittification process is in fact already beginning on Discord. The subscription already isn't enough, they have a cosmetic item mall that is slowly but steadily being pushed more & more; at least some of which is locked behind the more expensive subscription so you have to pay a sub to spend even more in the item mall. @malcircuit Also, itโs completely unsearchable and undiscoverable, which means that anyone looking for answers via a search engine will never learn of those conversations. Also, who in their right minds looks at the UX disaster that is Slack and thinks โletโs do that, but more chaotically?โ @malcircuit I recently set up a forum for a community group I am a member of for exactly these reasons. However it didn't take off as people in the community couldn't see the need and just wanted to keep using FB and discord. They said it was too hard to set up another account or to learn how to use another piece of software. Despite being a group that is not at all mainstream they couldn't even see the privacy value. @malcircuit The reason I was pushing my forums so hard was because I just assumed this had already happened. Turns out I was confusing Discord with Slack, but youโre totally right, itโll happen to Discord eventually.  @malcircuit our community has one at totentanz.club Discord is trying to take away very important features and I find it u usable when not subbed to vitro bit I have a lot of friends from other communities who don't hang anywhere else but discord tbh!  @malcircuit Discord's primary problem is it's just a bloody awful disorganised mess. There is older and much better forum hosting 'ware around. And it brings nothing that existing chat systems didn't already have either.  @malcircuit I feel exactly the same... but none of my gamer friends want to ditch discord :(  @malcircuit Forum is forum, discord is chat. I don't know any forum tool that is even close to discord's chat features. I use discourse, discord and a wiki (mediawiki, for documentation) in parallel. I do not use discord as "long term memory" so no problem to switch to another tool at any time if necessary. @malcircuit Absolutelly! Itโs like building a house on rented land! Unfortunately people are lazyโฆ  @malcircuit Iโm very much hoping someone will write a proper Fediverse integration extension for Xenforo. @malcircuit@thingy.social Yep, and if you really want to use something like discord, Matrix exists. @malcircuit I've just looked at the support options for 11ty (https://www.11ty.dev/) and note their Discord is mentioned, then GitHub Discussions. Both platforms that could, if they chose, make life worse for lots of people without warning. There is no 11ty forum mentioned on their community page.  @malcircuit I miss forums quite a bit! Discord really doesn't work very well at all with screen readers.   @malcircuit They already tried to introduce the idea of call recording in the future and faced a backlash. The rewording doesn't take the idea off the table, it just hides it in more weasel language. @malcircuit Not to mention the irony of FOSS projects using unfree crapware like Discord to basically be the only method of communication with the authors and/or community (say for e.g. Github, but it's obviously not the same). @malcircuit Not just using forums, but more importantly using proper self-hosted sites again. Less convenient, more work, but hopefully resulting in something resembling actual control over the data.  @malcircuit Also, it right now discriminates against all fellows who cannot (too young) or don't want to (basic digital self-care) accept Discord's terms of service. @nik @malcircuit  @malcircuit Most people do not care, they will just jump on the next best crappy thing that is "in". And good luck getting people on forums, they just do not work anymore. I think over time, the federated platforms will stand as the "winner".  @malcircuit Yes please. Too many big projects went down the road of using Discord as their documentation. With people answering the same questions over and over again instead of just putting it in a forum or write some decent online documentation. @malcircuit The saddest thing about Discord is that it works EXTREMELY well for voice chat, video chat and streaming - way better and more convenient than software by other companies who should have had a significant lead in that regard. As long as the convenience factor is there (all my friends are here, VC is super reliable AND I can join other communities with a click? For free?) it's just not going to go away. Customers always choose the most convenient option, everything else is secondary.  @malcircuit fun experience lastnight trying to learn a game that's got a lot of intricate systems & needs days of setup. Spend time RTFM & watching a youtube series from a guy who only videos that game. reach out to the community on their discord server for a couple of very specific questions "they're in my [tens of hours of] videos somewhere" guess I need to rewatch & take notes 'cos it's all unscripted To add two more thoughts: One is, i think modern people can non longer conviently use a forum because they have non longer PCs and Laptops, experiencing their whole communication to be something scrolling through a tiny phone screen The other is, i use a lot of niche forums, and i miss myself a chat option in them. This might be one major thing we fail to do, to integrate XMPP or Matrix as an "quick message" button to a Forum and give every user automatically an account there  @malcircuit Stop using Discord because it's proprietary not because it's not a forum. Discord has Forum Channels. The forum argument doesn't stand. https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/6208479917079-Forum-Channels-FAQ  @malcircuit One could also use a self-hosted alternative to discord. Revolt comes to mind (though thats certainly still not as great as discord in ease of use it seems close)
There is certain stuff forums are great. But for casual chats discord and other IMs are sure nice @malcircuit@thingy.social And it's already a pretty bad experience when you want to find some answers to some common question in a community because the search is just garbage. So people just end up asking and answering the same questions over and over again. @malcircuit no we can't, and I am quite frankly sick of the constant lobbying to go back to X or start using Y People use Discord for a reason, be it connections or a small community. You can argue "oh but Matrix does this and forums do that" but like... most people use it because it's easy to meet other people there Sorry but this crusade is meaningless and I want all the FOSS puritans to know that normies stick to what's most convenient regardless of your moral high  @malcircuit I use Discord for things I can afford to be destroyed when it goes down |
Gregory's Server
@malcircuit athis. This. This. This. This. This x 1000.