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> discord servers are usually social spaces; I’m more interested in the people in them than the particular topics they’re talking about. I'm more interested in

> discord servers are usually social spaces; I’m more interested in the people in them than the particular topics they’re talking about. I'm more interested in the topics. That's why I went to that discord server and that channel. To go read about that topic.

agumonkey 5y ago
I have a lot of negative vibes about discord, it feels like this generation sucked up all the grandiose web ideas and tried to retrofit them onto html5 IRC. So many servers are so strict about no talking something somewhere, so serious, so ban happy.. as if their life is an encyclopedia to create convo by convo, all making their little wikipedia page. Maybe it's an age question. I don't know.
- fny 5y ago
  Do you remember how popular AIM was? This is their proboards and AIM wrapped in one. Plus it's easy to use, customizable, and incredibly interoperable.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    proboards ? I don't really mind about customization and ease (i mean it's just a chat). Again I feel like they're overdoing and overbelieving in the current paradigm. All this to have nitro emojis and short lived things.
  - grey_earthling 5y ago
    Is it interoperable when you don't have an account with the Discord company?
- Jach 5y ago
  Power-tripping mods aren't anything new. My main beef with Discord servers turning into this decade's forums is a lot of useful info is locked up and not discoverable by search engines.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    People keep saying this but even on my worst IRC days I've never encountered that much petty-kingdom feeling. Maybe freenode was its own bubble I don't know. On IRC there's this vibe that you don't own anything. You just joined a room first, or someone gave you mod capabilities but it was very freeform in nature.
  - nullwarp 5y ago
    > My main beef with Discord servers turning into this decade's forums is a lot of useful info is locked up and not discoverable by search engines. This to me is by far the worst part of Discord. I'm in a few game mod specific Discord's and there is tons of info in them, but it's so hard to find and get to it might as well not even exist.
  - city41 5y ago
    I reluctantly accepted a Discord server for my project as my users demanded it. Now the people who help out on the project do so in Discord and I hate it. I have to constantly copy the info into a Github issue or discussion otherwise it's pretty much impossible to find again as it scrolls up. There's also a ton of noise in between the contributing comments. I think I'm going to push back and leave the Discord server and tell people to please use Github instead for contributions.
    - wintermutestwin 5y ago
      To me, Github is a code repository and Discord is synchronous chat. I personally find both Github and Discord to be much harder platforms to extract information and ask questions than wikis, fourms and subreddits.
    - alya 5y ago
      We host the full version of Zulip for free for open-source projects. :) https://zulip.com/for/open-source/ https://zulip.com/for/open-source/
    - JoshTriplett 5y ago
      > Now the people who help out on the project do so in Discord and I hate it. I have to constantly copy the info into a Github issue or discussion otherwise it's pretty much impossible to find again as it scrolls up. There's also a ton of noise in between the contributing comments. This is one of the reasons I prefer Zulip to Discord. You get more organization by default, with all conversations happening in threads with subjects, and a tendency to create new threads for new topics. I can actually find information in conversations long afterwards, and cross-link to useful Zulip threads from GitHub or elsewhere.
- Waterluvian 5y ago
  You’re describing my experience with IRC in maybe 2001 and what discouraged me from returning.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    Well well, interesting. My theory is sinking :)
- Gigachad 5y ago
  Maybe find different servers? I have never been banned from anything on discord.
- Fnoord 5y ago
  IRC had networks and channels like that as well. A good rule of thumb is: the bigger the social group, the stricter the rules. My worry about Discord is the same worry as Android (though I am early adopter of both): its free as in beer, but we pay with our privacy. Sure, Ventrilo sucked as well given it was very strict and you could not run it on your own server plus high latency but low memory footprint. But we also had things like TeamSpeak and Mumble. These were alright, except it wasn't standardized, so you might need a different client per community. Its the standardization which abstracts the user experience, akin to people going to a site via Google or where the internet is Facebook.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  I invite you to read this article: https://knowingless.com/2017/05/02/internet-communities-otters-vs-possums/ https://knowingless.com/2017/05/02/internet-communities-otte.... I suspect that the ban-happy communities you're seeing is the result of the otters being dominant on those particular servers, and trying to keep the server focused.
ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
That's kind of a solved issue. Every message board had a bunch of subforums for offtopic discussions. Besides a few popular or tangentially-relevant threads it usually was a boring slow-burn or just chaos.
causi 5y ago
Seconding that. There is no lack of servers and channels dedicated to general discussion. Stop trying to turn my topic channel into your Facebook page.

agumonkey 5y ago

I have a lot of negative vibes about discord, it feels like this generation sucked up all the grandiose web ideas and tried to retrofit them onto html5 IRC. So many servers are so strict about no talking something somewhere, so serious, so ban happy.. as if their life is an encyclopedia to create convo by convo, all making their little wikipedia page. Maybe it's an age question. I don't know.

fny 5y ago
Do you remember how popular AIM was? This is their proboards and AIM wrapped in one. Plus it's easy to use, customizable, and incredibly interoperable.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  proboards ? I don't really mind about customization and ease (i mean it's just a chat). Again I feel like they're overdoing and overbelieving in the current paradigm. All this to have nitro emojis and short lived things.
- grey_earthling 5y ago
  Is it interoperable when you don't have an account with the Discord company?
Jach 5y ago
Power-tripping mods aren't anything new. My main beef with Discord servers turning into this decade's forums is a lot of useful info is locked up and not discoverable by search engines.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  People keep saying this but even on my worst IRC days I've never encountered that much petty-kingdom feeling. Maybe freenode was its own bubble I don't know. On IRC there's this vibe that you don't own anything. You just joined a room first, or someone gave you mod capabilities but it was very freeform in nature.
- nullwarp 5y ago
  > My main beef with Discord servers turning into this decade's forums is a lot of useful info is locked up and not discoverable by search engines. This to me is by far the worst part of Discord. I'm in a few game mod specific Discord's and there is tons of info in them, but it's so hard to find and get to it might as well not even exist.
- city41 5y ago
  I reluctantly accepted a Discord server for my project as my users demanded it. Now the people who help out on the project do so in Discord and I hate it. I have to constantly copy the info into a Github issue or discussion otherwise it's pretty much impossible to find again as it scrolls up. There's also a ton of noise in between the contributing comments. I think I'm going to push back and leave the Discord server and tell people to please use Github instead for contributions.
  - wintermutestwin 5y ago
    To me, Github is a code repository and Discord is synchronous chat. I personally find both Github and Discord to be much harder platforms to extract information and ask questions than wikis, fourms and subreddits.
  - alya 5y ago
    We host the full version of Zulip for free for open-source projects. :) https://zulip.com/for/open-source/ https://zulip.com/for/open-source/
  - JoshTriplett 5y ago
    > Now the people who help out on the project do so in Discord and I hate it. I have to constantly copy the info into a Github issue or discussion otherwise it's pretty much impossible to find again as it scrolls up. There's also a ton of noise in between the contributing comments. This is one of the reasons I prefer Zulip to Discord. You get more organization by default, with all conversations happening in threads with subjects, and a tendency to create new threads for new topics. I can actually find information in conversations long afterwards, and cross-link to useful Zulip threads from GitHub or elsewhere.
Waterluvian 5y ago
You’re describing my experience with IRC in maybe 2001 and what discouraged me from returning.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Well well, interesting. My theory is sinking :)
Gigachad 5y ago
Maybe find different servers? I have never been banned from anything on discord.
Fnoord 5y ago
IRC had networks and channels like that as well. A good rule of thumb is: the bigger the social group, the stricter the rules. My worry about Discord is the same worry as Android (though I am early adopter of both): its free as in beer, but we pay with our privacy. Sure, Ventrilo sucked as well given it was very strict and you could not run it on your own server plus high latency but low memory footprint. But we also had things like TeamSpeak and Mumble. These were alright, except it wasn't standardized, so you might need a different client per community. Its the standardization which abstracts the user experience, akin to people going to a site via Google or where the internet is Facebook.
selfhoster11 5y ago
I invite you to read this article: https://knowingless.com/2017/05/02/internet-communities-otters-vs-possums/ https://knowingless.com/2017/05/02/internet-communities-otte.... I suspect that the ban-happy communities you're seeing is the result of the otters being dominant on those particular servers, and trying to keep the server focused.

ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago

That's kind of a solved issue. Every message board had a bunch of subforums for offtopic discussions. Besides a few popular or tangentially-relevant threads it usually was a boring slow-burn or just chaos.

causi 5y ago

Seconding that. There is no lack of servers and channels dedicated to general discussion. Stop trying to turn my topic channel into your Facebook page.