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Exactly right. We're complaining about a problem that was no different in the heyday of IRC. Ultimately, publicly searchable information is a voluntary act.

by urthor 4y ago

Dalewyn 4y ago
IRC can be accessed by any client adhering to IRC standards which are free and open. Discord can be accessed by any client adhering to Discord standards, which are closed and proprietary. Nobody has an obligation to publish information for public access, nor is free necessarily superior to proprietary or vice versa, but Discord is absolutely less accessible than IRC or HTTP(S) as an objective fact.
- NavinF 4y ago
  99.9% of users don't care about any of that. Users want embedded media, custom emotes, free fully featured clients on every device they use (any client that needs a bouncer doesn't count), integration with desktop software such as games, video streaming / screen sharing, and voice calls. Notice that every single chat software used by normal humans (iMessage, Google chat, FB messenger, etc) has most of these features, just with much lower bitrates than Discord. For the very few users that don't need any feature they didn't have in the 90s, IRC is still around. The rest of us just add one of many text logging bots to our discord servers.
  - 6510 4y ago
    You only let users design a product or tool if they are better at it or more correctly if you are even worse at it. Users don't want fire exits or seat belts. They basically want tasty food that kills them. It if can be more tasty and kill them faster they all want it. Even better if the product kills other people but silently and far away. If it can be slightly cheaper and kill many more people you've done well in their opinion. Of course sometimes having the user design the product or tool is the only available option. Just remember it is a terrible thing when it happens.
    - raverbashing 4y ago
      That's a funny comparison (with fire exits and seat belts), because IRC is none of it Plain text protocol with poor (and optional) auth? Please where are the adults in the room "oh but extension XYZ etc" yes and how many servers do implement that in a mandatory (and user friendly) way? The user wants their images and reactions and I can't blame them because it's the 2020's and IRC was already limited 20 years ago
      - 6510 4y ago
        haha, I use IRC all the time but don't necessarily disagree. Imagine if we could post images to HN! Or wait...
    - NavinF 4y ago
      > They basically want tasty food that kills them What do you mean "they"? I'm the dev in this scenario and I also prefer to eat tasty food that supposedly kills me. I know how to count my calories. > sometimes having the user design the product or tool is the only available option. Just remember it is a terrible thing when it happens I'll continue to have my users design my product/tool every time and those who don't will get eaten alive in any market that has consumer choice. Also Santa Claus isn't real.
      - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 4y ago
        > I'll continue to have my users design my product/tool every time and those who don't will get eaten alive in any market that has consumer choice. Also Santa Claus isn't real. Somewhere, the ghost of the man responsible for the iPod and iPhone is laughing at you.
      - 6510 4y ago
        Let me try... Besides clients/users you have (not in any order): investors, employees, security, stability, sustainability, usability, education, learning curve, ethics, morality, honesty(?), the community, the environment, the economy, humanity, history... I'm sure I'm missing a dozen things.
  - anthk 4y ago
    We already had that with Jabber.
    - NavinF 4y ago
      Jabber had custom emotes and integration with desktop software including video games? I don't remember that.
      - anthk 4y ago
        Pidgin had lots of plugins (emotes too) and on integration with video games, that depended on the game and protocol. Twitch uses IRC for instance. You could use any IRC client to comment on your channel, and you could broadcast to Twitch with common tools too, by just using FFMPEG to encode your video stream to h264.
        NavinF 4y ago
        > Pidgin had lots of plugins Maybe if they spent 1 minute thinking about their software as a product and decided to enable those plugins by default, Pidgin would be relevant in 2023. >Twitch uses IRC for instance That's not at all what I'm talking about, Twitch has nothing to do with Discord. Eg your friend's Discord status shows you what they are doing in-game and many games let you join your friend's team directly from discord.
- madars 4y ago
  >Discord can be accessed by any client adhering to Discord standards, which are closed and proprietary. It's worse. Official Twitter account: >All 3rd party apps or client modifiers are against our ToS, and the use of them can result in your account being disabled. I don't recommend using them. https://twitter.com/discord/status/1229357198918197248 https://twitter.com/discord/status/1229357198918197248 In practice you can't have a client that has local chat history, local search, or just better information density on the screen, and simultaneously hope to not have your account nuked.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    Like I said: Accessed by any client adhering to Discord standards, which are closed and proprietary. Discord standards include "official Discord", which doesn't take away from the point.
    - account42 4y ago
      It doesn't take away from the point but it adds to it. Proprietary chat protocols are nothing new but in the past alternative clients were either ignored or blocked. Now it is getting more common to punish the individual users of such clients, like Discord here threatening to nuke your account. This is a much worse situation than just "closed and proprietary standards".
      - anticensor 4y ago
        In actual Discord practice, that clause acts more as a liability disclaimer. They do not actively look for and kill third party clients like, say, WhatsApp. However they have an antispam with a high false positive rate, which is tuned to almost always produce a non-spam result with their first party client.
- dancemethis 4y ago
  Nah, Free Software is better than proprietary. Discord's attack on privacy and user safety are there to see.
smaudet 4y ago
> We're complaining about a problem that was no different in the heyday of IRC. IRC didn't pretend that you had information stored there, though... Discord hides this fact better by offering semi-permanence and a "search" feature, so it seems like its a real-time forum, when in fact its just slack with better video features... Its very different. The IRC of the yester-yore was filled with people sharing links to more-permanent docs, mailing lists. Discord is filled with people under the mistaken impression they have documented anything by having a chat with a search feature, (and this is has happened to me) claiming that the "rules" are documented somewhere in a channel and why haven't I seen them, when the "rules" are in fact buried, no longer accessible, or just hidden in a wall of conflicting information. If you have an IRC, you have a dedicated community of people who try because they must, if you have a Discord you have a group of randos at best, or at worst a delusional echo chamber.
- Springtime 4y ago
  > Discord is filled with people under the mistaken impression they have documented anything by having a chat with a search feature... when the "rules" are in fact buried, no longer accessible, or just hidden in a wall of conflicting information. Part of this is a result of some communities not being organized well enough but also making do with fitting an IRC-like format ('servers'/channels/message buffers) into a more structured one. People are willing to compromise on having less suitable structure for denser/more important information since Discord offers such attractive and easy-to-use features in one place. That said most communities I know of create channels devoted to rules/FAQs, though for things like lists of file announcements/releases (in eg: modding communities) it's messier. The new forums channel feature has helped by making things sortable and more structured but those only apply to new channels not existing. The forums feature also highlights Discord has recognized how communities have been using their site like a forum for certain channels such as Q&A/releases/showcases (and why comparing it to publicly indexable forums is even more relevant since the feature set will only grow).
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
>We're complaining about a problem that was no different in the heyday of IRC. so the death of lore happened essentially when textual knowledge moved from the printed, physically stored version to the electronic version that has no easy way of going and getting the verifiable source of lore for reference when needed? sounds about right.
agumonkey 4y ago
IRC never persisted anything so nobody used it as information source.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  It's true IRC never stores anything server-side besides user and channel registration details, depending on the network's features and services. But it is patently false to say nobody used IRC as a source of information. IRC was essential in sharing information quickly back in the 90s. Information on things like natural disasters and the fall of the Soviet Union were shared live using IRC.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    The wording was bad but I mean discord stores stuff from the start so you naturally say things with that idea in mind, for later. On IRC you come and talk, it might be logged or not, it's still not part of the spirit when you get into a chan.

Exactly right. We're complaining about a problem that was no different in the heyday of IRC. Ultimately, publicly searchable information is a voluntary act.

by urthor 4y ago

Exactly right. We're complaining about a problem that was no different in the heyday of IRC. Ultimately, publicly searchable information is a voluntary act.

Dalewyn 4y ago

IRC can be accessed by any client adhering to IRC standards which are free and open. Discord can be accessed by any client adhering to Discord standards, which are closed and proprietary. Nobody has an obligation to publish information for public access, nor is free necessarily superior to proprietary or vice versa, but Discord is absolutely less accessible than IRC or HTTP(S) as an objective fact.

NavinF 4y ago
99.9% of users don't care about any of that. Users want embedded media, custom emotes, free fully featured clients on every device they use (any client that needs a bouncer doesn't count), integration with desktop software such as games, video streaming / screen sharing, and voice calls. Notice that every single chat software used by normal humans (iMessage, Google chat, FB messenger, etc) has most of these features, just with much lower bitrates than Discord. For the very few users that don't need any feature they didn't have in the 90s, IRC is still around. The rest of us just add one of many text logging bots to our discord servers.
- 6510 4y ago
  You only let users design a product or tool if they are better at it or more correctly if you are even worse at it. Users don't want fire exits or seat belts. They basically want tasty food that kills them. It if can be more tasty and kill them faster they all want it. Even better if the product kills other people but silently and far away. If it can be slightly cheaper and kill many more people you've done well in their opinion. Of course sometimes having the user design the product or tool is the only available option. Just remember it is a terrible thing when it happens.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    That's a funny comparison (with fire exits and seat belts), because IRC is none of it Plain text protocol with poor (and optional) auth? Please where are the adults in the room "oh but extension XYZ etc" yes and how many servers do implement that in a mandatory (and user friendly) way? The user wants their images and reactions and I can't blame them because it's the 2020's and IRC was already limited 20 years ago
    - 6510 4y ago
      haha, I use IRC all the time but don't necessarily disagree. Imagine if we could post images to HN! Or wait...
  - NavinF 4y ago
    > They basically want tasty food that kills them What do you mean "they"? I'm the dev in this scenario and I also prefer to eat tasty food that supposedly kills me. I know how to count my calories. > sometimes having the user design the product or tool is the only available option. Just remember it is a terrible thing when it happens I'll continue to have my users design my product/tool every time and those who don't will get eaten alive in any market that has consumer choice. Also Santa Claus isn't real.
    - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 4y ago
      > I'll continue to have my users design my product/tool every time and those who don't will get eaten alive in any market that has consumer choice. Also Santa Claus isn't real. Somewhere, the ghost of the man responsible for the iPod and iPhone is laughing at you.
    - 6510 4y ago
      Let me try... Besides clients/users you have (not in any order): investors, employees, security, stability, sustainability, usability, education, learning curve, ethics, morality, honesty(?), the community, the environment, the economy, humanity, history... I'm sure I'm missing a dozen things.
- anthk 4y ago
  We already had that with Jabber.
  - NavinF 4y ago
    Jabber had custom emotes and integration with desktop software including video games? I don't remember that.
    - anthk 4y ago
      Pidgin had lots of plugins (emotes too) and on integration with video games, that depended on the game and protocol. Twitch uses IRC for instance. You could use any IRC client to comment on your channel, and you could broadcast to Twitch with common tools too, by just using FFMPEG to encode your video stream to h264.
      - NavinF 4y ago
        > Pidgin had lots of plugins Maybe if they spent 1 minute thinking about their software as a product and decided to enable those plugins by default, Pidgin would be relevant in 2023. >Twitch uses IRC for instance That's not at all what I'm talking about, Twitch has nothing to do with Discord. Eg your friend's Discord status shows you what they are doing in-game and many games let you join your friend's team directly from discord.
madars 4y ago
>Discord can be accessed by any client adhering to Discord standards, which are closed and proprietary. It's worse. Official Twitter account: >All 3rd party apps or client modifiers are against our ToS, and the use of them can result in your account being disabled. I don't recommend using them. https://twitter.com/discord/status/1229357198918197248 https://twitter.com/discord/status/1229357198918197248 In practice you can't have a client that has local chat history, local search, or just better information density on the screen, and simultaneously hope to not have your account nuked.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  Like I said: Accessed by any client adhering to Discord standards, which are closed and proprietary. Discord standards include "official Discord", which doesn't take away from the point.
  - account42 4y ago
    It doesn't take away from the point but it adds to it. Proprietary chat protocols are nothing new but in the past alternative clients were either ignored or blocked. Now it is getting more common to punish the individual users of such clients, like Discord here threatening to nuke your account. This is a much worse situation than just "closed and proprietary standards".
    - anticensor 4y ago
      In actual Discord practice, that clause acts more as a liability disclaimer. They do not actively look for and kill third party clients like, say, WhatsApp. However they have an antispam with a high false positive rate, which is tuned to almost always produce a non-spam result with their first party client.
dancemethis 4y ago
Nah, Free Software is better than proprietary. Discord's attack on privacy and user safety are there to see.

smaudet 4y ago

> We're complaining about a problem that was no different in the heyday of IRC. IRC didn't pretend that you had information stored there, though... Discord hides this fact better by offering semi-permanence and a "search" feature, so it seems like its a real-time forum, when in fact its just slack with better video features... Its very different. The IRC of the yester-yore was filled with people sharing links to more-permanent docs, mailing lists. Discord is filled with people under the mistaken impression they have documented anything by having a chat with a search feature, (and this is has happened to me) claiming that the "rules" are documented somewhere in a channel and why haven't I seen them, when the "rules" are in fact buried, no longer accessible, or just hidden in a wall of conflicting information. If you have an IRC, you have a dedicated community of people who try because they must, if you have a Discord you have a group of randos at best, or at worst a delusional echo chamber.

Springtime 4y ago
> Discord is filled with people under the mistaken impression they have documented anything by having a chat with a search feature... when the "rules" are in fact buried, no longer accessible, or just hidden in a wall of conflicting information. Part of this is a result of some communities not being organized well enough but also making do with fitting an IRC-like format ('servers'/channels/message buffers) into a more structured one. People are willing to compromise on having less suitable structure for denser/more important information since Discord offers such attractive and easy-to-use features in one place. That said most communities I know of create channels devoted to rules/FAQs, though for things like lists of file announcements/releases (in eg: modding communities) it's messier. The new forums channel feature has helped by making things sortable and more structured but those only apply to new channels not existing. The forums feature also highlights Discord has recognized how communities have been using their site like a forum for certain channels such as Q&A/releases/showcases (and why comparing it to publicly indexable forums is even more relevant since the feature set will only grow).

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

>We're complaining about a problem that was no different in the heyday of IRC. so the death of lore happened essentially when textual knowledge moved from the printed, physically stored version to the electronic version that has no easy way of going and getting the verifiable source of lore for reference when needed? sounds about right.

agumonkey 4y ago

IRC never persisted anything so nobody used it as information source.

Dalewyn 4y ago
It's true IRC never stores anything server-side besides user and channel registration details, depending on the network's features and services. But it is patently false to say nobody used IRC as a source of information. IRC was essential in sharing information quickly back in the 90s. Information on things like natural disasters and the fall of the Soviet Union were shared live using IRC.
- agumonkey 4y ago
  The wording was bad but I mean discord stores stuff from the start so you naturally say things with that idea in mind, for later. On IRC you come and talk, it might be logged or not, it's still not part of the spirit when you get into a chan.