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Plenty of excellent Discord communities out there. Which kind of sucks, because none of it is indexed or searchable and who has the have time to be an active me

Plenty of excellent Discord communities out there. Which kind of sucks, because none of it is indexed or searchable and who has the have time to be an active member on more than a few of those? Lots of useful knowledge hidden behind walled gardens these days.

mock-possum 3y ago
God I already resent how much discord is a thing in the present, I really hope it’s not the future. Using a chat app as a forum / social network just doesn’t work for me.
kmmlng 3y ago
While this is true, in some sense it is also a feature and not a bug. You don't always want the whole world seeing what you're writing. While Discord doesn't offer complete privacy (unless you restrict access), it provides good-enough-privacy in the same sense that you don't have complete privacy when having a conversation in a town square, but it's private enough. A couple of people might hear what you are saying, but your conversation isn't permanently and publicly archived. This has its disadvantages, as you point out, but it also has advantages. What I really like about Discord is the fact that people actually connect with each other. I have never meaningfully connected with anyone on Reddit. Discord enables human connection for two reasons: (1) you have a village-sized group of people, meaning you can actually keep track of individuals and your relationships with them and (2) since it is private enough, you can allow yourself to be more vulnerable.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >You don't always want the whole world seeing what you're writing. That's why you use pseudonyms or burner accounts instead of your real name or publicly known handles.
- DrSiemer 3y ago
  What ruffles my feathers is how much useful knowledge I pick up browsing some channel on a topic I care about. It's only random snippets from a moment in time, which makes me feel like there is a world of useful tips and tricks that is just lost in the stream. In general, what you'll find there is better and far more up to date than whatever gets mentioned by the few people who bothered to make a video about it on YouTube, which is unfortunately often still more informative than people actually posting answers and tips on public fora.
- gaws 3y ago
  > since it is private enough, you can allow yourself to be more vulnerable. There are plenty of tools available that can archive everything ever posted in a server. It takes one mad user to collect everything and leak it to the public.
Der_Einzige 3y ago
Not sure why discord got so popular in VC land given that it’s user base may in fact be even more toxic than 4chans.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  How? Discord is a platform, none of the servers I'm in are even slightly toxic.
  - Der_Einzige 3y ago
    Go join the largest political server on discord and smell the roses. 4chan has a whole lot of non-toxic work safe boards on it too. You won't see much racism on /po/ (paper-craft and origami)
  - consumer451 3y ago
    > ‘Problematic pockets’: How Discord became a home for extremists https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/12/discord-app-extremism/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/12/... https://archive.is/BxHWj#selection-367.0-373.64 https://archive.is/BxHWj#selection-367.0-373.64
- rcbdev 3y ago
  It's majority shareholder is Tencent - arguably it's far more popular with the CCP crowd than with VC money. On a related note I am very sure that Discord is indeed indexed by the Chinese government, just not for us to see.
jayflux 3y ago
I don’t know why this always surprises people, Discord was more closer to real time chat than a forum. What real time chats have ever been indexed? IRC wasn’t (without a bot, which most channels never really bothered to do), Zulip isn’t, Matrix, Slack isn’t and neither was Gitter. Just like with IRC if you want your chat to be indexed you would need to set that up yourself, but that may break their terms of service.
- herbst 3y ago
  Every relevant IRC was indexed. Especially channels for specific projects always were indexed, usually more than once. Now every 'fancy' product has a discord where the same questions get asked every day again and again and the community isn't helpful anymore because it gets tiring.
unsupp0rted 3y ago
I can't use Discord because it's a cross between drinking from a firehose and feeling like I missed something "important" (i.e. interesting/relevant/callbacks) at all times.

mock-possum 3y ago

God I already resent how much discord is a thing in the present, I really hope it’s not the future. Using a chat app as a forum / social network just doesn’t work for me.

kmmlng 3y ago

While this is true, in some sense it is also a feature and not a bug. You don't always want the whole world seeing what you're writing. While Discord doesn't offer complete privacy (unless you restrict access), it provides good-enough-privacy in the same sense that you don't have complete privacy when having a conversation in a town square, but it's private enough. A couple of people might hear what you are saying, but your conversation isn't permanently and publicly archived. This has its disadvantages, as you point out, but it also has advantages. What I really like about Discord is the fact that people actually connect with each other. I have never meaningfully connected with anyone on Reddit. Discord enables human connection for two reasons: (1) you have a village-sized group of people, meaning you can actually keep track of individuals and your relationships with them and (2) since it is private enough, you can allow yourself to be more vulnerable.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>You don't always want the whole world seeing what you're writing. That's why you use pseudonyms or burner accounts instead of your real name or publicly known handles.
DrSiemer 3y ago
What ruffles my feathers is how much useful knowledge I pick up browsing some channel on a topic I care about. It's only random snippets from a moment in time, which makes me feel like there is a world of useful tips and tricks that is just lost in the stream. In general, what you'll find there is better and far more up to date than whatever gets mentioned by the few people who bothered to make a video about it on YouTube, which is unfortunately often still more informative than people actually posting answers and tips on public fora.
gaws 3y ago
> since it is private enough, you can allow yourself to be more vulnerable. There are plenty of tools available that can archive everything ever posted in a server. It takes one mad user to collect everything and leak it to the public.

Der_Einzige 3y ago

Not sure why discord got so popular in VC land given that it’s user base may in fact be even more toxic than 4chans.

Semaphor 3y ago
How? Discord is a platform, none of the servers I'm in are even slightly toxic.
- Der_Einzige 3y ago
  Go join the largest political server on discord and smell the roses. 4chan has a whole lot of non-toxic work safe boards on it too. You won't see much racism on /po/ (paper-craft and origami)
- consumer451 3y ago
  > ‘Problematic pockets’: How Discord became a home for extremists https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/12/discord-app-extremism/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/12/12/... https://archive.is/BxHWj#selection-367.0-373.64 https://archive.is/BxHWj#selection-367.0-373.64
rcbdev 3y ago
It's majority shareholder is Tencent - arguably it's far more popular with the CCP crowd than with VC money. On a related note I am very sure that Discord is indeed indexed by the Chinese government, just not for us to see.

jayflux 3y ago

I don’t know why this always surprises people, Discord was more closer to real time chat than a forum. What real time chats have ever been indexed? IRC wasn’t (without a bot, which most channels never really bothered to do), Zulip isn’t, Matrix, Slack isn’t and neither was Gitter. Just like with IRC if you want your chat to be indexed you would need to set that up yourself, but that may break their terms of service.

herbst 3y ago
Every relevant IRC was indexed. Especially channels for specific projects always were indexed, usually more than once. Now every 'fancy' product has a discord where the same questions get asked every day again and again and the community isn't helpful anymore because it gets tiring.

unsupp0rted 3y ago

I can't use Discord because it's a cross between drinking from a firehose and feeling like I missed something "important" (i.e. interesting/relevant/callbacks) at all times.