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I feel like we have this discussion every month, one way or another. People use Discord because it's useful and they like the experience. Discourse is nice for

I feel like we have this discussion every month, one way or another. People use Discord because it's useful and they like the experience. Discourse is nice for purely written communication but if you want to setup a call, direct message and, more importantly, write bots (presentation, topic organization, news, modding, now even AI Q&A); people will fall back to Discord. Pointing at Discourse when it doesn't have the same value proposition and blaming users is just not useful at all.

chrisjj 2y ago
> People use Discord because it's useful and they like the experience. Let's fix that. Discord-using people use Discord because it's useful to them and they like the experience.
- ramon156 2y ago
  If I'm honest, those say the exact same thing to me, and doesn't de-power the argument
- NeutralForest 2y ago
  Ok? That's just being pedantic. The point I'm trying to make, is that we need to find why people use Discord and offer something better for our (devs+technical users) use case; that'll also need to go the existing network effect.
  - chrisjj 2y ago
    The point I'd make is you'd more need to find out why people who don't use Discourse (instead of fora) don't. The reason surely has little to do with the non-forum-like functions that appeal to those who do like it. Having said which, finding out is obstructed by the fact that very few organisers offer users both.
kwanbix 2y ago
I have been using computers for 40 years and I cannot see a single feature of discord that I cannot have on a forum or even reddit. In fact, the UX of Discord is abismal.
- Paradigma11 2y ago
  Voicechat, Videochat and Screensharing?
- NeutralForest 2y ago
  Then you're not the public they're targeting but if we want things to change, we need to be cognizant of why people like Discord.
- hyperfuturism 2y ago
  You clearly don't have the live chatting feature in a forum or on reddit. I'm assuming it's a tongue in cheek comment, and not to be taken literal, but there are many features that Discord have that other products do not.
- least 2y ago
  Forums sometimes do have (crappy) live chat experiences. Their main selling point is that they have easily searchable, indexable, and navigable threads that are usually pretty well organized into distinct topics. The UX on Discord is excellent. That's why so many people, including nerds that used to happily use IRC and Mumble, use it. It's easy to create your own server, administer it with granular permissions, and to invite your friends to it. You can instantly start voice and video calls with screen sharing, for free. It's also a live chat with excellent formatting capabilities and has multiline support, unlike IRC (unless this has changed recently?), which makes it much better suited for technical questions involving code. Oh, it also has actual code formatting built in so it's actually legible (though this remains a feature underutilized). The problem with discord is it's just not visible outside of discord, it can't be indexed, archived and searched through other means, and is vulnerable to the whims of the server owner. It's also not very good at being a forum replacement because its threading capabilities and UI wasn't designed for that purpose, so it feels bolted on (because it is).
badsectoracula 2y ago
Indeed, Discord is chat, Discourse is forum. That said, most people use Discord because other people use it and there is much less friction to add a new "server" (i hate how they use that term instead of something like "community" or whatever) alongside those you are already part of than making a new account to yet another site. I know i'm using Discord mainly because the people actually go there. I used IRC since the 90s but for more than a decade it has been channels with 15-20 people all of whom are AFK and idling via some proxy bot or whatever with the occasional chat now and then by a couple of people (Discord also has a lot of idlers but it has 10x more people too so that couple of people becomes 20 people). IRC not having server-side storage of discussions does not help because i can't login to a channel, ask/answer a question and leave later. I know some people like that lack of permanence but personally i find Discord much easier on actually making or even starting discussions (e.g. i might respond to a message someone left 8 hours ago which is seen by someone else right after i post it and starts a discussion - this only happens because i was able to see that 8h old message). I know IRC supposedly added optional support for this recently but i don't know anything that uses it (and even then it wont solve the "people go to Discord" problem since other services like Matrix already supported that for years and people do not go to Matrix).

chrisjj 2y ago

> People use Discord because it's useful and they like the experience. Let's fix that. Discord-using people use Discord because it's useful to them and they like the experience.

ramon156 2y ago
If I'm honest, those say the exact same thing to me, and doesn't de-power the argument
NeutralForest 2y ago
Ok? That's just being pedantic. The point I'm trying to make, is that we need to find why people use Discord and offer something better for our (devs+technical users) use case; that'll also need to go the existing network effect.
- chrisjj 2y ago
  The point I'd make is you'd more need to find out why people who don't use Discourse (instead of fora) don't. The reason surely has little to do with the non-forum-like functions that appeal to those who do like it. Having said which, finding out is obstructed by the fact that very few organisers offer users both.

kwanbix 2y ago

I have been using computers for 40 years and I cannot see a single feature of discord that I cannot have on a forum or even reddit. In fact, the UX of Discord is abismal.

Paradigma11 2y ago
Voicechat, Videochat and Screensharing?
NeutralForest 2y ago
Then you're not the public they're targeting but if we want things to change, we need to be cognizant of why people like Discord.
hyperfuturism 2y ago
You clearly don't have the live chatting feature in a forum or on reddit. I'm assuming it's a tongue in cheek comment, and not to be taken literal, but there are many features that Discord have that other products do not.
least 2y ago
Forums sometimes do have (crappy) live chat experiences. Their main selling point is that they have easily searchable, indexable, and navigable threads that are usually pretty well organized into distinct topics. The UX on Discord is excellent. That's why so many people, including nerds that used to happily use IRC and Mumble, use it. It's easy to create your own server, administer it with granular permissions, and to invite your friends to it. You can instantly start voice and video calls with screen sharing, for free. It's also a live chat with excellent formatting capabilities and has multiline support, unlike IRC (unless this has changed recently?), which makes it much better suited for technical questions involving code. Oh, it also has actual code formatting built in so it's actually legible (though this remains a feature underutilized). The problem with discord is it's just not visible outside of discord, it can't be indexed, archived and searched through other means, and is vulnerable to the whims of the server owner. It's also not very good at being a forum replacement because its threading capabilities and UI wasn't designed for that purpose, so it feels bolted on (because it is).

badsectoracula 2y ago

Indeed, Discord is chat, Discourse is forum. That said, most people use Discord because other people use it and there is much less friction to add a new "server" (i hate how they use that term instead of something like "community" or whatever) alongside those you are already part of than making a new account to yet another site. I know i'm using Discord mainly because the people actually go there. I used IRC since the 90s but for more than a decade it has been channels with 15-20 people all of whom are AFK and idling via some proxy bot or whatever with the occasional chat now and then by a couple of people (Discord also has a lot of idlers but it has 10x more people too so that couple of people becomes 20 people). IRC not having server-side storage of discussions does not help because i can't login to a channel, ask/answer a question and leave later. I know some people like that lack of permanence but personally i find Discord much easier on actually making or even starting discussions (e.g. i might respond to a message someone left 8 hours ago which is seen by someone else right after i post it and starts a discussion - this only happens because i was able to see that 8h old message). I know IRC supposedly added optional support for this recently but i don't know anything that uses it (and even then it wont solve the "people go to Discord" problem since other services like Matrix already supported that for years and people do not go to Matrix).