4 ms·

> but Discord? In this day and age? What’s your recommended alternative?

by paulcole 2y ago

guappa 2y ago
discuss?
freedomben 2y ago
Matrix is a wonderful alternative
- account42 2y ago
  Better but a the real alternative is what we had before: publicly visible forums, mailing lists with an archive, etc. I'm not going to sign up for your discussion group without being able to get a feel for the community first.
  - pferde 2y ago
    Indeed. There can never be just one platform for project communication, because there are different kinds of communication - mostly sorted between synchronous and asynchronous. So, IRC, Matrix (these can even be interconnected) for synchronous, mailing lists or forums for asynchronous. And of course issue tracker, where some topical communication can happen as well, but that could completely be covered by mailing lists. There's no reason to ever have anything non-open in your FOSS project's infrastructure.
    - lukan 2y ago
      "There's no reason to ever have anything non-open in your FOSS project's infrastructure." Except, that it is easier to set up? What you describe sounds reasonable. But someone needs to set all that up and host it and needs to be trusted etc. So I guess if many people get involved and do set this up, they would convince the rest of the team to join them. But right now it is just a demand for more work for them.
      - pferde 2y ago
        You are correct, of course. If the project leadership does not see a value in using open infrastructure, of course it would look like additional (and unreasonable) demand. It's up to them.
        guappa 2y ago
        Until some company pulls on them what happened to linux to invent git :)
  - lukan 2y ago
    Would you volunteer in setting up a forum for ladybird and host it and can you convince Kling and co. that you will be around to host it for the next years to come? Because that is a project in itself and as much as I despise discord, I understand why they just went with it.
    - pferde 2y ago
      If I had a serious interest in the project (more than, say, maybe sending a patch here and there to fix my pet peeve), I would definitely volunteer for something like that if there was a demand. That's something I quite enjoy, and am reasonably good at, I think. And as for me being there for years to come, who can say that for sure? I would absolutely try to. For that matter, will Discord still be here next year?
      - lukan 2y ago
        "For that matter, will Discord still be here next year?" Probably way more likely, than a random volunteer. Kling said they used discord because it was easy. No energy spend there. Migrating the communication structure is work and energy. Friction. But so far I also did not followed developement closely, because I did not set up discord yet and do not really want to. But I realize I am not in the majority here and I do not think I am in a position to demand anything here. Your words sound a bit like demanding something.
        pferde 2y ago
        Not demanding, sorry if it came out like that. :) Just a bit of constructive criticism. As for random volunteers disappearing, the protection against that is easy - increase the bus factor, by multiple people having necessary access, and by keeping your infrastructure documented. This should be table stakes for any project that becomes even marginally popular. Then, if a random volunteer disappears, things might slow down due to lack of manpower, sure, but not come to a screeching halt. You can't increase bus factor with Discord, since it's out of your control.
        2y ago
zzo38computer 2y ago
IRC. And for slow discussions with long messages, you can use NNTP. (However, GitHub is accessible by git in case you only want to download the repository, regardless of what else they do; however, having multiple mirrors on other services as well can be helpful)
- fullspectrumdev 2y ago
  While I’d love to agree: many people these days simply don’t want to use IRC.
  - guappa 2y ago
    You can bridge to matrix and use a matrix client. Then you get history even offline.

> but Discord? In this day and age? What’s your recommended alternative?

guappa 2y ago

discuss?

freedomben 2y ago

Matrix is a wonderful alternative

account42 2y ago
Better but a the real alternative is what we had before: publicly visible forums, mailing lists with an archive, etc. I'm not going to sign up for your discussion group without being able to get a feel for the community first.
- pferde 2y ago
  Indeed. There can never be just one platform for project communication, because there are different kinds of communication - mostly sorted between synchronous and asynchronous. So, IRC, Matrix (these can even be interconnected) for synchronous, mailing lists or forums for asynchronous. And of course issue tracker, where some topical communication can happen as well, but that could completely be covered by mailing lists. There's no reason to ever have anything non-open in your FOSS project's infrastructure.
  - lukan 2y ago
    "There's no reason to ever have anything non-open in your FOSS project's infrastructure." Except, that it is easier to set up? What you describe sounds reasonable. But someone needs to set all that up and host it and needs to be trusted etc. So I guess if many people get involved and do set this up, they would convince the rest of the team to join them. But right now it is just a demand for more work for them.
    - pferde 2y ago
      You are correct, of course. If the project leadership does not see a value in using open infrastructure, of course it would look like additional (and unreasonable) demand. It's up to them.
      - guappa 2y ago
        Until some company pulls on them what happened to linux to invent git :)
- lukan 2y ago
  Would you volunteer in setting up a forum for ladybird and host it and can you convince Kling and co. that you will be around to host it for the next years to come? Because that is a project in itself and as much as I despise discord, I understand why they just went with it.
  - pferde 2y ago
    If I had a serious interest in the project (more than, say, maybe sending a patch here and there to fix my pet peeve), I would definitely volunteer for something like that if there was a demand. That's something I quite enjoy, and am reasonably good at, I think. And as for me being there for years to come, who can say that for sure? I would absolutely try to. For that matter, will Discord still be here next year?
    - lukan 2y ago
      "For that matter, will Discord still be here next year?" Probably way more likely, than a random volunteer. Kling said they used discord because it was easy. No energy spend there. Migrating the communication structure is work and energy. Friction. But so far I also did not followed developement closely, because I did not set up discord yet and do not really want to. But I realize I am not in the majority here and I do not think I am in a position to demand anything here. Your words sound a bit like demanding something.
      - pferde 2y ago
        Not demanding, sorry if it came out like that. :) Just a bit of constructive criticism. As for random volunteers disappearing, the protection against that is easy - increase the bus factor, by multiple people having necessary access, and by keeping your infrastructure documented. This should be table stakes for any project that becomes even marginally popular. Then, if a random volunteer disappears, things might slow down due to lack of manpower, sure, but not come to a screeching halt. You can't increase bus factor with Discord, since it's out of your control.
        2y ago

zzo38computer 2y ago

IRC. And for slow discussions with long messages, you can use NNTP. (However, GitHub is accessible by git in case you only want to download the repository, regardless of what else they do; however, having multiple mirrors on other services as well can be helpful)

fullspectrumdev 2y ago
While I’d love to agree: many people these days simply don’t want to use IRC.
- guappa 2y ago
  You can bridge to matrix and use a matrix client. Then you get history even offline.