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For the average user, absolutely it's voice and game streaming. But I've found the more I've used discord, is that a lot of online communities, that typically w

For the average user, absolutely it's voice and game streaming. But I've found the more I've used discord, is that a lot of online communities, that typically would exist on Reddit or a forum, also have discord servers for communicating and community management.

agumonkey 2y ago
oh yeah through a reddit bounce that is true, it's their live chat platform in a way :)
nativeit 2y ago
I have noticed it’s frequently the only outlet for communication with developers and communities, which I find worryingly closed off and hostile to users.
- 9283409232 2y ago
  Users are worryingly hostile to developers.
  - thoughtpalette 2y ago
    If you've been on a game dev discord, it's usually the opposite.
    - squigz 2y ago
      Not in my experience, either on Discord or any other platform where devs interact with users. Most users are polite enough, but many are toxic as hell; whereas most devs are maybe, at best, brusque - but you would be too if you had to constantly point users to the FAQ or answer the same obvious questions that Google can answer in 5 seconds.
      - kevinsync 2y ago
        I don’t spend much time on Discord servers (mostly just use it for DM with specific people) but certainly spent a lot of time on IRC in the 90s / early 00s; are channel bots not a thing? Especially now with LLM APIs and all that, you’d imagine a lot of the FAQ-level questioning would have automated answers in busy project-based servers
        squigz 2y ago
        Bots are still a thing, certainly, but much like in IRC, they're still usually triggered by devs (of course some users will use them, but then, those aren't the users who need to be pointed to the FAQ) There's also stuff like server intro guides and onboarding steps that should deal with most of the low-hanging questions... Should, but don't always :P As for use of LLMs... probably an interesting use-case, but I'm not aware of any solutions using that quite yet.
        ZeWaka 2y ago
        Yeah, people never read channel topics so we're forced to use commands & embeds for common things
        squigz 2y ago
        Okay but I don't blame users for that particular failing - topics are not easily discoverable. They should be shown above the input bar the first time a user visits a channel or until they dismiss it or something.
    - Arelius 2y ago
      I'm sorry, I didn't understand, are you claiming that gamers (perhaps one of the most notoriously toxic communities) are not hostile towards game developers?
      - thoughtpalette 2y ago
        Ahhh context was missing. I meant in actual game development discords for game developers, not games that have discords from the developers. My anecdotal data is based on observations from my partner who has boughten several asset packs from itch.io, got on the discord for support, and the artists/game devs have been extremely unwelcoming to the point of just banning users for simple game dev questions and/or mentions of AI. Of course, gamers (competitive) are generally a toxic bunch.
        9283409232 2y ago
        > extremely unwelcoming to the point of just banning users for simple game dev questions and/or mentions of AI. This is understandable when you realize that artist are being accused of using AI for every single imperfection in art now. You messed up on perspective? You must be using AI. Anatomy is slightly off? You must be using AI. At a certain point they just get tired of the accusations and choose to ban people.
        thoughtpalette 2y ago
        I can believe that scenario, but I believe in the cases I've seen regarding game dev, It's more pearl clutching from the artists (rightly so) rather than accusations from the asset users.
  - nativeit 2y ago
    I'm gonna give it up for that one. Nicely done.
- crowdstriker 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mech422 2y ago
    As opposed to IRC? Forums? hell - even an email list... All things that are a lot easier to search then Discord, have much lighter clients, and can be done free. Do you really think there was 'no way to communicate' for projects before discord ?
    - crowdstriker 2y ago
      You're comparing ancient obsolete technology to a streamlined instant messaging client. There's a reason they 'just' use Discord. So now you want developers to have to check emails, IRC, forum posts, whatever other outdated communication platform, AND Discord? Why on Earth would they use all that when Discord takes care of all of those features and more. Having more than one central place to communicate is 'hostile'.
      - jmb99 2y ago
        > You're comparing ancient obsolete technology to a streamlined instant messaging client. Just because something is old, doesn’t mean it is bad.
        crowdstriker 2y ago
        Disagree.
      - mech422 2y ago
        >>You're comparing ancient obsolete technology to a streamlined instant messaging client I'd hardly call discord a 'stream lined' system. Latency (especially in voice which is supposed to be it strong suit) is bad, search is subpar compared to even simple google searches, information is silo'd, its yet another place that can potentially leak PII, and basically the network is a SPOF. SourceForge promised all you mention, and was backed by (at the time) the largest IPO in history..and lasted what 2-3 years before it started decaying? I remember projects scrambling to find hosting after SF - and I remember how fast everyone jumped on GitHub .. I was donating to GH from the beginning just to help prevent another SF scenario... As for it 'hostile' - its a lot easier to do a google search and find all sorts of information streams about something, rather then having to figure out the discord server for a project, search the discord server, and still miss any info. from outside of discord. That seems more 'hostile' to me then less wall-garden systems. Edit: last I knew, over 1K oss projects still maintain libera.chat channels
- nativeit 2y ago
  Just to clarify, when I say "hostile to users", I just mean generally "less accessible than alternatives". I'm not making any value judgments about how we treat one another using said access, which I don't imagine is any great panacea.

agumonkey 2y ago

oh yeah through a reddit bounce that is true, it's their live chat platform in a way :)

nativeit 2y ago

I have noticed it’s frequently the only outlet for communication with developers and communities, which I find worryingly closed off and hostile to users.

9283409232 2y ago
Users are worryingly hostile to developers.
- thoughtpalette 2y ago
  If you've been on a game dev discord, it's usually the opposite.
  - squigz 2y ago
    Not in my experience, either on Discord or any other platform where devs interact with users. Most users are polite enough, but many are toxic as hell; whereas most devs are maybe, at best, brusque - but you would be too if you had to constantly point users to the FAQ or answer the same obvious questions that Google can answer in 5 seconds.
    - kevinsync 2y ago
      I don’t spend much time on Discord servers (mostly just use it for DM with specific people) but certainly spent a lot of time on IRC in the 90s / early 00s; are channel bots not a thing? Especially now with LLM APIs and all that, you’d imagine a lot of the FAQ-level questioning would have automated answers in busy project-based servers
      - squigz 2y ago
        Bots are still a thing, certainly, but much like in IRC, they're still usually triggered by devs (of course some users will use them, but then, those aren't the users who need to be pointed to the FAQ) There's also stuff like server intro guides and onboarding steps that should deal with most of the low-hanging questions... Should, but don't always :P As for use of LLMs... probably an interesting use-case, but I'm not aware of any solutions using that quite yet.
        ZeWaka 2y ago
        Yeah, people never read channel topics so we're forced to use commands & embeds for common things
        squigz 2y ago
        Okay but I don't blame users for that particular failing - topics are not easily discoverable. They should be shown above the input bar the first time a user visits a channel or until they dismiss it or something.
  - Arelius 2y ago
    I'm sorry, I didn't understand, are you claiming that gamers (perhaps one of the most notoriously toxic communities) are not hostile towards game developers?
    - thoughtpalette 2y ago
      Ahhh context was missing. I meant in actual game development discords for game developers, not games that have discords from the developers. My anecdotal data is based on observations from my partner who has boughten several asset packs from itch.io, got on the discord for support, and the artists/game devs have been extremely unwelcoming to the point of just banning users for simple game dev questions and/or mentions of AI. Of course, gamers (competitive) are generally a toxic bunch.
      - 9283409232 2y ago
        > extremely unwelcoming to the point of just banning users for simple game dev questions and/or mentions of AI. This is understandable when you realize that artist are being accused of using AI for every single imperfection in art now. You messed up on perspective? You must be using AI. Anatomy is slightly off? You must be using AI. At a certain point they just get tired of the accusations and choose to ban people.
        thoughtpalette 2y ago
        I can believe that scenario, but I believe in the cases I've seen regarding game dev, It's more pearl clutching from the artists (rightly so) rather than accusations from the asset users.
- nativeit 2y ago
  I'm gonna give it up for that one. Nicely done.
crowdstriker 2y ago
[flagged]
- mech422 2y ago
  As opposed to IRC? Forums? hell - even an email list... All things that are a lot easier to search then Discord, have much lighter clients, and can be done free. Do you really think there was 'no way to communicate' for projects before discord ?
  - crowdstriker 2y ago
    You're comparing ancient obsolete technology to a streamlined instant messaging client. There's a reason they 'just' use Discord. So now you want developers to have to check emails, IRC, forum posts, whatever other outdated communication platform, AND Discord? Why on Earth would they use all that when Discord takes care of all of those features and more. Having more than one central place to communicate is 'hostile'.
    - jmb99 2y ago
      > You're comparing ancient obsolete technology to a streamlined instant messaging client. Just because something is old, doesn’t mean it is bad.
      - crowdstriker 2y ago
        Disagree.
    - mech422 2y ago
      >>You're comparing ancient obsolete technology to a streamlined instant messaging client I'd hardly call discord a 'stream lined' system. Latency (especially in voice which is supposed to be it strong suit) is bad, search is subpar compared to even simple google searches, information is silo'd, its yet another place that can potentially leak PII, and basically the network is a SPOF. SourceForge promised all you mention, and was backed by (at the time) the largest IPO in history..and lasted what 2-3 years before it started decaying? I remember projects scrambling to find hosting after SF - and I remember how fast everyone jumped on GitHub .. I was donating to GH from the beginning just to help prevent another SF scenario... As for it 'hostile' - its a lot easier to do a google search and find all sorts of information streams about something, rather then having to figure out the discord server for a project, search the discord server, and still miss any info. from outside of discord. That seems more 'hostile' to me then less wall-garden systems. Edit: last I knew, over 1K oss projects still maintain libera.chat channels
nativeit 2y ago
Just to clarify, when I say "hostile to users", I just mean generally "less accessible than alternatives". I'm not making any value judgments about how we treat one another using said access, which I don't imagine is any great panacea.