4 ms·

I have a theory, but based only on my observation of younger family members; needless to say, it may be way off in aggregate. Apart from the obvious, I don't re

I have a theory, but based only on my observation of younger family members; needless to say, it may be way off in aggregate. Apart from the obvious, I don't really see them posting on legacy social media platfoms ( fb and so on ). TikTok was commonly used, but I can't say if recent US moves actually caused younger people to limits its use. On the other hand, fragmented discords and the like did seem to start be more common.

nine_k 9mo ago
Did you see people mourning the demise of forum software, when neatly maintained places oriented towards specific topics gave way to noisy and all-encompassing places like FB at Twitter? I think these fragmented Discords are the return to the idea of specific, uncrowded, neatly maintained places, with a relatively high barrier to entry for a random person. Subreddits are a bit similar, but less insular.
- GaryBluto 9mo ago
  One of the only differences between new Reddit and Discord is that Reddit has the courtesy of a public index. I don't know much about Discord (my only experience being some years ago when I joined for an open source project and left soon after I noticed how incredibly use hostile it is) but I do know that if you create a single account it is trivial to join any "server" (which, despite the marketing is just a chatroom hosted on their servers).
  - Andrex 9mo ago
    We're gonna enter a new age/type of "lost media" as Discord remains popular year over year. It's a complete black hole unless you're manually backing things up. No possible Wayback Machine.
    - zhivota 9mo ago
      It's honestly a good thing. People should have social outlets where things are forgotten, not memorialized for all eternity.
      - GaryBluto 9mo ago
        Sure, but it's definitely not the return of forums and the fact it is being used in place of forums will cause trouble down the line.
        armchairhacker 9mo ago
        It's a bad replacement for forums. The Discords I'm active in are all everyday conversations, like big group chats. Some of them are funny/interesting and occasionally someone gives useful advice, but the vast majority are forgettable. I think that people should publicly share valuable information (like great conversations or useful advice) and some of their typical conversations (a context summary for outsiders and history). But privacy and ephemeral-ness make people more open. It may be better to have a space for most conversations where they're not expected to be saved, or (because "not expected" in Discord relies on weak evidence and today's norms) guaranteed not to be saved.
      - calvinmorrison 9mo ago
        Yes for social outlets. For niche hobbies? old photos of specific milling machines used in machine shops on board US navy vessels? For 80's european automotive restoration? For repairing and restoring retro-computing devices? Terrible. Terrible Terrible Terrible.
        jazzyjackson 9mo ago
        Tbf most old forums seem to have lacked photo hosting so all that’s left is photobucket placeholders
      - vkou 9mo ago
        They are forgotten for all useful intents and purposes, but a malicious asshole can and will memorialize everything you say on it.
    - faresfa 9mo ago
      [dead]
  - int_19h 9mo ago
    > I do know that if you create a single account it is trivial to join any "server" Only if it's public. There are many private Discord servers. The way they do it is that the default set of permissions is basically none, but then there's a server role which actually gives you permissions to see the channels and post in them. So, anyone can join the server, but only people who have been granted this role (e.g. by admin) can do anything on it, or even see others.
- wrxd 9mo ago
  Discord is still not the same and in my opinion inferior. It’s mostly synchronous chat with poor searchability, something very different from what forums used to be

nine_k 9mo ago

Did you see people mourning the demise of forum software, when neatly maintained places oriented towards specific topics gave way to noisy and all-encompassing places like FB at Twitter? I think these fragmented Discords are the return to the idea of specific, uncrowded, neatly maintained places, with a relatively high barrier to entry for a random person. Subreddits are a bit similar, but less insular.

GaryBluto 9mo ago
One of the only differences between new Reddit and Discord is that Reddit has the courtesy of a public index. I don't know much about Discord (my only experience being some years ago when I joined for an open source project and left soon after I noticed how incredibly use hostile it is) but I do know that if you create a single account it is trivial to join any "server" (which, despite the marketing is just a chatroom hosted on their servers).
- Andrex 9mo ago
  We're gonna enter a new age/type of "lost media" as Discord remains popular year over year. It's a complete black hole unless you're manually backing things up. No possible Wayback Machine.
  - zhivota 9mo ago
    It's honestly a good thing. People should have social outlets where things are forgotten, not memorialized for all eternity.
    - GaryBluto 9mo ago
      Sure, but it's definitely not the return of forums and the fact it is being used in place of forums will cause trouble down the line.
      - armchairhacker 9mo ago
        It's a bad replacement for forums. The Discords I'm active in are all everyday conversations, like big group chats. Some of them are funny/interesting and occasionally someone gives useful advice, but the vast majority are forgettable. I think that people should publicly share valuable information (like great conversations or useful advice) and some of their typical conversations (a context summary for outsiders and history). But privacy and ephemeral-ness make people more open. It may be better to have a space for most conversations where they're not expected to be saved, or (because "not expected" in Discord relies on weak evidence and today's norms) guaranteed not to be saved.
    - calvinmorrison 9mo ago
      Yes for social outlets. For niche hobbies? old photos of specific milling machines used in machine shops on board US navy vessels? For 80's european automotive restoration? For repairing and restoring retro-computing devices? Terrible. Terrible Terrible Terrible.
      - jazzyjackson 9mo ago
        Tbf most old forums seem to have lacked photo hosting so all that’s left is photobucket placeholders
    - vkou 9mo ago
      They are forgotten for all useful intents and purposes, but a malicious asshole can and will memorialize everything you say on it.
  - faresfa 9mo ago
    [dead]
- int_19h 9mo ago
  > I do know that if you create a single account it is trivial to join any "server" Only if it's public. There are many private Discord servers. The way they do it is that the default set of permissions is basically none, but then there's a server role which actually gives you permissions to see the channels and post in them. So, anyone can join the server, but only people who have been granted this role (e.g. by admin) can do anything on it, or even see others.
wrxd 9mo ago
Discord is still not the same and in my opinion inferior. It’s mostly synchronous chat with poor searchability, something very different from what forums used to be