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Please don't use Discord for FOSS projects (drewdevault.com)

submitted 4 months ago by starman@programming.dev to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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[-] klangcola@reddthat.com 334 points 4 months ago

The biggest problem with Discord is that its an information black hole. Its not properly searchable and not indexed by search engines.

Discord is fine for casual chat, but horrible when used for forum-type discussions and even worse when used for documentation.

You see the same problems being discussed and solved again and again, but you cant just "link" someone the solution like you could with a forum thread cause its spread out over 3-10 chat messages that are interleaved in-between other topics being discussed in the same room

Anything of long-term value for the project (forum-type discussions, documentation etc) should not recide in Discord

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 121 points 4 months ago

There's going to be a lot of shocked Pikachus when the inevitable enshittification hits, and suddenly they charge to host all the documentation and wiki pages. All that barely maintained stuff will just vanish overnight.

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 43 points 4 months ago

At this point, charging for the service is the only thing left to do to make it more shit...

[-] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago

You would think that people would learn not to put all their eggs into one corporate basket after Facebook fucked everyone over...

[-] Pantherina@feddit.de 41 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Chat in general is so flawed when talking about multiple topics at once. At least when people dont use matrix threads, spaces and rooms correctly.

[-] Kayday@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago

I have all the issues with Discord that you mention, but struggle to find a better alternative. Do you have any recommendations?

[-] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 32 points 4 months ago

Forums. Phpbb, Mybb, hell even discourse is better than discord. If you're specifically dealing with a coding project, most git repositories offer an issues page and wiki you can use.

[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago

And if you want something realtime, IRC & XMPP are low-resource chat options—with the latter being federated & can offer encryption for private rooms.

[-] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago

Sure, but those options solve literally none of the issues discussed above

[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

There’s still been a time & place for realtime communications where the history preservation doesn’t quite matter… it can be some general recon of a problem to know what to even ask so as to not clog up the signal-noise for SEO or even if it’s mostly off-topic banter to relate to community members.

[-] bufalo1973@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

I'm thinking of a rapid alert on a problem in the project using IRC/XMPP/Matrix and then the project managers posting it in a forum about problems in the project.

[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago

I could see a bot that could escalate a post with a 🐛 reaction from a maintainer & post an issue. I do feel sometimes tho it is nice to get chat to help the one in need shape the question in a way that folks can help as often they may not know what they are looking for or the root cause. The issues tho is that often those in chat & the asker don’t like the context switch of going to the forum later rather than just answering it here & now--even tho this comes at a detriment to the community as the answer slips into the void.

[-] tal 2 points 4 months ago

Forums used to be a lot more common before Reddit kind of ate most public forums.

I guess that the Threadiverse is a substitute, but I dunno how long a given server will stay up.

[-] pedroapero@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

What about a lemmy community ? I noticed the Github «discussion» tab also.

[-] Kushia@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 months ago

Any non-trivial support enquiries should be directed to log a bug report/formal support request regardless of the community platform you're using. Discord isn't any worse than IRC in this regard and we've been offering support via the latter forever.

[-] alive_posted115@lemm.ee 7 points 4 months ago

I think a happy medium for this is to rely on GitHub issues for support, and then people can discuss each issue on GitHub or Discord

[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 months ago

Both are proprietary, closed source from US-based, for-profit entites. Same problem arises.

[-] Mahlzeit@feddit.de 4 points 4 months ago

A solution would be to save the chat log as a text file. An LLM might be able to turn it into FAQ format with little oversight. Of course, someone would still have to volunteer the work.

Obviously, Discord doesn't want that sort of thing since it lessens their hold on a community and the people in it. They could decide to cause trouble.