stop using discord for your open-source communities
Conversation
Notices
-
Embed this notice
Matt Cengia (mattcen@aus.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Jul-2023 15:50:00 JST Matt Cengia -
Embed this notice
this.ven (thisven@digitalcourage.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Jul-2023 15:49:51 JST this.ven This is a nice essay, @downey. And I think it explains why @mattcen calls to #AvoidDiscord for #OpenSource and #FreeSoftware communities.
@pbone:
Have you tried @matrix? It's a #monolithic #protocol and it may take some time to get familiar with it.With @xmpp there's an #alternative and #modular approach to provide #messaging services.
-
Embed this notice
Michael Downey 🇺🇳 (downey@floss.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Jul-2023 15:49:52 JST Michael Downey 🇺🇳 -
Embed this notice
Matt Cengia (mattcen@aus.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Jul-2023 15:49:58 JST Matt Cengia I get that when you're working on stuff and not getting paid for it, it can make sense to seek the platforms with the lowest friction and barriers to entry, but between IRC, #Matrix (and by extension, Gitter), and #XMPP, there are plenty of options that don't include vendor lock-in.
-
Embed this notice
Paul Bone (pbone@fosstodon.org)'s status on Monday, 03-Jul-2023 15:49:58 JST Paul Bone @mattcen I really think that Discord is one of the easiest platforms to use and choose it for my open source stuff.
I'm not worried about vendor lock-in because chat is ephemeral. I don't store documentation & code there it's just a way for people to get in touch. If it's a problem I can move elsewhere.
I also use IRC because I like IRC, but I understand that people find IRC difficult.
-
Embed this notice
Polychrome :blabcat: (polychrome@poly.cybre.city)'s status on Monday, 03-Jul-2023 16:31:21 JST Polychrome :blabcat: @bilboed @mattcen @pbone IRC had public and searchable chatlog bot services for decades. -
Embed this notice
Edward Hervey (bilboed@bilboed.tech)'s status on Monday, 03-Jul-2023 16:31:23 JST Edward Hervey @pbone @mattcen the number of times searching for something in mattermost has saved me has made me change my point of view on that.
Having searchable history of "chat systems" is a must-have. And it needs to be open for FOSS projects, else you're losing a massive trove of information and knowledge. -
Embed this notice
Polychrome :blabcat: (polychrome@poly.cybre.city)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Jul-2023 17:18:19 JST Polychrome :blabcat: @elmo @mattcen @bilboed @pbone chat log bots are a separate system from the bouncers you are referring to. They log channel chat to a public website instead of directly into the client. These are not set up by users.
Bouncers are different in that they maintain an online presence for you in the channel while you are offline and keep a limited amount of chat history to replay when you return. A bouncer is only complicated to set up if you expect the user to so themselves. The setup can be automated with a very small shell script.
Finally, IRC clients are also no longer complicated to set up and use. Some very friendly web based IRC clients exist exactly for this use case. -
Embed this notice
elmo (elmo@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Jul-2023 17:18:21 JST elmo @Polychrome @mattcen @bilboed @pbone With complicated to use bouncer bots that 99.99% of all average users won't be able to use because they simply require too much technical knowledge to be set up and used properly.
IRC is not a viable alternative for the average computer user nowadays.
-
Embed this notice
Polychrome :blabcat: (polychrome@poly.cybre.city)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Jul-2023 17:49:43 JST Polychrome :blabcat: @bilboed @mattcen @elmo @pbone mentioning Matrix as the solution while ignoring their most recent action is where I step off from this discussion :blobcatneutral: -
Embed this notice
Edward Hervey (bilboed@bilboed.tech)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Jul-2023 17:49:45 JST Edward Hervey @elmo @Polychrome @mattcen @pbone matrix is the best solution right now. There's *some* burden (on the project side) to setup the space/server but it offers a lot more than IRC indeed.
Heck it even offers more than slack and discord. No more having a trillion different accounts 😁
The more projects switch to matrix, the better.
Yes... I'm in the process of setting it up for a project. More on this soon -
Embed this notice
elmo (elmo@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Jul-2023 17:49:46 JST elmo @Polychrome @mattcen @bilboed @pbone It's still a way higher entry barrier for non-tech affine users.
The services being spread out over different webapps is already too much for most people.They need everything in one simple to use *app* that works exactly the same on desktop, mobile (and web) with one single account.
Matrix is already a lot better in that but there's still some things missing to really make it a fully viable alternative to Discord.
But IRC just isn't one at all nowadays. -
Embed this notice
Marmar (marmar22@techhub.social)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Jul-2023 22:24:08 JST Marmar @elmo @thisven @downey @mattcen @pbone @matrix @xmpp I personally think the problem is that it's doing too many things at once. Great if you want to centralise everything, nightmare if you ever want to replace.
I'd want to propose following the unix philosophy, but that may be too much to ask.
-
Embed this notice
this.ven (thisven@digitalcourage.social)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Jul-2023 22:24:08 JST this.ven @marmar22 @elmo @downey @mattcen @pbone @matrix @xmpp Yeah. The #UNIX philosophy may be not as convenient as a bloated communication hub but it conveys knowledge and power to the people instead of offering alleged free services.
-
Embed this notice
elmo (elmo@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 04-Jul-2023 22:24:10 JST elmo @thisven @downey @mattcen @pbone @matrix @xmpp Matrix and XMPP are simply not viable alternatives to Discord.
They offer merely a fraction of the features that Discord brings with it.
Discord isn't just a chat.
It's a full social platform with Forums, Chat-channels (with sub-threads), voice and video calls, very granular role based user management, a fully searchable history etc.
It even offers stuff like "hosted events" and automated notification channels now which are useful for businesses.
-
Embed this notice