Joining via server invites that guide you through sign up, no dedicated server to host (I know, major downside for people who don’t want all their stuff centralized to Discord’s servers), GUI server admin tools, etc.
I think devs tend to vastly overestimate how tech-savvy the average person is. Bring up hosting, DNS, port forwarding, terminal, etc. and they’re going to nope out pretty quick. Provide an option that lets you do everything from a single GUI and they’ll use it. Enough people use it and eventually the tech-savvy folks have to follow because that’s where everyone is.
That’s absolutely not to say that it’s a good medium for documentation. I will always prefer well-written and organized docs first and searchable forums/issue trackers/SO second. But that second group has a lot of tech elitism and devs who are (perhaps justifiably) short on patience, so Discord seems a lot more accessible to newbies who are asking the most basic questions.
I may be getting old, but I think D*scord (I’m all for cencoring it like a slur) isn’t any more simple than a phpBB or something similar was. Quite the opposite actually, at least for any user trying to navigate the the darn thing.
Maybe navigating is the wrong term. It’s just impossible to find stuff relevant to me on discord. On any given larger server, there may be a few channels I could be interested in - but they are just a single chat log, often with lots of off-topic spam, and many different people having almost separate discussions at the same time. On any given larger phpBB, stuff is mostly separated into different threads with all the off-topic posts being delegated to a single thread. It’s better searchable and better organized.
What even is “relevancy”? Their search is just a search by matching keywords. There isn’t a magic algorithm discord uses. Every time I had an issue with some sort of bug or function I just search for specific keywords and 9/10 times I find something. On the odd-chance I don’t then I’ll behave like a human being and ask. I just don’t get what’s wrong with that? You can already limit those keyword searches with specific constraints so you don’t get much noise.
You don’t see its incredible simplicity as an advantage? That’s crazy
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Seriously. My only interactions with discord are in ways that its replaced a simple web forum or IRC channel.
Well if that’s your only exposure to it, then yeah I could see why you think it’s not good.
But if you just want to hang out with a regular group of friends async and in voice chat, it’s pretty damn good.
Skill issue
Joining via server invites that guide you through sign up, no dedicated server to host (I know, major downside for people who don’t want all their stuff centralized to Discord’s servers), GUI server admin tools, etc.
I think devs tend to vastly overestimate how tech-savvy the average person is. Bring up hosting, DNS, port forwarding, terminal, etc. and they’re going to nope out pretty quick. Provide an option that lets you do everything from a single GUI and they’ll use it. Enough people use it and eventually the tech-savvy folks have to follow because that’s where everyone is.
That’s absolutely not to say that it’s a good medium for documentation. I will always prefer well-written and organized docs first and searchable forums/issue trackers/SO second. But that second group has a lot of tech elitism and devs who are (perhaps justifiably) short on patience, so Discord seems a lot more accessible to newbies who are asking the most basic questions.
Notepad is simple
Doesn’t mean it’s the best thing for documentation.
Actually… a readme file is probably better for documentation if you’re really going for simple.
Sometimes a readme is all a project needs
I may be getting old, but I think D*scord (I’m all for cencoring it like a slur) isn’t any more simple than a phpBB or something similar was. Quite the opposite actually, at least for any user trying to navigate the the darn thing.
Having used both, if you can somehow navigate a phbb board then you can easily navigate discord. The only thing stopping you is you.
Maybe navigating is the wrong term. It’s just impossible to find stuff relevant to me on discord. On any given larger server, there may be a few channels I could be interested in - but they are just a single chat log, often with lots of off-topic spam, and many different people having almost separate discussions at the same time. On any given larger phpBB, stuff is mostly separated into different threads with all the off-topic posts being delegated to a single thread. It’s better searchable and better organized.
What even is “relevancy”? Their search is just a search by matching keywords. There isn’t a magic algorithm discord uses. Every time I had an issue with some sort of bug or function I just search for specific keywords and 9/10 times I find something. On the odd-chance I don’t then I’ll behave like a human being and ask. I just don’t get what’s wrong with that? You can already limit those keyword searches with specific constraints so you don’t get much noise.
Counterpoint
Counter-counterpoint: He did eat something off his foot in front of an audience.
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I don’t think “simplicity” is in a FOSS evangelist’s vocabulary.
Using Discord to support code is like trying to teach sculpture over the telephone.
simplicity is a double edged sword. convinence is nice, but the internet feels a lot more homogenous these days than in the past
you don’t see a tool being too simple for the problem at hand to be a problem in tool selection? that’s also crazy.
If Discord is simple, why does the Discord app have 149 MB?
Of all the counterpoints you can give me against discord not being simple, you choose file size. Lmao. I’m not even gonna start