Mastodawn

Seafire Aug 21, 2023

Krissy Silvermoon

I am *SO* sick of joining #Discord Servers for everything and anything.

I do NOT want to join your server of 400+ people I *do not know* and have no desire to talk to because you wouldn't link me your GitHub or site directly or put necessary information in your README for a thing I just want to download and use.

Please, for the love of Celestia STOP doing this. IF your server gets deleted, that information is GONE. If Discord shuts down, that information is GONE. If someone doesn't want to join a 400+ person chat room, they're SCREWED. PLEASE STOP.

You people know that there are limits to the number of servers people can JOIN right?!

Sweet Luna's Moon! Seriously, just make an RSS Feed..! Put up an info page on GitHub Pages, it's FREE.

I miss forums you could browse without an account

Please... please... #StopDiscordCentralization

/rant

Soy Aug 20, 2023

@christiansilvermooon And even forums with an account didn't force you to jump though 15 hoops before you could even see the download you are after. 'To see this content first send a custom message to our custom bot with the codeword you get from reading all our rules (and not the fake codeword halfway, which gets you banned)'

Krissy Silvermoon

@Soyweiser YES. THIS.

genstar.service Aug 22, 2023

@Soyweiser
@christiansilvermooon Also, I've seen some even require the phone number for some fucking reason.

Kapitän Clownfeuer Aug 20, 2023

@christiansilvermooon I honestly could not agree more with this. Discord as a source of information is horrible.

Resuna Aug 21, 2023

@rasur @christiansilvermooon Too many words. Discord is horrible.

Using Discord for documentation is a war crime.

Northernblowwk Aug 21, 2023

@resuna @rasur @christiansilvermooon or for anything much. I find it a difficult site to navigate and existn

SnowDerg ❄️

🪶Aug 20, 2023

@christiansilvermooon I'm convinced discord is the deep web

Krissy Silvermoon

@SnowDerg The Deep Web is anything not indexed by Search Engines, this includes things behind paywalls, etc...

Nothing in a Discord Server is indexed by search engines as far as I know, so technically this does qualify as Deep Web to my knoweldge

@SnowDerg @christiansilvermooon since #Discord can't be used via @torproject / #Tor nor can it be #SelfHosted sinve it's a shitty #SaaS solution, it's incapable of being so, unless you think #Loginwalling qualifies for that....
https://mstdn.social/@kkarhan/110922630981732025

Kevin Karhan :verified: (@[email protected])

@[email protected] +9001% #Discord is one of the WORST TOOLS EVER since it's #bloated like #Windows, unsearchable like #Slack, full of illegal tracking shit like #MicrosoftTeams and doesn't add any value compared to #IRC or #Zulip + #Mumble or #JitsiMeet. Espechally if people abuse it for things that it was never good in, like #IssueTracking, #Support, #Documentation etc. Everyone who even suggests using Discord for that is an ableist asshole who loves #LoginWalls and should be banned!

Mastodon 🐘

Krissy Silvermoon

@kkarhan That's not Deep Web, that's *Dark* Web.

@christiansilvermooon not really.

I'd call it only "dark web" if you can't find it because #Torch or #Ahmina haven't indexed it.

https://ahmia.fi

Ahmia — Search Tor Hidden Services

A search engine for services accessible on the Tor network.

Krissy Silvermoon

@kkarhan @SnowDerg @torproject
AFAIK Deep Web = Not Indexed by Search Engines. Dark Web = You need specialized software to access this network.

@christiansilvermooon @SnowDerg I don't think @torproject is that spechal.

We are in 2023 and even if you don't want to setup #TorBrowser at all it's even possible to transparently provide access to #Tor for the entire network.
https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/how-tos/tor.html

#SurfaceWeb applications like a Payment Processor's Frontend is way more conplex in terms of public- & user-facing components...

But you ain't wrong!

Tor Configuration — OPNsense documentation

@christiansilvermooon +9001%

#Discord is one of the WORST TOOLS EVER since it's #bloated like #Windows, unsearchable like #Slack, full of illegal tracking shit like #MicrosoftTeams and doesn't add any value compared to #IRC or #Zulip + #Mumble or #JitsiMeet.

Espechally if people abuse it for things that it was never good in, like #IssueTracking, #Support, #Documentation etc.

Everyone who even suggests using Discord for that is an ableist asshole who loves #LoginWalls and should be banned!

@christiansilvermooon #Discord prevents #Crawlers so it's impossible to search through shit, literally bricking workflows for people.

#CantUse & #WontUse!

VirtualWolf Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon SO MUCH THISSSSSSSSSS.

Claudius (legacy account)Aug 21, 2023

so much this. Discord (but also Gitter, Matrix, Mattermost, Rocketchat, Slack ...) are simply not ways to preserve and retrieve information.

kieliscalling Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon THIS! SO MUCH THIS! Thank you!

Laura Orchid Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon how is this post popular?

CrimsonTRP Aug 21, 2023

@lauraorchid It's very relatable for a lot of people. When something's relatable, it gets attention. Such is the way of social media.

Krissy Silvermoon

@lauraorchid Well, truth be told, beyond it being something people found relatable, I don't exactly know, but I do have a pretty solid theory.

Step 1 - somebody from another instance boosted
Step 2 - Their followers saw it, and boosted too
Step 3 - This snowballed into this

Lukas Brausch Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon I completely agree. In addition to that, #Discord is also not #FreeSoftware. I don't understand how this piece of software got so popular, while much better alternatives (for chatting and not for information retrevial), such as @element or @MattermostFR exist.

Krissy Silvermoon

@LukasBrausch As much as we love and care about FOSS, the average person does not know, understand, or care about it.

In an ideal world, all the best stuff would be FOSS, I agree.

There's also the fact that with Discord, it's where a lot of people's friends already are.... so you either use Discord, make different friends, or become an internet hermit x3

Lukas Brausch Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon Unfortunately, that's very true. It's the same old story as #WhatsApp vs. #Signal. The first mover will always have an advantage due to people being too lazy to switch.

Paolo Amoroso Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon Not to mention finding anything on Discord is a terrible experience and chats are notoriusoly a mess.

@christiansilvermooon dont ya worry. Discord is a very easy target for bankruptcy 😈😈

T0╳F03Æ Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon

0 is the number of times I felt an inclination to join a discord server Just to find how to solve my probleme with software, if its broken and you only have discord I will either learn to live with it or without your software...

🏳️‍🌈 HeroRareheart 🏳️‍⚧️Sep 7, 2023

@T0xF03AE @christiansilvermooon the few times I caved and did it was pretty unhelpful. I've started using fewer and fewer apps from the TrueCharts catalogs on TrueNAS because of it. It also doesn't help that for TrueCharts the documentation and support is fractured between old school internet means, documentation across Github and their website, and their Discord server.

I don't think a project having a Discord with support and linking to documentation is inherently an issue or a bad thing, however when it's the ONLY way or it hosts information avaiable nowhere else that's a big problem.

Krissy Silvermoon

@HeroRareheart @T0xF03AE IT being the ONLY thing is exactly what I am complaining about

ghost guns, ghost money Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon If a piece of software or service makes me join a Discord to get documentation or to contact the developers, I just find better software

Krissy Silvermoon

@pokkst @T0xF03AE Unfortunately, for me, there's a lot of really neat/useful things that I literally can't get without joining a Discord server.

You might think, 'well just live without it', and I can see why you would, but I really enjoy my game mods, so it's that or just miss out on something I REALLY wanted to do

Megalomaniac Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon The second most horrifying sentence in the English language: "Join our Discord". The most horrifying being "Find us on Facebook".

Krissy Silvermoon

@megalomaniac Oh God, yeah you're not even wrong

Resuna Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon @megalomaniac Discord is worse than Facebook.

Megalomaniac Aug 21, 2023

@resuna @christiansilvermooon I mean, in what respect? Facebook has set fire to entire industries, and even messed with democracy.

Resuna Aug 21, 2023

@megalomaniac @christiansilvermooon As a place to put documentation it’s bad but not as bad as Discord. The user interface sucks less and it’s kind of searchable and discoverable.

CrimsonTRP Aug 21, 2023

@megalomaniac @christiansilvermooon Yeaaaaaaaaah. I've seen that too many times.

ator robot Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon It would be just that bit less insulting if keyboard navigation, and therefore accessibility, weren't so clearly second-class citizens. It remains unfathomable to me how they managed to mess up keyboard-based message navigation not only badly but inconsistently badly.

Krissy Silvermoon

@ator I mean, based on my own interactions, for Discord you have CTRL+K to quickly jump to different places and the tab key switches you to a mode you can jump around with arrow keys.

Buuut, then you have TTS on Discord which doesn't work on Linux without the '--enable-speech-dispatcher' arguement, and even then only if a channel allows it, which can only happen in servers, and only if a person begins their message with '/tts'. This is horrible for anyone who'd need a screen reader.

ator robot Aug 22, 2023

@christiansilvermooon Ctrl+K would be good if it worked predictably and quickly. On my end, it consistently prioritises results outside of my current server, and it takes its time to do so.

I would be able to accept the two non-persistent navigation modes IF the tab/arrow-based one was any good. I've tried using it; it doesn't scroll posts properly into view, it doesn't make post options easy to select or activate, and often it mysteriously stops working altogether. The very fact that you can't get it to start at the first unread message without a click is a dealbreaker for me.

Also, wow, I had no idea the TTS support was so egregiously bad. The /tts barrier alone renders it almost completely useless and destroys accessibility of the feature. How useless and arbitrary.

🏳️‍🌈 HeroRareheart 🏳️‍⚧️Sep 7, 2023

@ator @christiansilvermooon oh I know how, fill the dwv team and test team with people like me who grew up mainly using a mouse. I learned like 4 keyboard shortcuts ever.

Dusty Pomerleau Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon This came up on the Elixir Discourse forum a couple years ago. My initial response is behind a login there, but I put it in a gist, because this keeps coming up:

https://gist.github.com/dustypomerleau/2deec7228fafc489fe59a8c5667e3dce

Ultimately, we are losing a lot of collective knowledge to chat-based solutions.

slack-for-support.md

GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

Gist

fenix Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon by chance... have you tried #xmpp networks ? e.g. via ... https://snikket.org/

Snikket Chat

Snikket is a simple, secure and private messaging app

Snikket Chat

mortal Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon

This.

And remember: Discord cannot be indexed. Discord cannot be browsed or searched without an account.

Discord is a walled garden that will disappear one day, sweeping tons and tons of useful knowledge, know-how and information with it.

John Meadows Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon Amen!!

@christiansilvermooon Anything online will be GONE... You don't like such things write them on paper.. Oh those too age n ink fades.. Everything has a life! In the name of Thor stop complaining...

Krissy Silvermoon

@XeroLinux ...I think you've fundamentally missed the point of my post :P

When it comes to the rest of the internet there are archival utilities and things people use to preserve things in an easily accessible manner.

My complaint is that I don't want to join a *chatroom* for things that don't belong in a chat room and that Discord is not a proper place for a archiving information and it's not easily accessible.

Also you're technically complaining about me complaining

@christiansilvermooon Even archival don't last but ok if you feel that way don't join Discord.. Stay away. I have forums not for same reasons just coz it's neater to post there. I love Discord for chatting though... I don't much care for archives what you don't find in one place you will certainly find in another...

Krissy Silvermoon

@XeroLinux I'm not saying they do, but publicly accessible archives can be mirrored.

I'm not saying Discord is a horrible platform for every use, I'm saying it's bad for this particular thing. I use Discord and talk to people on it, I just don't want to be expected to join a massive server just to get access to a mod for a video game or its documentation.

Imagine if the Arch Wiki were replaced by a Discord Server. See, that would be terrible.

Discord isn't a Wiki. Discord isn't a manpage. Discord isn't the README that should've been in a git repo. It's a *chat* platform.

Why should a git repo's README say "join our sever to read me." ? How useless is that?

@christiansilvermooon See ? If you explained it that way from beginning would've avoided misunderstanding lol.. Yeah I understand what you mean now, chat platforms are not the the place for such things. But alas no matter how much or loud we scream nothing will change.. So I adapt. I try my best to port anything I need from there to my forums since I control them and if I should have to take them down will have a copy locally or rely on archive.org like sites..

Krissy Silvermoon

@XeroLinux All I did was basically repeat paragraph 2 of my original post, which is "I don't want to join a massive chat room for access to things that shouldn't be in a Discord server"

@christiansilvermooon You used ArchWiki as example which clarified it more for me an Arch distro maintainer with Arch-Brain..

Krissy Silvermoon

@XeroLinux Fair, and I figured that'd be a good example.

The Arch Wiki is a godsend regardless of distro... if that were to just vanish, or be difficult to browse/search it'd be a darn tragedy x3

@christiansilvermooon Yeah God forbid lol

Flamekebab Aug 21, 2023

@XeroLinux @christiansilvermooon if enough of us moan about it then people start to see it as unprofessional and shoddy to use it for the wrong purpose.

I'm reminded of someone I encountered that advocated for using Microsoft PowerPoint to design posters.

Michel van Son Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon hear hear! Luckily discord posts are indexed and can easily be searched...

Krissy Silvermoon

@Mike_2k If by that you mean Discord's own engine than sure... the engine that fails to return relevant results the vast majority of the time even If I search for a string I KNOW was in the post I'm looking for word-for-word, than sure

+bonifartius 𒂼𒄄 Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon just don't use software which uses discord 💁

Krissy Silvermoon

@bonifartius Not a solution to the problem :P

That's nice in theory, and I'd love it if that magically worked, but unfortunately that means I don't get to do a bunch of stuff I like to do.

Justin Derrick Aug 21, 2023

@christiansilvermooon Be the change, and start organizing a wiki. Summarize threads / issues into documentation. Solicit advice from others.