• @Cataphract@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    229 months ago

    I guess we have different perspectives. Ease, convenience = forums, existing userbase? = Do you prefer Reddit for this reason?, familiarity = forums lol, search-ability = forums, privacy = forums, etc etc.

      • @Cataphract@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        199 months ago

        The discussion seems very muddled and opinionated ITT because I’m not even sure if you’re talking about a Discord Server or a forum/communication platform on a dedicated server. You might be able to slap together a Discord server faster, but the organizational power and not putting that extra work on users for Discord participation makes forum’s superior. Part of the project development is sysadmin. If it’s not, why take it FOSS at all? Discord is designed to take up your time, those pretty bots and “perks” keep you viewing. What could’ve been a well thought out message on a board with a reply now becomes 20+ texts which you’re stuck communicating on. Rinse and repeat every day, on a forum you simply link the previous conversation and you’re done.

        I think it’s a neutral wash atm, Discord may be packaged better to be mainstream but it’s bloat all around with lots of negatives. Anyone saying Discord is better is just preference at this point, lots of counterintuitive comments like we need “real-time” communication but also anything else takes up project development, like Discord is some kind of time saver.

          • @toastal@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            29 months ago

            Libera.chat & OFTC exist for this purpose to do chat for open source without needing to set up a service.

        • @pop@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          69 months ago

          please list all your personal foss projects and discussion forums you’ve set up for them please. I would like to join them all.

        • conciselyverbose
          link
          fedilink
          19 months ago

          Discord supports threaded topic based formats as well.

          The reality is that for a lot of interactions, a live chat feels better than a forum post. You can very easily do both on discord, though.

          It’s not perfect, but the alternatives that aren’t a whole project by themselves building a tool don’t have feature parity, or the user base.

    • db0
      link
      fedilink
      229 months ago

      Forums are not the same as real-time. And yes for most of the people using discord, forums wouldn’t cover the same niche.

      • @Cataphract@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        159 months ago

        I think you might just be blinded by Discord for some reason. I’m not sure what “niche” you’re referring to with Discord that can’t be provided with forums (unless you’re worried about cosmetics I guess?). There are forums with real-time communications like chat, notifications, direct-messaging. I’m not trying to argue, getting your perspective is always helpful and might show something I’m missing, but your responses seem vague and not really a counter-point.

        • db0
          link
          fedilink
          149 months ago

          My perspective is of a FOSS developer with multiple communities of thousands. If you can’t grasp it, that’s on you. It’s also why purity moralizing isn’t useful. I have only so much mental bandwidth to spend on organizing and self-hosting. If people are not stepping up to do the community management and infrastructure work, I will go with the past of least resistance.

          • @Cataphract@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            159 months ago

            If you can’t grasp it, that’s on you. It’s also why purity moralizing isn’t useful

            oh ok, thanks for the clarification.

            If people are not stepping up to do the community management and infrastructure work, I will go with the past of least resistance.

            That’s basically it in a nut shell, path of least resistance. Doesn’t refute any claims made in the article or arguments presented here. Just a shame another company has a stranglehold on a whole category of services that have to be used to participate in society … while developing FOSS.

            • db0
              link
              fedilink
              179 months ago

              Doesn’t refute any claims made in the article or arguments presented here.

              Nothing to refute. I never said otherwise. Discord is just more convenient for people already overworked.

              Just a shame another company has a stranglehold on a whole category of services that have to be used to participate in society … while developing FOSS.

              Yes, it is a shame. I hope you’re doing something practical about it instead of moralizing towards FOSS devs.

              • jelloeater - Ops Mgr
                link
                fedilink
                English
                139 months ago

                Building communities and stuff that bring value to users is what really matters at the end of the day. Too many folks in the FOSS world like to stand on soap boxes.

                My time is valuable, if I can have someone else run a service, then that’s time I can spend doing things I enjoy. Self host when it makes sense, either from a cost perspective or a data privacy perspective. Everything is a balance.

                Nothing will ever be as convenient as letting someone else handle your infrastructure headaches. You don’t win by complaining, you win by providing a better user value.

                It’s why Steam beats Torrents and Torrents are coming back over streaming. My time is precious man.

      • poVoq
        link
        fedilink
        79 months ago

        Discourse has somewhat decent chat built in these days.

        • db0
          link
          fedilink
          6
          edit-2
          9 months ago

          I’ve used matrix. I am still using matrix. Just not for anything with a significant community

          • @iopq@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            59 months ago

            NixOS uses it, and it has the biggest repo out of any distro, so I’d consider it a significant community

            • db0
              link
              fedilink
              29 months ago

              Great. Which means NixOS has enough volunteers to handle that part. I don’t.

          • Venia Silente
            link
            fedilink
            English
            39 months ago

            Servers & clients use too many resources.

            Didn’t XMPP solve that in, like, 1999?

            (Really, what is with devs and nu-protocols these days? Back in my days you could run a webhost on a potato)

            • @toastal@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              29 months ago

              The did, but Matrix is coming to reinvent that while but by wasting resources trying to duplicate the state of everything at massive storage costs & without the extensibility because JSON.

              • @iopq@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                19 months ago

                The server itself doesn’t matter, you can migrate it to AWS or your own physical server if you oenn the domain

                • @toastal@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  19 months ago

                  The server does matter when it comes to who is collecting all of the metadata, data, attachments. …And having that all that data centralized around a single entity is a problem.