Discord

[Azareal]

Discord is a nice site where people can create chat groups to communicate with each other, some open source software also use it to provide support, collaborate and generally just chill. Some say that it's one of the big contenders vying to kill off forums (like everything else lol).

Unlike many chats, it's a very forum-like chat with multiple channels, categories which people can organise channels into, roles, fine-grained permissions, etc. and some forgo the hassle of setting up a forum to just use one of these things instead.

Like forums in the days of old, you can do practically nothing and get mountains of active users sometimes, although I'm a little lazy on that front.

 

[Page]

Everyone users Discord now.

 

[Scarlharp]

I don't. After multiple bad experiences with communities there (mainly tech-oriented communities) I quit it for good and have not looked back since. It has literally just caused me grief and several people I befriended there refused to talk to me anywhere else, because apparently everything else suddenly became too inconvenient to them, after they joined it. I don't really consider them friends if they don't want to talk to me outside of a trendIM.

Discord kills forums, because it's very hard to gain new users on a forum from a Discord server as members of Discords are too stubborn to use anything else it seems.

 

[Allenafaith]

I don’t like discord. I’ve tried to like it, maybe I’m stupid, but it’s just waaaaay too confusing for me. If it’s not simple I don’t like it. I’m used to Skype and I don’t like trying new things so I’m sure that plays a factor i in that as well. XD

 

[Scarlharp]

Good point to make. I found it had a very unintuitive UX and it kinda tries to shove things in your face.

Oh and Electron = *makes a thumbs down gesture*

Another point to make - Discord requires you to have a smartphone or a modern PC, and is officially inaccessible from anything even just a few years old it seems. And it apparently lags on even beast PCs because it reloads entire chunks of itself every few minutes, gobbling up tons of bandwidth (also they have a universal program monitor in the application which is ugh). Discord will also go away one day unlike IRC.

 

[DylRicho]

Discord is a nice site where people can create chat groups to communicate with each other, some open source software also use it to provide support, collaborate and generally just chill. Some say that it's one of the big contenders vying to kill off forums (like everything else lol).

Unlike many chats, it's a very forum-like chat with multiple channels, categories which people can organise channels into, roles, fine-grained permissions, etc. and some forgo the hassle of setting up a forum to just use one of these things instead.

Like forums in the days of old, you can do practically nothing and get mountains of active users sometimes, although I'm a little lazy on that front.

I never understood the fascination with Discord to be honest with you. Unless you're playing a game with the people you're talking to, it serves no real purpose. It's entire premise is that it allows you to effortlessly communicate via voice with fellow players, and it does this using much less resources than Skype (both web and Windows 10 program).

But here's the thing; it lacks a quote feature. To use Discord as an all-out replacement for Skype is nigh on impossible. How can you communicate with 10-20 people at a time when you can't quote each other's messages, and you're left resorting to using Markdown-like code markup just to create the illusion of a quote?

There's no way Discord in its current form will be a good option for a group chat of several tens of people. Conversations will quickly become lost.

 

[Azareal]

because apparently everything else suddenly became too inconvenient to them

That would be because Discord is extremely modern (unlike a lot of other things), has both a dark and light theme (these are surprisingly rare for IMs), has a development team who engage closely with the community and are fairly casual rather than unapproachables locked in towers pushing down decrees which no one likes and borrows a lot of things from forums like multiple sections which you can lock down with permissions.

Also, you can use Discord just about anywhere without downloading a special client, as it's just a web app (just open a browser), the rest is just icing on the cake. And yes, other things are inconvenient, if they involve downloading an entire client just to use Skype.

In addition to that, they are live, so you can see when people are online and things pop-up instantly rather than the usual workflow for a forum. I've moderated fairly large Discords and people are extremely enthusiastic and full of life unlike the sorts of attitudes you might get elsewhere.

Discord is extremely unlikely to die as it is a web app. They can just change the theme to suit the times rather than moving at glacial paces like Skype. I wouldn't bother using Skype, as the thing is horribly dated, involves downloading an ugly client, and has like no moderation tools (Skype isn't built for communities, it's built for five minute conferences).

 

[Azareal]

I don’t like discord. I’ve tried to like it, maybe I’m stupid, but it’s just waaaaay too confusing for me. If it’s not simple I don’t like it. I’m used to Skype and I don’t like trying new things so I’m sure that plays a factor i in that as well. XD

Honestly, I don't think it's any more complex than a forum. You make a guild, make little chatrooms in it, setup roles, give people roles, set some of the chats as only visible to certain roles, set permissions for the roles, etc.

It's only really complex for a chat, but a chat isn't really a community, unlike that.

 

[Azareal]

And it apparently lags on even beast PCs because it reloads entire chunks of itself every few minutes, gobbling up tons of bandwidth

My potato can run three instances of it at once. And there have been a bunch of updates to reduce bandwidth usage.

 

[Bryn]

I never bother with it, especially when I barely used it when I first had it and, it's ultra laggy on browsers. Also, as what another had said elsewhere, it's basically just "gamershit garbage".

I'd much prefer forums for communication thanks very much.

 

[Azareal]

I never bother with it, especially when I barely used it when I first had it and, it's ultra laggy on browsers. Also, as what another had said elsewhere, it's basically just "gamershit garbage".

Half of the admins I know including mega big board admins use Discord. And use it very heavily.

 

[Scarlharp]

Unfortunately as I said, a lot of people are incooperative with anything other than a Discord server... and leave the forums to rot. I've seen it first-hand, my roughly 50 members forum pretty much died completely because of the Discord server that accompanied it. It's probably less noticeable with big, serious communities tho.

 

[Scarlharp]

because apparently everything else suddenly became too inconvenient to them

That would be because Discord is extremely modern (unlike a lot of other things), has both a dark and light theme (these are surprisingly rare for IMs), has a development team who engage closely with the community and are fairly casual rather than unapproachables locked in towers pushing down decrees which no one likes and borrows a lot of things from forums like multiple sections which you can lock down with permissions.

Also, you can use Discord just about anywhere without downloading a special client, as it's just a web app (just open a browser), the rest is just icing on the cake. And yes, other things are inconvenient, if they involve downloading an entire client just to use Skype.

In addition to that, they are live, so you can see when people are online and things pop-up instantly rather than the usual workflow for a forum. I've moderated fairly large Discords and people are extremely enthusiastic and full of life unlike the sorts of attitudes you might get elsewhere.

Discord is extremely unlikely to die as it is a web app. They can just change the theme to suit the times rather than moving at glacial paces like Skype. I wouldn't bother using Skype, as the thing is horribly dated, involves downloading an ugly client, and has like no moderation tools (Skype isn't built for communities, it's built for five minute conferences).

While I get where you're coming from, I don't understand why everything else (forums included) got dropped by my circles since they started using Discord more actively. Discord will die eventually when they run out of resources, or someone launches a rival.

I feel Discord just caters to teenage kids who have social issues. Like me, to be honest, but I don't buy into it anymore. I probably just hold a grudge because my forums died after Discord got more active.

 

[Azareal]

While I get where you're coming from, I don't understand why everything else (forums included) got dropped by my circles since they started using Discord more actively. Discord will die eventually when they run out of resources, or someone launches a rival.

I feel Discord just caters to teenage kids who have social issues. Like me, to be honest, but I don't buy into it anymore. I probably just hold a grudge because my forums died after Discord got more active.

There was a rival, if I recall, Curse or something. And it was apparently copying Discord.
As for players like Skype, they're mostly just copying SMS, ditto for many of the other messaging apps.

Discord is probably the innovation leader of the market.

Unfortunately as I said, a lot of people are incooperative with anything other than a Discord server... and leave the forums to rot. I've seen it first-hand, my roughly 50 members forum pretty much died completely because of the Discord server that accompanied it. It's probably less noticeable with big, serious communities tho.

That would be because most forums are pretty far behind Discord technologically, for a really small site, it would probably have a hard time dealing with it. Why use a forum, if you have Discord which has all the features of a forum (minus threads) and is more convenient is probably the mindset of the users.

Also, 50 users is a pretty small discord, I've seen quite a few with hundreds or thousands which started from practically nothing. I've moderated one which had 30 thousand users, but it had a connection to one of the developers of Discord.

Once you get to the point where the thing is constantly active with the discussions constantly switching or people interjecting with quotes to one minute old messages, you really begin to miss the order a forum can give you lol

Might be enlightening: https://blog.codinghorror.com/whos-your-arch-enemy/

 

[Scarlharp]

Once you get to the point where the thing is constantly active with the discussions constantly switching or people interjecting with quotes to one minute old messages, you really begin to miss the order a forum can give you lol

Lol yeah. And we were really active for a 50 users community (usually 200 posts/day at one point), then it just literally dropped dead at the end of April last year and never picked up again for some reason...

 

[DylRicho]

[...] has a development team who engage closely with the community [...]

Hmm... If that was the case, they would have implemented a quotation feature by now. It's one of the most requested features, and it's been over two years now.

 

[Azareal]

Hmm... If that was the case, they would have implemented a quotation feature by now. It's one of the most requested features, and it's been over two years now.

You have a quotation feature, just a bit of copy-pasting and generally speaking, you don't want to clutter a chat with limited vertical room and constantly changing discussions with big quotes.

 

[DylRicho]

Hmm... If that was the case, they would have implemented a quotation feature by now. It's one of the most requested features, and it's been over two years now.

You have a quotation feature, just a bit of copy-pasting and generally speaking, you don't want to clutter a chat with limited vertical room and constantly changing discussions with big quotes.

If that passes as a quotation feature these days, I'll happily stick to Skype.

For a program that is mostly used by gamers who have very little time to type during a gaming session, the way the quoting works is asinine. Counter-intuitive.

 

[Azareal]

If that passes as a quotation feature these days, I'll happily stick to Skype.

For a program that is mostly used by gamers who have very little time to type during a gaming session, the way the quoting works is asinine. Counter-intuitive.

It'll probably come sooner or later, it's on the roadmap, but I don't see the big deal about typing six characters. And to be honest, if someone is gaming, then they'll probably be doing a voice call.
They've been spending a fair bit of time upgrading their infrastructure to make voice calls run smoother.

Plus, if you're in a game, then you're not going to be casually having eight conversations in a chatroom to the point you need quotes to differentiate which one you're responding to.

 

[DylRicho]

[...] but I don't see the big deal about typing six characters.

It looks like ass.

And to be honest, if someone is gaming, then they'll probably be doing a voice call.

Plus, if you're in a game, then you're not going to be casually having eight conversations in a chatroom to the point you need quotes to differentiate which one you're responding to.

Which is entirely accurate and is Discord's intended purpose, but then you have people that won't use anything other than. People swear by Discord, even for non-gaming purposes, so I feel that it should at least offer the same functionality that we had in IM clients a decade ago.