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FLOSS communities right now (i.imgflip.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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4 pane comic of dolan on the left and spooderman on the right

pane 1 (dolan): cum join opensurce cummunity!
pane 2 (spooderman): shure! how joyn?
pane 3 (dolan): Here discord! (with discord logo)
pane 4 (spooderman with tears in eyes): y u do dis?

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[–] 44 points 2 years ago* (5 children)

I would accept discord/irc over mailing list. But nothing beats a proper forum website.
And no, subreddit is not a proper forum.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    I prefer mailing lists to forums, and forums to IRC, Slack to Discord and Discord is dead last just because it’s so fucking annoying. Forums can be annoying too but they are far more usable/searchable than the stream of consciousness, ephemeral nature of chat.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    For the main project I'm a maintainer on we do have forums too but they're pretty dead, we mostly just use Discord because that's what everyone else seems to be using.

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  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Discord is absolute trash if you're a user searching for solutions. It simply doesn't turn up in web searches. Why would you want your users to ask the same questions again and again?

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  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    It just so happens to be where all our users end up anyway so for us it's been okay for the most part. Having moderator commands for frequently asked questions, and automating frequently asked questions tends to help even more. Discord also seems to work well for projects far larger than ours, ones like RPCS3 etc.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    After reading the comments on several communities including Lemmy, reddit, YouTube and several others, I don't get the feeling that FOSS users are as enthusiastic about discord as you portray. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps it's a restriction that you impose on your users?

    Besides, all the bells and whistles of Discord don't solve the biggest gripe that I have with it - the searchability and discoverability of questions and answers. Despite the history recording in Discord, it acts essentially as an information black hole. People's efforts in solving problems are just lost because they can't be found again.

    And finally, there's one thing that corporate social media has proven time and again. Eventually all of them pivot for some reason or another. Perhaps they want to monetize the platform on unacceptable terms (like reddit recently). That will happen to discord too some day. They are holding the community content hostage. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they won't ever try to make money off it, cutting the community from it.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

    I mean, I don't disagree with you, but our forums are dead. Our users do seem to like Discord, we also have a Matrix and IRC but those are dead too. Discord is where our users seem to flock to.

    All I can really say is my experiences, and what I have seen in other cases too.

    I wish Discord weren't the giant that it was, and I wish it were open-source, but unfortunately that's just how these things go sometimes I guess.

    Again, I think another good example of this is RPCS3. They have forums that are pretty dead, and they have a Discord that has a ton of users in there.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    Our users do seem to like Discord, we also have a Matrix and IRC but those are dead too. Discord is where our users seem to flock to.

    What is really happening is that people are looking for documentation or support, seeing that the forum, the IRC and the Matrix are dead, that the only other thing is discord, and give up. Minus some fraction who already use it for other purposes (gaming, probably) and don't mind using it.

    But from your perspective, it looks like everybody is joining discord and liking it, because all of the other people just give up. It's only a very particular demographic that uses discord. Most likely (I might be wrong, but this is what I guess) very young, male, gamer, european descendent, and from a relatively wealthy western country. That's a very small part of humanity.

    If you as the maintainer go and use the forums, and maybe announce this in discord, the users will follow.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    I'm a member of a Discord that is the primary source of discussion and information about a piece of hardware, including technical & usage tips, firmware announcements, etc. It's a terrible way to track this stuff.

    That said, the only other forums that have decent communities around it are Reddit, Facebook, and Elektronauts - none of which are even close to as active, but in which many of us will post important info & tips to get the news out. Over 3 years into the project (which is not open source) it would be ridiculous to try shifting the whole community to a new platform. We're kinda stuck.

    Luckily the community as a whole seems to realise this, so we happily answer noob questions over and over and provide links to the appropriate resources, discussions, and pinned posts without snark or judgement. We've all been there. It's the nature of the beast, it's not efficient, and it's not the end of the world.

    Finally, with the state of search engines in decline due to monetisation, encroachment of AI bloat, and general enshittification, it's a matter of time before very little real information will be easily searchable. Insular communities who decide to withdraw and do everything their own, better way will likely become the norm. The internet needs a reset anyway.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    We have been using the forums. It's been announced in Discord, we have a webhook that posts in our main Discord channel every time there's a post in our main forum section. Every announcement goes to both the forums and the Discord, and the Discord announcements link to the forum posts.

    We are using the forums. Our forums are still dead.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago*

    There is one possible explanation for that conundrum. There are two types of people who are looking for solutions:

    1. Those who want quick answers. They don't want to do the research - to see if the problem has been addressed before. They don't care about if the question has been asked before.

    2. Those who prefer searching for solutions. They don't like joining any community just to search for those solutions.

    Group 2 is going to be very invisible to you (maintainers), because they ask questions only if they can't solve the problem themselves and nobody has asked it before. (I know this because that's me). This group isn't a minority.

    Group 1 is the vocal type that you are more likely to interact with, since their first instinct is to ask. If you provide them a choice between forums and chat rooms, they always choose chats because that's where they can get away with providing minimal background information on their questions and doing minimal to no research.

    This doesn't mean that the majority of your users are happy with chatrooms. It's just that your observations are going to show this survivorship bias.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Why compare Discord to web forums when it's more like IRC? What's the searchability and discoverability of that?

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I didn't advocate for IRC. I'm strongly on the side of forums. But in case you want to compare, IRC is still a better deal than Discord. IRC has loggers and searchable web archives where it matters. Discord on the other hand is holding the conversation hostage. Someday the closed nature of discord will come to bite. The honeymoon isn't going to last forever.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I just think it's a bad argument. Telling somebody to use web forums instead of Discord is ignorant of why people use Discord in the first place.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Recommending the use of a software for a purpose it wasn't meant or designed for, is the real bad argument. There are a lot of projects that use forums for support questions just fine. Instead when you offer a chat room, people will try to get away with quick answers. But it rarely ends up like that and all the conversation that ensues also becomes buried.

    Short lesson - use software for what it's meant for. Don't shoehorn a support forum's job to a chat application simply because people already use it.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Everything beats a proper forum because most proper forums are basically dead since small projects won't have many users and only a small number will sign up for a specific forum.

    Forums used to be great since there was not much else, they still are good for large communities, but other than that, nope.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    only a small number will sign up for a specific forum

    Most people don't have to sign-up, 90% of cases should resolve on just searching the problem. Good chances it was already asked and answered.
    Most of the time, forums with few users aren't dead, they're just really slow, whenever you post a question - expect at least 12-hour delay. I've never seen a message on Discord answered 12 hours later - you either get somewhat instant response or it's ghosted forever. Also good luck asking questions if there's heated/rapid discussion in the room, or you have a little time and other responsibilities other than checking discord every couple minutes.

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