Few things will make me choose against using a tool/framework/software faster than seeing that I need to join a discord server to get necessary information to use or install it. If Discord is the primary method of user support I am greatly apprehensive but if documentation is locked inside a server, I'm out. There is no software or tool I have seen that's good enough to make me brave the headache that comes with that knowledge all being locked inside of a discord community.
Agreed. Discord is an abjectly terrible tool for storing information, and yet time and again people absolutely insist on using it. It drives me up a wall.
In addition to the reasons described there (which are valid, and I agree that they are good reasons to avoid Discord), there are others, such as, you might not have a telephone number (or you do, but it cannot receive SMS), and you might not want to require everyone to register with someone else unrelated to your project. (Also, I have seen that apparently Discord will require face scan, so that is another reason to be avoided; if you do not have a camera (or if you do not want to send a face scan to them) then that will not work.) (And, you should also avoid needing Facebook, etc)
However, I think that IRC can be useful. IRC is not the same as Slack and Discord like they mention, but often the other things are not needed, and IRC also is not too complicated to use and does not require a large web app or other stuff like that, which is a significant advantage of IRC. Also, another thing they did not mention, which can be helpful, is NNTP, which can be used both for announcements and for discussion, like email can be. This way, no web apps are needed, and email subscriptions are not needed; however, it can also be bridged with email if needed.
I see that Discord generally isn't good enough for open communities. It's designed primary for private communications and thus a person with no access to a particular server can't even read its contents (and sometimes one can't get access, like due a ban).
Good old forums are much better. They are readable without even creating an account and they are also indexable by search engines.
What I never understood is why product owners of any kind would want to hide the all the knowledge created in their product support forums.
Discord hides everything from Google, and now from LLMs. So, the end-user asking "how do I __ with __" with their most common search tools cannot find the answer.
There are proructs that "fix this". I don't want to advertise them, the solution is to stop using Discord.But there has been an increase in their uptake over the last years.
2020 and you got banned instantly off of Discord.. Last year I tried Windows 11 in a VM and I couldn't even get to the part where I create a local user. Turns out I needed a Microsoft account which I tried with a disposable email only to be told that I couldn't sign up because the 'email address has suspicious activity', despite only being created there and then. How funny
What zzo said though, IRC is simple and many free software projects already use it (eg Tor, gentoo) but I think there's a different barrier to entry since users may want old chat history (bouncers), IRC-specific spam and client choices (GUI, CLI, no mobile??) (& I'm pretty sure IRC networks used to be somewhat anti-Unicode? correct me if I'm wrong). Then again I should expect hackers to actually know how to use that, but probably less so of an enduser
> I think there's a different barrier to entry since users may want old chat history (bouncers), IRC-specific spam and client choices (GUI, CLI, no mobile??)
I expect there are mobile choices, but if not, someone can write one; however, there is also possibility of having web chat (which seems to be common), etc. (However, I dislike the web chats that do not display the information for using IRC clients. They should be made to display such information even if JavaScript is disabled.)
For history, it is possible to have public logs for public channels, which can be either recorded by a dedicated client, or recorded by the server (although using a client is probably more common, it can be done on the server as well).
> I'm pretty sure IRC networks used to be somewhat anti-Unicode? correct me if I'm wrong
You can use multiple character sets on IRC, including Unicode. (If necessary, you might use ISO 2022 to switch between them, although this does not seem to be common.) (Also, some older IRC servers might not be 8-bit clean, and so might some newer ones that require Unicode (which are only partially 8-bit clean), unfortunately; however, any proper IRC server should be really 8-bit clean in order to avoid these problems.)
For chat history, there are servers which provide that (IRCv3). I don't know why you would think there are no mobile clients. I don't know anything about anti-Unicode networks but mIRC (Windows-only) famously didn't support it until 2013 or so.
I barely tolerate it for people whom I actually know and like, a stranger asking it of me as a hoop to jump through is a complete nonstarter.
However, I think that IRC can be useful. IRC is not the same as Slack and Discord like they mention, but often the other things are not needed, and IRC also is not too complicated to use and does not require a large web app or other stuff like that, which is a significant advantage of IRC. Also, another thing they did not mention, which can be helpful, is NNTP, which can be used both for announcements and for discussion, like email can be. This way, no web apps are needed, and email subscriptions are not needed; however, it can also be bridged with email if needed.
Good old forums are much better. They are readable without even creating an account and they are also indexable by search engines.
Discord hides everything from Google, and now from LLMs. So, the end-user asking "how do I __ with __" with their most common search tools cannot find the answer.
Why?
What zzo said though, IRC is simple and many free software projects already use it (eg Tor, gentoo) but I think there's a different barrier to entry since users may want old chat history (bouncers), IRC-specific spam and client choices (GUI, CLI, no mobile??) (& I'm pretty sure IRC networks used to be somewhat anti-Unicode? correct me if I'm wrong). Then again I should expect hackers to actually know how to use that, but probably less so of an enduser
I expect there are mobile choices, but if not, someone can write one; however, there is also possibility of having web chat (which seems to be common), etc. (However, I dislike the web chats that do not display the information for using IRC clients. They should be made to display such information even if JavaScript is disabled.)
For history, it is possible to have public logs for public channels, which can be either recorded by a dedicated client, or recorded by the server (although using a client is probably more common, it can be done on the server as well).
> I'm pretty sure IRC networks used to be somewhat anti-Unicode? correct me if I'm wrong
You can use multiple character sets on IRC, including Unicode. (If necessary, you might use ISO 2022 to switch between them, although this does not seem to be common.) (Also, some older IRC servers might not be 8-bit clean, and so might some newer ones that require Unicode (which are only partially 8-bit clean), unfortunately; however, any proper IRC server should be really 8-bit clean in order to avoid these problems.)
2020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22384356
Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46945663