What are we going to do about it?
Sorry for the Google Translate Link. An easy alternative is much appreciated.
Edit: thanks to @Xamrica@lemmy.dbzer0.com for this translation alternative: https://translate.kagi.com/translate/https://www.xataka.com/servicios/foros-internet-estan-desapareciendo-porque-ahora-todo-reddit-discord-eso-preocupante
This is unironically on reddit right now. People lamenting a place like Lemmy doesn’t exist.
I’m less worried about Discord, honestly.
IRC is literally right there.
The protocol itself could use a little modernizing (namely around privacy concerns), but it’s still very relevant.
Discord is far worse in this context, though. Much of reddit is still publicly visible and is still indexed by some search engines, even if it could be better. Discussions from years ago are still visible and provide useful information to many (this is part of the reason “search term + reddit” became such a popular query template). When communities move to Discord, many of their conversations become completely private to anyone who isn’t a member. The conversations move quickly and there is no easy way for people to reference past information. I get that people on Lemmy hate reddit and it’s popular to circlejerk about it, but forums being replaced by things like Discord and Telegram that aren’t equivalents at all has been much more damaging.
Discord is amazing for a step beyond group messages. I have no idea how it got into a roll as a “community tool”.
It’s because of this bullshit.
Take a guess how many members this server/example community serves:
500? 2000? 10,000+?
Surely, a group of 50,000 needs a ticket system, age verification, moderation, and rules/TOS+registration?
There are twelve users in that chat/server. Three of the 12 are moderators. One is the “owner”.
Discord became a “community tool” because Discord moderators/“creators” are a special class of human being who realized their dream model train set could be upgraded with Internet connectivity.
Medium-to-large-scale-enterprise tooling is available to spin up for anyone, without having to pay for anything. In fact, Discord incentivizes donations through “boosts” where the users of a community pay for server costs rather than the hosts/maintainers themselves.
As a result, people go ham and never invest in proper training, role division or infrastructure. They cosplay at running a pseudo-corporation and Discord adds their requested features, at a price/donation premium.
P.S: I run a Discord channel of 223 users with no moderation, we have one text channel and two voice channels. We use the service like Ventrilo or TeamSpeak for a Steam Clan. I’ve literally had these busybodies from disparate communities join just to tell me I was “doing it wrong”.
P.S.S: I also hate HOAs.
I’m reminded of forums that would have a million subforums and as a result never build up any critical mass. Have one big bucket, maybe two, and if something comes up often enough organically then, and only then, consider a separate subforum for it.
a server I was a part of a while ago had maybe 30 people, but with a ton of topic based channels. the ‘owner’ would CONSTANTLY bitch about conversations being too specific for general and reprimand people.
even in one server I’m currently in, which has ~2500 members, there’s really only 50 people active on it. one of the mods still does this all the time (“tAkE iT tO #PoLiTiCs”) and it inevitably only ends the conversation every time. nice “community”.
Whenever anyone tells me a discussion should be moved I am done. The spell is broken and the social interaction concluded because I’m no longer interested. Discord channels are fucking social poison.
Yeah, but it shouldn’t replace forums.