this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The problem is discoverability. And that's where I don't get why anyone in their right mind would use Discord for stuff like that.

Say, you have Github, a forum or even a subreddit for your project.

Somebody asks a question, you answer it.

Somebody else has the same question. Either they are intelligent enough to find it themselves or they ask and you just link your old answer. Done.

On Discord, it's basically impossible to find an answer that is more than two screens full of posts ago. So you have to keep answering the very same questions all the time.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's the exact point. It's not only that you can't google shit, even within Discord itself it's incredibly hard to find the relevant information. BTW, did I already say that I fucking hate Discord?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm starting to get the feeling that you don't approve of Discord.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

It's great for real time discussion. It's terrible for anything else.

It's IRC, not a forum.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fuck Discord! They're named after an argument because their very existence is offensive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I love discord... For my group of friends and communicating with other developers (internal project communication, not user communication.) It's ass for literally everything else.

[–] Kecessa 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's also an issue with Reddit/Lemmy though, there's a good reason why old forums have long, in depth discussions and all alternatives don't, people have to keep recreating discussions on subjects because they don't get bumped to the top even if they're popular.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Yeah, discoverability is a huge issue on Lemmy, but it's much better on Reddit.

When I google some topic, there is a big chance that the first few results will be Reddit. Doesn't really happen with Lemmy (yet). Hopefully they find the time and budget to work on this in the future.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think part of that is that most forums have terrible search functionality.

Searching reddit via google is a meme for a reason.

[–] Kecessa 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sure, that's an issue with all forums.

What I'm talking about is on Reddit and similar platforms unless you already replied to a discussion and someone replies to you directly you don't know that the discussion keeps going.

On forums you see the discussion getting bumped and if you ask a question by creating a new thread and it's already covered in an existing thread, people will refer you to it and you can continue adding to an ongoing discussion instead of the Reddit solution of being referred to a previous discussion that can't be expanded because no one will know if you ask for more info in it.

Just look at ADVRider for example, thousands of pages of discussion on motorcycle models that haven't been in production for over 10 years, that's a shit load of knowledge all in the same place!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Because lots of people fucked spez

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which might be seen as a positive by some people (not me).

It encourages social interaction. Every answered question becomes a valid option to ask again just a short time later. And to answer again.

It also takes the burden to search from those who have questions. Just keep the chat flowing.

Maybe it's a bit like asking people on the street for directions, instead of using your phone. Less efficient and accurate, but you might get a smile in the process.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Or you might get a "Just use your phone, you idiot. I've been answering the same question all day."

This is at least what happens a lot on these discord channels...