- cross-posted to:
- linuxmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- linuxmemes@lemmy.world
Imagine being in a corporate environment trying to implement an OSS into your platform and having to tell your 50 yo teammate: “Oh yeah, just pop in this Discord server real quick to see any relevant info”. Instant credibility loss
The loss of credibility is not because it’s discord,. specifically.
It’s because the project thinks a chat platform is an appropriate way to document a project. I would feel the same way if someone told me to get on IRC for docs, or Slack.
Matrix for example would be better.
Nope, should be on a forum or wiki or normal doc
Not even a forum.
Documentation is not a snapshot of a discussion. It largely falls into two categories
- collections of facts e.g. what command line switches there are, or all the options in the config files.
- Guides on how to use the software.
The first is vital. The second is really really useful.
My biggest nightmare is one day you will go on to a random website and when you press “contact us” it opens an invite to a discord server.
or better yet a QR code to scan in the Discord App. Great way to get your account credentials stolen
I am already happy if there is any documentation at all. And I am euphoric if it doesn’t suck, i.e. sufficiently detailed and up to date.
So I guess Discord is better than nothing. But sure it’s a turn off.
Log into discord, copy the documentation and create a PR with it. (Or make a wiki?)
D🤮scord
I’ve literally never seen a project remotely interesting that has their documentation on discord
Revanced was one. Good thing they wisen up and have documentations now, though it’s just a set of .md files in their git repo.
To be fair, I could say the same, but is probably a biased sample.
I have other red flags, like only distributing on docker, that I’ve tried, and tried again, and found that it’s a sign of a badly run project. But I can’t state any confidence on the discord based rule, because I’ve never tried to make any run.
Stay the fuck away from anything that’s organized over discord. Mod abuse and Nazis are a guarantee.
People organizing on Discord when Matrix exists 🙄
This is often done by people while the project is unstable. No need to write documentation that gets outdated every few weeks, when you can help people live in discord.
thats understandable but at least use something searchable that has tagging capabilities and is archivable so that you can come back to it years later
D*scord is technically searchable and fairly archiveable (messages never get deleted due to old age (in my experience at least) or if the original poster deletes their account). And some d*scord servers even have a Q&A mode similar to st*ck *verflow. But yeah, not the right tool for the job, not to mention ABSOLUTELY PROPRIETARY
I’ve never seen Discord messages turn up in any Google or DuckDuckGo search
I think what they really mean is searchable without an account, but otherwise you’re right.
But also Discord search is catastrophically bad and won’t find lots of matches.
Or find lots of things that aren’t matches because it’s a fuzzy search with no way to search for exact text.
Why are you redacting platform names like it’s profanity? My brain keeps trying to read it as markdown…
Same reasons you’d censor profanity. To show that I don’t necessarily agree with or support them. Maybe I should start using the vomit emoji instead of asterisks like u/pancakes [joking].
To me it comes off like you’re irrationally afraid to invoke its name.
I get and appreciate that you’re trying to make a statement here, but in my opinion it isn’t landing the way you think it is. By giving its name special reverence you’re needlessly elevating it, not diminishing it.
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Zulip is a little better in this regard. I’m involved in Lean, which uses Zulip as the primary mode of support and documentation. While it’s usable, I still think that a Discourse style forum is the way to go.
when you can help people live in discord.
That live support is super handy when you’re 8 timezones apart from the maintainers.
- Hey there, how do I get this thing to compile?
11 hours later
- Ok just need to make sure you have this list of prerequisites installed and then we can walk you through the compilation process.
6 hours later
- Nevermind, I built and installed another project.