• IdiosyncraticIdiot@sh.itjust.works
    6·
    8 months ago

    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

    • evatronic@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      8 months ago

      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.

          • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
            1·
            8 months ago

            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.

  • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    8 months ago

    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.

  • Zacryon@feddit.de
    1·
    8 months ago

    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.

    • marcos@lemmy.world
      11·
      8 months ago

      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.

  • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.mlEnglish
    12·
    8 months ago

    Stay the fuck away from anything that’s organized over discord. Mod abuse and Nazis are a guarantee.

  • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz
    01·
    8 months ago

    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 No need to write documentation that gets outdated every few weeks, when you can help people live in discord.

    • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      8 months ago

      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

      • renzev@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        11·
        8 months ago

        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

      • ѕєχυαℓ ρσℓутσρє@lemmy.sdf.org
        01·
        8 months ago

        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.

    • Dave.@aussie.zone
      1·
      8 months ago

      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.