by ClawsOnPaws on 9/16/21, 9:45 AM with 538 comments
by xlii on 9/16/21, 11:51 AM
Sure, the format is slow and somewhat complex, but then it seems like all the places are devoid of non-immediate conversations.
Companies are moving to the Slack, informal groups to the Discord. I've been using IRC for years and I still love it but with recent adoption of Slack it seems everyone wants to push all the communication there and I don't think it works. It's hard to search for stuff (usually it takes me 3-4 queries to find thing _I know_ is there) and then it's in lengthy conversational format that takes a bit of time to replay. You might lose window of opportunity to provide important info just because you aren't present at the moment and since Slack is perceived as a low impact tool, those conversations can happen in late evening hours.
And yet all the places that (in my opinion) were better to have more fruitful, thoughtful and searchable conversations are slowly winding down. Newsgroup are long dead, mailing lists are perceived as archaic, forums are closing down one by one. It might be me, but I start to get feeling that even on StackOverflow conversations aren't what they used to be. Only e-mail is left - in some places at least, because some organization start to have "why send an e-mail while you could send Slack message". Thankfully those organization usually bless users with capability of installing Slack on their private phones /s
Too bad Google Wave didn't pick up.
by ziml77 on 9/16/21, 11:58 AM
by bluetidepro on 9/16/21, 12:07 PM
I know a lot of people in the comments seem to hate Discord for this, but I personally love it. I guess I'm just saying this as a reminder that there are always others that do enjoy the other side. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[1] It's worth noting that I guess this is a Discord server specific setting, so that could vary I suppose.
by slightwinder on 9/16/21, 2:29 PM
But on the other side, it's a very well protected walled garden, and communities can distance themselves from the rest of the world there quite well. Not really sure whether it's good to have so many communities growing in the shadows, outside the public attention.
by gamerDude on 9/16/21, 3:43 PM
If there was, that would actually be really preferred to me. A web app that melded the discord experience of live chat, but also had topics that could be discussed and kept around for both search engines and archives to look back.
But every forum I could find is still a very old and outdated experience. A big one being that you need to refresh the page to see a new response which really changes the dynamic of a conversation. The designs of those forums also really feel like the early 2000s.
Did I miss something or did modern versions of forums just never really get developed?
by impostervt on 9/16/21, 11:48 AM
by ggregoire on 9/16/21, 3:55 PM
Isn’t Reddit that killed forums like 10 years ago? People who used to read Eurogamer’s forums probably read /r/games nowadays, and some more specialized subreddits (by platforms, by genres, by games, etc), and some other ones unrelated to video games.
by rg111 on 9/16/21, 11:00 AM
by marapuru on 9/16/21, 11:44 AM
I understand the maintenance issues though. Forum software like vBulleting or phpBB have had it's fair share of security issues. Let alone the costs for a small community forum.
However I do think that the moderation of forums is easier as opposed to moderating a chat. Where context can get lost in the different topics that are discussed in the same channel.
by DizzyDoo on 9/16/21, 11:52 AM
But forums are also much easier to moderate than Discord - a message or image you might not want posted in your Discord scrolls up quickly (as people react to a troll or something inappropriate), and you tend to need moderators on-hand a lot of the time to react quickly, which can also mean moderators from a bunch of different timezones are required. On forums, yes, a rule breaking message can be posted whenever, but the pace of chat is much slower and the immediacy of effect on everything that follows is lessened.
by jedberg on 9/16/21, 4:08 PM
"Just find a friend who hasn't used discord and use their number".
Why do people trust this company with anything important?
by raspyberr on 9/16/21, 2:18 PM
by wiether on 9/16/21, 4:17 PM
A few weeks ago they decided to launch their own forums[2] and there is already a thousand members and three times that of posts.
I'm so glad they decided to go this way : build a community with a "fast and easy tool", and then improve this by setting up your own platform to welcome everyone.
I use Discord everyday but I agree, it's not THE tool that fits every need. Especially if we're talking long term engagement and knowledge repository.
[1] : https://cyclingtips.com/ [2] : https://forum.cyclingtips.com/about
by hyperpl on 9/16/21, 12:51 PM
I haven't been able to find a temp phone number to use for this purpose as the best I could muster was a vpn number that supports SMS but alas, that didn't work.
by dcdc123 on 9/16/21, 3:46 PM
by ngrilly on 9/16/21, 2:32 PM
Structuring discussions per topic is key. Each discussion should have a title. That's how mailing lists, newsgroups, forums, but also Zulip work. That's what I miss the most in Slack, Discord, Teams, etc.
Mailing lists work, but I miss the ability to edit a message to fix a typo or clarify something. Discourse provides a lot of quality of life improvements like to this compared to mailing lists. A forum like Discourse can also seem more lively, with typing notifications and live updates, without becoming annoying like a chat system.
by danaris on 9/16/21, 1:06 PM
A few years ago, the usage of the forum began declining significantly. In mid-2019, we created a Discord server for the game, and people started joining immediately.
It's been nearly a year now since there was more than a single forum post per month.
If you want to engage your community, you need to go where they are—or where they want to be. I'm not at all thrilled with the fact that the major out-of-game community hub for my game is now hosted on a proprietary platform still looking for proper monetization, but I am thrilled with how much people love interacting with each other on it. And more importantly, I don't have a realistic alternative to offer them.
by e2le on 9/16/21, 9:20 PM
by codingdave on 9/16/21, 10:10 AM
by chobytes on 9/16/21, 12:57 PM
by FractalHQ on 9/16/21, 2:27 PM
by amattn on 9/16/21, 4:28 PM
I don't think you can prevent people from migrating to discord or slack, but I built a Slack app that tries to bring the best and most frequent conversations to the web.
The issues brought up here are exactly what I am trying to solve.
by uses on 9/16/21, 3:17 PM
For example, several times I've joined a server to ask a question about an obscure game mechanic, and gotten helpful answers in a few minutes.
The flip side is none of that information is crawlable on the web, so it is lost like sand through an hourglass. Whereas with forums (or their replacement, reddit) somebody in the future could benefit from my Q/A session by finding it on a search engine.
The second major problem I have is identity. When I post in a channel about school, I want to use my real face and name. When I post in a random server, I want anonymity.
by agjmills on 9/16/21, 12:51 PM
You could argue that IRC fits in the category of ephemeral platforms, but most large communities provide some form of indexable log of the conversations
by croon on 9/16/21, 12:10 PM
I've used IRC for the last 25 years or so, and BBS:es before that, and forums alongside it.
Forums are great for nesting information and discussion for future reference, but less equipped for fast discussion on issues more ephemeral (or fun).
A lot of people used only forums, even for things where I would go to IRC.
These people could be well served by Discord (ignoring any discussion on proprietary software/data integrity/ownership etc).
As a product, I really love Discord. I don't want everything to end up there, for various reasons, but the most important of which is discoverability and persistence.
Please stop closing forums that are an information resource for both members and non-members. But some forums are just slow chat, in which case those users abandoning the forum are likely better served elsewhere.
by lvl100 on 9/16/21, 1:19 PM
by dethos on 9/16/21, 3:15 PM
If i cannot find it, I won't be able to participate.
A web forum is very different from a chat program, they sit at different levels and have different purposes. Even Discord's support uses a forum like system and not a chat room [1].
by drumhead on 9/16/21, 2:32 PM
by jrm4 on 9/16/21, 3:28 PM
You can count me in as an old head who loves (because it works SO WELL) and hates (because it's so locked down) Discord.
by murkle on 9/16/21, 10:35 AM
by ch33zer on 9/16/21, 12:11 PM
by samsolomon on 9/16/21, 2:26 PM
I've managed a community—Product Notes—for several years on the platform and it has been fantastic.
by schnebbau on 9/16/21, 1:27 PM
by fossuser on 9/16/21, 5:09 PM
I don't like discord either and don't like the model of megacorps sucking up all our communication and locking it away while creating a massive privacy risk and centralized control.
I think HN and subreddit UX is far superior to forum threads.
I'm also bullish on urbit as a solution to this core issue of solving this in a way that doesn't centralize ownership while also enabling a UI that doesn't suck.
Asking people to use forums will not succeed.
As far as their complaint about real time vs. static, I agree - but I think subreddits are just a better model for this anyway.
by lvspiff on 9/16/21, 4:59 PM
by rickstanley on 9/16/21, 12:43 PM
Gaming, I usually use Steam's built-in voice chat and/or rooms, and search for community forums within the game's page without hassle.
For meetings I use either MSTeams (unfortunately if I don't have the option) or telegram, the latter is even better now with the group calls and screen share.
When search for answers for a Github project, I go to discussions or create an issue.
by swayvil on 9/16/21, 1:57 PM
How about a nice conversation tree? Usenet!
by everyone on 9/16/21, 2:12 PM
As opposed to a forum, where u have to make an account, wait X amount of time (days maybe) for your account to be allowed to make a post, make your post, then wait more days for a single response, and so on.
by dangus on 9/16/21, 2:35 PM
I think that the author of this article didn't really consider what the communities' and companies' needs are, and is more interested in criticizing them for "making the Internet worse." For the author, it was all about him and his preferences, not about what the owners of the forums or their users want:
> Due to this, our forum community has declined over the years to the point where there are only a handful of people left actively using the forum.
It says it right there. Eurogamer had a dead forum.
There are going to be communities and companies that want forums for the exact reason the author likes them. They're great for technical support and searchable archiving of useful bits of knowledge. They're great for certain types of discussions. At the same time, not every community is out there looking to do that kind of thing. A lot of them just want to socialize live, and that's where services like Discord shine.
by silicon2401 on 9/16/21, 3:15 PM
Ideally discord would be for unimportant or personal chat and forums would hold real discussion. We'll see if that approach survives.
by Nezteb on 9/18/21, 5:21 PM
My least favorite part about forums is having to create a new account for every single forum I want to access.
Sure, password managers make it easy to have hundreds of different accounts on different sites, but I just don’t want to do that because it makes everything feel clunky and disconnected.
Sure, most have Google/Twitter/GitHub logins available, but some don’t which only makes me think “wait did I use Google or Twitter to sign into this forum last time?”.
Discord has three things I like: a single account, infinite chat history, and the ability to star/favorite messages that are relevant to me for future reference. Those are all I really need to consider it a useful platform for forum-like discourse.
Speaking of that, some forum software like Discourse (and it’s mobile app, Discourse Hub) and Forem make it easier to consolidate tons of disparate forums, but any time I’m on an old phpBB or vBulletin site I usually don’t even bother making an account.
by slothtrop on 9/16/21, 1:27 PM
My own observations from the past decade+ is that the influx of new users to forums very quickly dissipated, and what remained is a senior membership clique with dwindling interest in discussion with each other, which led to exodus. This could all be owing to there being a hip-new-thing monopolizing people's attention rather than a failure on the part of forums... and there were a ton of forums. Until it implodes it seems people are satisfied expending their attention on reddit or discord. The other difficulty competing with reddit is, in part as an aggregator, it's a dopamine-pumping machine, updating with new headlines and content every instant.
by Lev1a on 9/16/21, 11:51 PM
WHY?! would I ever use a chat software to look up static information on a game? I know that information may or may change between releases but the release isn't daily or even close to that, so using a platform where I might have to read through or at least skim over hundreds of messages in conversation/support channels to find the right crumb of information is just insane to me. Also having to get an account and/or installing additional software for serving information which could just as well have been done with a fandom/wikia page and no unnecessary barriers is just utterly stupid.
by offsky on 9/16/21, 2:03 PM
by wly_cdgr on 9/16/21, 5:22 PM
So, not gonna happen. Discord has won forums for the foreseeable and is well on its way to FAANG tier dominance, impregnability, & scale
by Topgamer7 on 9/16/21, 2:41 PM
This article touches on the biggest frustration point of communities using discord for me. It completely removes from the public internet crowd sourced solutions to problems.
by carlgreene on 9/16/21, 1:29 PM
There is SO much valuable information locked in the communities that is near impossible to search for even WITHIN their platform.
by s0rce on 9/16/21, 3:12 PM
by Cthulhu_ on 9/16/21, 12:19 PM
I think the most important factor is archival work. Discord is transient, anything older than a day is lost, and as far as I know there's no public search history anywhere (gitter does have that iirc?).
There's a LOT of information and history in old forums and even old mailing list threads. I mean sure, 99% of it is probably useless, but it's that 1% that makes it worth keeping around IMO.
by nikisweeting on 9/16/21, 5:48 PM
by burnished on 9/16/21, 4:11 PM
by kthejoker2 on 9/16/21, 4:00 PM
Forums + chat + voting + flairs.
Automoderation for low quality stuff.
Builtin anti-spam, reporting, etc.
Pinning hot topics ...
Search is ok not great but you could build better search on top if it's critical.
Alt accounts are encouraged and relatively lightweight.
... and you can still have a Discord?
I get it, it's just another big platform but feature wise it's way better for forum migration...
by jbrains on 9/21/21, 7:39 PM
The immediacy of chat has its place, but so does the semi-permanence of something like Discourse or Groups.io or a good, old-fashioned mailing list.
by nilleo on 9/16/21, 7:11 PM
by darkerside on 9/17/21, 2:37 AM
by alkonaut on 9/16/21, 4:34 PM
What should happen is closing of ancient phpbb boards and moving to discourse and that I see happen in tons of places. But closing a forum and moving to discord? A chat/voice-chat?
by riantogo on 9/16/21, 2:39 PM
by unixhero on 9/16/21, 11:37 AM
by lazyjones on 9/16/21, 4:27 PM
by sneak on 9/16/21, 4:29 PM
Don't type anything into discord you wouldn't print out and mail to Microsoft Legal. (And don't install the client, it is spyware.)
by MaxLeiter on 9/16/21, 10:05 PM
by femto113 on 9/16/21, 4:39 PM
by simonbarker87 on 9/16/21, 11:57 AM
by Karrot_Kream on 9/16/21, 4:33 PM
by z3t4 on 9/16/21, 5:52 PM
by IMAYousaf on 9/17/21, 8:47 PM
by leke on 9/16/21, 7:22 PM
by winddude on 9/16/21, 3:38 PM
by throwaway59553 on 9/16/21, 11:27 AM
And moving everything to reddit is not a solution either, it's a hellhole.
by schwapnut on 9/16/21, 1:12 PM
Internet forums are the senate chamber
Discord and the like are the private chamber of whispers.
Caesar was murdered in the chamber, but you can guess where Brutus and Co conspired, and it wasn't the chamber.