this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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I don't understand why discord is so popular for communities. There is 0 permanence, and google does not index it so not even organic growth.
Discord is a black hole of knowledge except for the ai training companies.
It attracts a different audience, so in aggregate it seems like your community is suddenly bigger because 1+1=2 right? What you don't realize is that you've divided your community into two separate groups with possibly different wants, needs and cultures.
Or that 50% of the users on the discord only went there to find one thing, and probably won't ever interact again.
So it looks like a bigger community, while losing accessibility.
It's s great fit for people with goldfish memory span.
Sooooooo… anyone born before 2005
Your goldfish lived for 20 years?!
It has a terrible privacy policy.
https://tosdr.org/en/service/536
This is Lemmy’s for comparison.
https://tosdr.org/en/service/9267
Whoa, that’s a really fucking cool website, thank you for sharing with us
No problem! I’m a big fan.
Stopped using Discord a few months ago. Not for any specific reason, just felt like I wasn't using my time effectively. Anyone important added me on Signal, and then I deleted the apps from my phone and computer.
I can't put words to how much better my mental health has gotten.
This doesn't really relate to your comment, I guess, but just thought I would mention it in case anyone else is considering taking a break from the platform.
What did you do on the platform out of curiosity? I felt similarly when I left other social medias.
Discord I mainly use to keep an eye on early access games and dev updates, and occasionally ask or answer questions. Although I did get into it after deleting other social media so I may be subconsciously avoiding the more toxic parts of the experience
Because its very easy to use and does stuff no other platform does (make it extremely easy to voice/video chat with multiple people streaming screen and essentially make a forum in 2 clicks)
That's all good but those features are not what makes a good discussion forum. This, what we're typing on, is an example of a good forum.
Some communities don't need a good discussion forum, they need voice chat with a little text chat. Originally, discord was for gaming groups and it worked amazingly for that. Now, more communities are on it than should be, but its still a good feature set for gaming groups.
If Discord would add wikis and improve its search it would freaking destroy everything else. It would be the place for everything a modern gaming community could want.
Because it shouldn't be used as a discussion forum. It's more similar to an irc and teamspeak
You can actually make forums inside of channels now if you are a community discord. But search is still shit lol
People who use discord don't want to use it like a forum. They want instant interaction.
If you think about it a lot of forum banter is just that, just because it's slower and persistent doesn't guarantee a higher signal to noise ratio.
If Discord were to add wikis so people can add persistent FAQs and guides it would cover 99% of its user needs.
People are after whatever fulfills their immediate need
Also their role system is badass. It's incredibly fine grained and makes it possible to manage large communities with plenty of different user levels.
Google doesn't index Discord, which means the billion dollar ad industry makes little effort to push their ads on Discord.