Arguably if reddit didn't exist for the "lower effort" users; this forum would have attracted them in one cohesive place instead where they can be best helped.
s/IRC/Telegram/ (Source: me trying to submit a kernel patch.)
Why do you think of Discord/Reddit usage as low effort? I am curious, because while it doesn't necessary rivals IRC or anything in terms of being on topic, its a great place to talk with the rest of the community and building networking/better communication throughout the project.
Skype and Teams are anything but niche... I was sideswiped by the recent Teams outage at work...
Its a casual medium, many people are already on there chatting to friends as part of their collection of generic social media, it doesn't take any effort to post in random channels. Random channels with a "passing interest" are also advertised to other channels, attracting fire and forget behaviors.
IRC has logging via the use of bots. Something like this. Both are optional.
One very big difference is that anyone can run an IRC server. All Discord "servers" are run by a private, for profit company.
Not exactly... you can run your own private Discord server, too. Just sign up for one, and you'll get a template server that is hosted on Discord-owned hardware. The server you run (With your own topic, rules, etc) will be listed on discord.com. Some features are paid subscription only. Discord only makes the topic server reliably available. IRC servers can be run on your own hardware, with a consumer-grade Internet connection. Discord servers - yeah, you largely call the shots, you can start it and close it, but you get the backing of a huge, private, for-profit company that owns the metal.
yeah, I wouldn't want Discord to be the only option. But there's another way to look at this: Because Discord is out there, and surprisingly convenient, it did inspire creation of alternate communication platforms that give you more control. Implementations of such platforms are actually in Ports - think ownCloud/NextCloud (plus related plugins), Mastodon, Matrix - you can install all that on your own FreeBSD machine, and be in control. The price for that is that you spend money on enough metal/bandwidth, time installing/maintaining, and you still have to promote it among the people you wanna communicate with. Who wants to install an extra 100-MB app on their phone just because you have this newfangled way that you prefer to be contacted at? Especially if your neighborhood has a power outage?
In IRC speech, that is called owning a room (or collection of rooms).
So, you said two things, then list three, and did not put in the effort to correct that. An example of 'low effort'... on Discord, you're not expected to scroll very far back to understand what the conversation is about, it's easier to jump right in. Not to mention that:
You might want to read the rest of the thread a bit more carefully. No, he's not being silenced. A few users (myself included) did call grahamperrin out for posting comments that seemed out of the blue (in relation to the rest of the thread), and offered a bit of coaching. There's a difference between constructive suggestions and outright contempt at lack of self-awareness. I guess the latter does come across as 'toxic' to Gen Z...
If you police the support platforms too much it just puts people off. Someone with a spark to give FreeBSD a try shouldn't be put off by people moaning that they've posted in the wrong place, especially if the one commenting on it being "wrong" isn't a moderator. It's just off-putting and pedantic. Better things in the world to think about in my view.
Pedantism is what made FreeBSD even possible in the first place. Otherwise we wouldn't have any userland utiities like awk(1) or zfs(8)... Programming is predicated on being pedantic about what component goes where, and what version gets released. Compilers can complain, y'know.
And with this I leave this conversation to itself.So, you said two things, then list three, and did not put in the effort to correct that. An example of 'low effort'... on Discord, you're not expected to scroll very far back to understand what the conversation is about, it's easier to jump right in. Not to mention that:
- both Reddit and TikTok do have logging and search capabilities - you just have to know how to use them. Discord is no different in that regard
- both reddit and tiktok attract teenagers due to low barriers to entry. Yeah, those kids are unlikely to know what FreeBSD is. In that particular regard, how is Discord any different?
- What filtering options are you even talking about?
You might want to read the rest of the thread a bit more carefully. No, he's not being silenced. A few users (myself included) did call grahamperrin out for posting comments that seemed out of the blue (in relation to the rest of the thread), and offered a bit of coaching. There's a difference between constructive suggestions and outright contempt at lack of self-awareness. I guess the latter does come across as 'toxic' to Gen Z...
Isaac Asimov was surprisingly accurate in his famous quote...
Isaac Asimov was surprisingly accurate in his famous quote...
But y'know, even geezers can be complete morons (and celebrate that...
Uhhh... Discord is a platform for chatting, like IRC was back in the day. Easy and immediate back-and-forth (which is as close to in-person conversation as it gets) is a pretty decent investment, considering that the alternative is to buy plane tickets and put people in hotel rooms and feed them, entertain them, and to buy spots on TV and radio.
That makes sense now. A chat platform with all the nifty colours and icons.
