This is completely counter productive to growing Lemmy. I absolutely despise discord. Look at the network traffic it generates and tell me wtf they are doing. They won’t tell you. Their business model will leave you completely dumbfounded as to how they exist. Everything shared on the platform is lost in a black hole unavailable to the outside world and everything shared is a privacy nightmare. Posting this, pinning it here, and locking it is one of the biggest trolls possible. It pisses me off every time I log in. “Everyone else does it” is the excuse of idiots. Discord makes absolutely no sense to anyone that actually cares to look into it, read the user agreement, and ask sane questions about what they are doing.
Discord is horrible
Even Discord issues aside, it just seems strange to have a proprietary software used for a platform as open source as Lemmy.
It would be as strange as having a Twitter account for the instance.
Especially since there is already a lemmy.world announcement community…
Which is our main platform for announcements and the discord server is just to complement LW not to replace any of it.
I wish you guys would use a Matrix Space for annoucements as a complementary space, that way we wouldn’t have to use a proprietary platform to hear about what’s going on if lemmy.world is down.
Not hating, just was confused by the shift. I missed the piracy defed announcement because I didn’t realize there was the discord announcements too now.
I know, didn’t take your comment as ‘hate’.
But that won’t happen again. Should have been on LW first but with a DDOS happening the admin decided to put it on discord first.
Just wanted to be clear with how emotionally charged these topics have become for so many of the users here lately…
And didn’t even think about it being in response to the DDOS attacks. That makes sense.
IMO that’s being too fanatic. I love FOSS, but you don’t have to use FOSS for absolutely everything. Making a FOSS product does not mean you need to use FOSS for everything. And sometimes the closed source options are simply the best. Eg, GitHub and Discord are widely considered the best options in their field.
Also, at least before Twitter became such a shitty alt-right shit hole, many FOSS products did have twitter accounts! That’s just part of promoting your product and providing an alternative place to contact and discuss. Eg, when Reddit went down, I’d usually check their twitter to get updates on it.
Eg, GitHub and Discord are widely considered the best options in their field.
Librewolf moved to Codeberg a few weeks ago, so I guess there are still alternatives.
As said elsewhere, Mozilla uses Matrix.
Following that logic, why do we bother using Lemmy in the first place? We could just go back to Reddit, using revanced apps with personal API keys, and call it a day.
Also, at least before Twitter became such a shitty alt-right shit hole, many FOSS products did have twitter accounts!
They did, but then Twitter went to shit. Reddit was fine, until it went to shit. If the Piped project were to use a subreddit instead of [email protected] , wouldn’t that be a missed opportunity too? FOSS project should support each other, otherwise it questions their existence in the first place. Why would other organisations and companies bother with the FOSS alternatives if FOSS projects themselves don’t?
Following that logic, why do we bother using Lemmy in the first place?
I mean, I’m only here cause reddit sucks and I wanted to see if Lemmy has a different atmosphere. So far it does. Too bad its kinda dead around here.
Enjoy your stay! It’s quieter indeed
yeah I was hoping for more interaction. I’m still digging for communities that have my interests too.
What are your interests?
I watch a lot of old tv and I see communities here for that but they seem to lean towards newer media - reddit has all kinds of niche subs that get traffic and interaction for the stuff I like. Unfortunately its not worth it to be there for it cause so many people are there to just troll/make things difficult for people.
I also like make up and J-fashion. I saw no communities for either and the closest I saw was a goth community which isn’t geared towards the fashion, but the music side of it.
Really like having local communities too. I’m in Portland, OR which has several sub reddits - but there are communities here that seem to get no interaction, just posts with links.
Also artwork, I’m an artist and looked around at the art communities here. Nothing really stood out. It seems to be reposting other people’s art or just art that doesn’t fit on other sites so nothing that I actually like, where as I have to get that mostly on tumblr anyway. That’s the only place I seem to find artwork I enjoy and fanart. I’m really shocked there isn’t a fanart community here. I supposed I could start one but then I run the risk of reposting artwork and needing to credit everytime and the inevitable risk of me just posting and no interactions. (if you’re not familiar, some artists don’t like reposts even if they are credited for it)
When I use the lemmy explorer, I find a lot of communities like that too. Seems to be one or two people posting, no posts get comments.
There’s also radio shows and podcasts I listen to and I don’t see any communities for those either but I think those are like some really niche interests of mine and I was shocked that Phil Hendrie had a sub reddit even, the guy is so unheard of.
I guess not liking mainstream stuff is really shooting me in the foot but like, I can’t help what I like?
deleted by creator
yeah. I think about contributing to content but I also see a lot of what seems like people just posting links and media into the void.
GitHub and Discord are widely considered the best options in their field.
Git, sure, I sold them here anybody complain about it, and get literally is the host for most FOSS, so supporting it isn’t exactly hurting the cause. But suggesting Discord is the best depends on how you’re judging that criteria. Best for who? Admins or users?
Moreover, if we’re going to start getting into the nitty gritty about what the “best” options are in any field, then FOSS dies in most cases. Volunteers simply cannot compete with a bunch of paid developers, but they will do their best.
Plex, for example, blows Jellyfin out of the water in terms of polish and simplicity. If you’re judging best on how easy it is, and how likely it is the average person’s going to run into issues, Plex beats its FOSS competition by a mile. But that’s not the whole story, is it? That doesn’t take the enshitification factor into account, or the fact that forces you to pay for certain things that your computer is effectively doing on its own.
But the other thing to remember is that what truly kills FOSS is people just simply not supporting it. The more you use these established, centralized, biggest names, the further you entrench them, and the harder it becomes for any serious alternative to justify its existence.
deleted by creator
It’s because Discord provides a functionality Lemmy does not yet offer. Forums having a connected chatroom is not a new thing at all, and that was true with subreddits and discords. Back when I moderated forums, the mod teams had a private mod forum, but also hung out in the IRC chat. Easy, instant communication for the community, particularly it’s management, is useful.
The problem isn’t the existence of a chatroom, it’s that they used Discord. But I don’t believe there’s a fediverse alternative for chat functionality like that, at least not yet. So it’s a matter of which centralized platform you choose: Discord, Matrix, etc
But Discord is also a useful reference point for new users who may need guidance on how to use lemmy, but already know how to use discord. It’s familiar, and popular. Call it onboarding if you like. It’s using Discord’s platform to help ease users into Lemmy and the fediverse as a whole.
Why not just use IRC?
Zoomers can’t deal without their embedded images. Clicking a link to view a meme is so 1990s.
Nice domain name!
Thanks!
No media support and closing the client and you DC from the channel, not ideal for modern use cases such as being on mobile devices or a laptop on a train and your connection drops while you go through a tunnel
Good points. I’ve always gotten around the terminal issue by using irssi + screen
We’ve had IRC bouncers since at least psybnc in the 90s…
And how many average users would know about those or bother to either set one up or go sign up on one
Discord is a modern platform a lot of people enjoy using. IRC isn’t.
I get the need to have a chat, we also setup one for the moderators of one of my community
Matrix is a pretty good alternative to Discord, with moderation possible via https://github.com/Gnuxie/Draupnir.
It’s not a perfect one to one match, but Lemmy is not one for Reddit either, still we are all here.
Fucking hell, this again.
Listen, you people need to realize a lot of people are here on Lemmy because Reddit screwed them over, not because Lemmy is open source or less of a privacy issue or whatever your reasons for using it are.
So you hate Discord. That’s fine, you’re allowed to! But pitching a fit because everyone else doesn’t hate it isn’t gonna convince anyone to stop using it.
I don’t hate Discord, but I do hate that they seem to require my phone number. I tried joining Discord over a year ago. Upon first log in they claimed that there was suspicious activity that required me to verify the account by giving them my phone number. This was from a computer, I never even visited the site on my phone let alone use the mobile app. I gave up and forgot about until a few months ago and decided to try again. They still wanted my phone number, email wasn’t good enough. I contacted their support email and was told that there was no other option but to provide a phone number and that they couldn’t override it. So I told them to delete my account and that I would never use their service. It took two weeks for them to do it.
There are very few situations in which an app needs my phone number in my eyes. And a chat application is not one of them. Just like I refused to use the official Reddit app because it wanted access to my contacts and location. I am not a super privacy nut, but the whole hog approach of gathering my info is not acceptable. I would rather pay for the service. I would have paid for Reddit if they had gone that route rather than dropping 3rd Party apps. Instead I’m on Lemmy.
So fucking hell yes, this again.
There are alternatives to Discord.
Must be server specific. I’ve used Discord for years and never had to add a phone number.
Everyone wants your phone number now because it’s a decent approach to combating spammers. Note that I said decent, not perfect. It’s relatively easy for a company to determine if a phone number is owned by a specific person vs. a voip company that enables spammers to use hundreds of new numbers, so now we’re asking everyone for theirs. SMS is also used for the lowest form of multi factor authentication, so they get to claim that it’s a security decision, not one for marketing, etc and because of network effects, we all have to choose to either go along or miss out.
Agree that it’s super annoying and certainly not privacy-centric, but Discord is owned by Microsoft, what can we expect? Innovation?
Discord being owned by Microsoft, now that’s news to me. I don’t think that’s a thing, at least not yet.
For some reason I was convinced they had sold out, but it looks like you’re right, they’re still independent for the time being. Thanks for the note!
I understand the ease for choosing phone numbers. I would love it if they gave me another option to validate.
For a community like Lemmy, I would prefer that they choose a different chat system, one that doesn’t require me to validate with a phone number. Matrix is an option and doesn’t require phone numbers.
It also doesn’t work. I can’t use telegram because I have a number that I originally got from project fi, back when it was project fi. Eventually I moved cell providers and I migrated the phone number that I got with Project Fi. As such, a real number that I’ve had for over a decade looks like a voip range number, even though it isn’t anymore and hasn’t been for a long time.
This is shitty, but not common.
Certain channels will require a phone verified account, but most won’t.
Did you ever try on a phone or a different computer in a different location? With a different email?
If discord ever decides that your account is “suspicious” (they won’t tell you why they decide it), you will be completely locked out of your account and you can not do anything on the website unless you provide your phone number for verification. I have one such accounts too that I created for joining the community of a certain game. These are the only two screens you can access on this account:
They also helpfully tell you that you can only verify a single account with your phone number, so if I wanted to verify this account for a gaming community, I would de-verify the account I use for work, so I’m not going to do that, lest it looks “suspicious” to discord and they delete my account - For example a while ago the person who created one of the discord community “servers” we use for work got their discord account deleted (discord wouldn’t tell us a reason).
The point isn’t to bash the discord company or service, I’m just stating things that happen if you choose discord.
I did try on phone, laptop, and desktop. I didn’t try with another email. Perhaps the channel required it, but since I was only trying to join Discord for that one channel, it wasn’t worth pursuing further. I sought and got support for my issue in other places.
Your requirement to use software is based around whether or not it requires your phone number for verification?
Man some people draw really weird lines.
What makes it a weird line for them to draw?
are you in the uk? Cause that might make a difference. I’m in the US and a lot of apps use phone numbers for log in.
I understand a large number of apps request phone number to log in, but that doesn’t explain why it’s a weird line to draw to not engage with that.
so you don’t understand that it’s been normalized?
That’s why its a weird line to draw. Cause its considered normal here.
I understand it’s been normalized. I’m trying to figure out my hangup with the word “weird”… I guess ultimately I don’t consider it weird for someone to stand against something that’s normalized.
Yeah I’m here because I like the alternative to Reddit’s bullshit.
I couldn’t care less about Foss. I mean it’s cool, but it’s not why I’m here.
Reddits bullshit is the end case for ANY product or service that is not FOSS.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
You should care, or else you will go through reddit all over again and again.
Yeah, Reddit wasn’t the first time we’ve seen this, and it won’t be the last.
Removed by mod
I think at the very least we could have an open source alternative along with the discord. No reason to completely shutdown the discord.
One already exists
Moderation tools are in progress, so probably not good for now: https://trello.com/b/4e2O7tge/revolt-roadmap
It has moderation tools already. They’re upgrading and expanding them to be more granular per user feedback.
They’re not absent as your comment leads one to believe.
Thanks for clarifying!
I just mentioned it because I know LW staff wanted extended moderation tools
I’ve been using it for a very long time now. (Mostly) works really well.
Reddit screw you over because it’s closed source and centralized. You need to realize that discord it’s just the same if not worst.
Especially since this thread is about removing the pinned post. And a lot of the people downvoting are from other instances, they don’t even see it pinned it’s just ‘discord bad’. Which is literally the top comment in this thread.
If I may, we are all probably alt juggling at the moment, the fact that you see people interacting with account from other instances does not mean the people don’t have an account on LW
Agreed. I am posting from my personal Lemmy instance but I also have a lemmy.world account. I don’t like the direction lemmy.world has been moving in and I am opposed to the way they use and promote Discord.
Mozilla uses matrix … so that might be a good idea
Can’t we just have an IRC room on somewhere like Libera, please?
Or if we really need images and stuff, a Matrix room would be sufficient. Or an XMPP room…
If they hosted their own XMPP server and that got taken down by the DDOS attacks the room/MUC would be down as well, not ideal, unlike matrix
Why are we telling people to go somewhere else that makes no sense
Not saying I agree here, because I don’t, but I think the idea is that lemmy.world is down so much that they wanted a stable platform for meta stuff.
I might be more sympathetic to that idea if they made announcements on the Discord and on Lemmy at as close to the same time as possible, but they don’t.
They should make announcements on another instance of lemmy then thats the whole point if one instance is down you can use a different one
It’s not a replacement for lemmy.world , but rather a backup site for announcements when .world goes down.
Doesn’t have to be done specifically over Discord, does it
Most people know Discord compared to Matrix lol.
Most people know Reddit compared to Lemmy lol.
You’re already asking a lot of reddit refugees to use Matrix over Discord, most who don’t give much of a shit what’s FOSS or not.
That makes sense, sometimes you have to go with the pragmatic option instead of the ideal. I think we don’t give the non-tech-inclined user enough credit when it comes to their ability to adapt to change though and I see value in encouraging the use of FOSS wherever possible since wider adoption can encourage further development.
I wonder whether matrix and/or matrix bridge has been mentioned before. Maybe discord + matrix bridge is a good enough compromise for reachability.
To get the privacy benefits wouldn’t you need to forego bridges?
I have never hosted a bridge before so I may get things wrong. Please correct me where I do.
I assume this channel may be public, so any privacy concern needs to take that into account.
In terms of implementation, I was thinking that there would be 1 channel hosted on discord and 1 room on matrix being bridged together.
The benefit is that users of matrix and users of discord can participate in the same conversation without having to create an account on the other service. That way, matrix users don’t have to create a discord account or download discord app, which would be a good outcome in terms of privacy.
Edit: I have a faint memory that this is possible if the owners of the channel set it up on both ends. But I can’t find what the bridge is called, maybe it’s a different service from discord? Or I may have misunderstood things,
I have matterbridge set-up on a private chatroom with few people between IRC, Discord and Matrix, because some of the ones I chat with don’t really care much about these issues, and are not moving. On matterbridge the delay is significant in some cases and I encounter a few bugs as well. Plus, by having a Discord chatroom in the first place, most people are probably not going to join the other side. We shouldn’t even promote Discord usage.
Damn that’s a shame but I remember reading something similar about time delays with bridges. While I agree that we should try to stay away from discord, I still believe bridges, if working properly, can at least be a compromise. Maybe some folks over at discord could switch over due to the interactions of such bridges.
Yeah never consider public rooms to be private, who knows whether there is a bit logging every message sent or whatnot
true, it’s more about the service provider that users trust. For example, some might be less comfortable with creating Discord acc, which sometimes requires a phone number to be associated. I’d also venture a guess that some users may not be comfortable with Discord logging their IP address or certain metadata captured when they log in to their Discord acc.
deleted by creator
We use it for chat and vc. Announcements go here.
Edit: you are not even an LW user so you don’t even see it pinned.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
Lol, admin fail.
deleted by creator
‘All the defederation’? It’s only Hexbear and Exploding Heads - and we stand by those. Blahaj did federate with them and look what happened, you want to deal with that go ahead.
Here is a good and easy script if you want to host your own instance: https://github.com/ubergeek77/Lemmy-Easy-Deploy. Good luck!
deleted by creator
Only Beehaw defederated from us. And that will be undone when the right moderation tools become available. So really I don’t even know what you’re talking about now. The piracy thing is not something we wanted to do either.
deleted by creator
I’m not really trying to have an argument about this, I have already moved on. I just was explaining why I’m in this conversation with a non-lemmy.world account.
Ok so you moved on after making no sense whatsoever.
Lastly, I wouldn’t necessarily count on beehaw refederating after more moderation tools are available. I think a substantial amount of the community there have a pretty negative view of your instance…
We’ll see wether or not Beehaw wants to federate with us, that’s 100% up to them as we have no problems with that instance. Whatever they do we’re still in talks with the admins there and we continue to support them even if we’re not federated. But thanks for your snarky response.
Discord is a horrible company, it should be avoided at all costs, why is it being advertised over Matrix?
In my opinion users should be made aware of those channels instead.
deleted by creator
What people don’t get is that self-hosting a Discord-like is not a solution. The idea is to have a fallback in case the server goes down, and Discord serves that role well.
Removed by mod
It’s so the admins can communicate when the server is down. Would you rather they use Twitter?
Mastodon?
which instance?
Why does it matter?
https://joinmastodon.org/servers lists a lot of options.
Why does it matter?
Because it needs to be DDOS-resistant and be able to handle at least 128k users. Otherwise it’s not a fallback in case lemmy.world is targeted again. There are groups who hate LW and still want to take it down, if they know that their alternative communication channel is also some other self-hosted service they’re going to target that one too.
So please list one instance which would satisfy these criteria.
Isn’t content from Mastodon federated across the instances? Meaning that LW could just open an account on any Mastodon server (not their own, to avoid to handle both at the same time in case of issues)?
Or are you saying that Mastodon is as DDoS vulnerable as Lemmy, making the server that would host the LW account a DDoS target?
Edit: you edited in the meantime, but I guess our exchange still makes sense
Don’t we already have a Matrix Channel for that? Even if they wanted a lemmy.world specific Space it’s still Far better than proprietary Discord. I mean isn’t it already encouraged to link Matrix for secure messaging, why not just use a Space on Matrix for lemmy.world support and communication.
Why not use IRC in that case, like normal Internet persons?
Discord is a chat program that usually devolves into garbage memes and off-topic nonsense instantly.
This… Is somehow different from Lemmy other than the chat vs forum aspect?
Removed by mod
Uh He never said it has to be self-hosted though, so this already sounds like a strawman argument. Only one who has mentioned self hosting in this thread is you.
People want something that is secure and respects privacy, they could simply use the Matrix channel, or create their own Matrix space specific to lemmy.world , both of these would be better options for the users than to try and get them to use Discord which is a proprietary corporate service that is not only prone to security problems but also has some serious privacy concerns due to being corporate owned.
Snoo about to collect downvotes like pokemons
Bring it on!
An admin complaining about downvotes doesn’t inspire confidence in the running of the instance.
deleted by creator
I have hated discord so much and for so long. It collects all my data, controls and censors servers, and its run by shitty people who keep their shareholders close by.
I use Matrix and it has the potential to be a lot of fun (use a frontend that isn’t Element and it gets way better) but it has limited instances. Yeah, I’d be extremely grateful if Lemmy communities had Matrix Rooms as opposed to Discord Servers.
What matrix app for Android and desktop Linux? In my experience they all have deal breaker bugs.
Sure, Lemmy does not offer end-to-end encryption by default, which means that your messages could be intercepted by someone who is able to access your ISP’s network or the Lemmy server. A red flag for me is the fact that Lemmy stores some user data on their servers, such as your IP address and email address. This data could be used as breadcrumbs.
Lemmy may not sell user data to third parties, but what about the servers? There have been some security vulnerabilities found in Lemmy’s code. These exploits could result in servers being hijacked or user accounts compromised.
So, what does all this mean? It means that it is your personal responsibility to take steps to protect your privacy and security when using Lemmy. This includes using the encryption feature, being aware of the risks associated with using Lemmy, and carefully evaluating the privacy policies of any platform before you use it.
I know it’s a lot to keep track of, but it’s important. Your privacy is your business, and it’s up to you to protect it. So take these things seriously, and don’t let anyone take your privacy away from you.
About the concerns with Discord:
Creating a post saying, ‘everyone else does it’ and locking it is funky in my book. I, like you, I am all about transparency and understanding. I fully understand your anxiety, and it is a bit warranted. I am not trying to sound like an alarmist.
On the subject of Discord, it is amazing and disturbing how much data is curated and harvested. Their business model is quite mysterious. No one really knows what their real motives are. Discord shrouds itself and does not provide clear and concise privacy audits or statements on the subject.
You are concerned about your privacy, and rightfully so. Lemmy is designed for privacy from the ground up when used properly and only with encryption functions enabled. Discord, on the other hand, unfortunately has a stranglehold on the instant messaging backbone.
CVE-2021-29465: This vulnerability allowed attackers to overwrite any file on the system with the command results. This could have been used to steal user data, install malware, or take control of Discord servers.
CVE-2021-29466: This vulnerability allowed attackers to read local files from the server. This could have been used to steal user data, such as passwords or chat logs.
CVE-2021-34491: This vulnerability allowed attackers to bypass Discord’s rate limit, which could have been used to send spam or DDoS attacks.
CVE-2022-22936: This vulnerability allowed attackers to take control of Discord servers by exploiting a flaw in the Discord Token Generator.
These are just a few examples, but I would be lying if I said they were not patched. That being said there is no telling how many zero-day security risks are out there at this time, so it is important to stay vigilant and ask the hard questions to ensure that your privacy is protected.
Lastly, you could totally start a community here on .world for Discord alternatives. It’s a easy breezy lemon squeezy way to find people who are also into privacy and security.
I just wanted to address a single point from your comment:
Lemmy does not offer end-to-end encryption by default, which means that your messages could be intercepted by someone who is able to access your ISP’s network
If the Lemmy server is using HTTPS, nobody at your ISP or anywhere else between you and the Lemmy server should be able to read your messages (they could see that you are exchanging data with a particular host, but not the contents).
Glad someone mentioned this already, not so surprised OP hasn’t either updated their comment or replied
deleted by creator
