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Comment by rnd0 | Hacker News Reader

Neither the client nor the server are what makes discord however.

What makes discord is the community around it, and the fact that 3rd party sites have decided to support it.

Also there's the legal (important for edus, etc) and other support from the Discord people themselves.

Gamers aren't going to leave what they already have -why would they? Edus sure as heck won't -who does that leave, a couple of hackers? Maybe?

A better approach would have been to:

a)Not use Discord's logo in your README.Md FFS

b)Build up infrastructure similar to and competitive with Discord's but FOSS oriented

c)THEN after b is accomplished, work on a client and a server.

Like the many reddit clones that have come and gone (and the slashdot clones before them) this will be a mouse fart into a hurricane

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> Neither the client nor the server are what makes discord however... What makes discord is the community around it... Gamers aren't going to leave what they already have

Just on this, most Discord mentions I've come across on HN describe how the user experience is what separates it from the competition and I'd agree.

The networking effect across communities doesn't seem anywhere near as strong as traditional social media where one might argue it's what keeps users retained. Few I've observed in the years I've been on Discord seem to care or recognize who someone is across 'servers' (Discord meaning), which is made less obvious by the encouraged feature of changing handles/avatars across communities to maintain quasi-distinct identities (even across related gaming chat). It's also not uncommon for some users block all PMs and friend requests from communities merely due to spam issues.

The communities using it that I've experienced are often doing so since it's the most convenient service for their purposes. Users can join with invites without signing up (a la IRC, traditionally), supports inline attachments (acting as an all-in-one image/video/file host), includes persistent, easily searchable message logs and just as importantly is all free.

A decent number of the communities I've encountered (ranging from software, subreddit/forum chat, game modding, media creation) could migrate elsewhere if there was an alternative suitable for their own needs. A number of them have migrated from other platforms before and one of the gaming-related ones even discussed potential future alternatives. If anything the self-hosted aspect would be the main drawback to a Discord-equivalent alternative (ie: the costs, maintenance).

I'll second this. I started using Discord solely because all of the alternatives (Skype, teamspeak, mumble, google, ...) were so bad at the time. And when I say "bad" I specifically mean the UX and the quality/stability of service. Discord had good quality service and it was extremely easy for non-technical people to use, and so for me and my friends who talked online a lot, we naturally just tried it out and then stayed because it continued to be good.

I think Element is pretty great for non-technical people, too. My girlfriend and I are using it and she is not very technical.

>easily searchable message logs

Since my discord activity is growing by the month, is search good/great with (very) old content?

When I've been after old comments of mine or others and know some text from it filtering been straightforward. Results can be sorted in chronologically ascending order and date ranges can be set in addition to the standard filter options.

It's not perfect though. There's no exclusion filter option, some queries are automatically broadened without a way to enforce strict string matching (eg: searching enemies will also include results for enemy but wrapping in double quotes like "enemies" doesn't prevent this), the pagination when there are too many results for a query maxes out at ~200 pages even if more pages are shown/should be accessible via the navigation (seems like a bug), the pagination is also only at the bottom which adds a little extra time navigating and attachment filenames can't be searched.

That said, even with the above caveats I manage to find what I'm after reasonably quickly the vast majority of the time, even things years old.

My friends and I have had a server since ~2016 that we use and I've been able to find whatever I've needed even back that far. It might be harder in a higher volume server (we have about 20 actives and another 20 semi-active chatters).

But the search will let you specify time periods, channels, who sent the message, etc. It also gives a line of context around the result, which takes up some space, but I find is quite useful for, well, getting the context of the statement and figuring out what it meant.

I think the most important facet for (very) old content searching, though, is that you can almost immediately go back in the chat history to any result. Whereas other chat apps make that slow or difficult.

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000468588

Self-destructive messages would be an useful feature, too.

> What makes discord is the community around it, and the fact that 3rd party sites have decided to support it.

For FOSS projects, that really isn't a factor. The main thing is that Discord is a freely available channel that supports modern things like link previews, image uploads, voice chat, and persistent history. Slack does all these things but makes it a royal pain to join a new Slack.

Why does it matter if gamers come or go? They're a totally different audience. This isn't about building the next social platform, it's about escaping control of the existing ones.

Gaming is an interesting bellwether, having birthed both Slack and Discord. I used a variety of tools for gaming communities over the years: dial-in BBS, AOL chatrooms, IRC, ICQ, AIM, forums, XMPP, and Skype. Ultimately it had to be easy to get in and coordinate effectively and often.

Moreover, in the case of video games comms, the users of the software are the customers. You don't find that with enterprise software much.

    Slack does all these things but makes it a royal pain to join a new Slack.

... and limits your search history to 10k messages unless you pay, which is nothing for any decently sized community with a history.

And holds them hostage, including private messages. Free Slack is just a terrible Discord

> Gamers aren't going to leave what they already have -why would they?

This is incorrect on very clear, unambiguous history. quakenet was fine but all the kids were on discord so left we did. I still hate discord because where it fails is specifically because it isn't FOSS (or at least, with a public protocol), for example, lack of ability to save chats like you could with IRC.

The point is that they will not leave discord for „a FOSS discord“ because they‘d gain nothing. For the average user, discord won because it had a lot of features and properties that where better than what was there before (voice & chat combined, not server management, etc).

You and me might care about software being FOSS all day long, but the masses don’t. For them it’s just not a thing. I‘d guess „selfhosted servers“ actually is a step backward for the majority of discord users.

I would leave Discord in a hot second for a client that just did that basics discord used to do before they became a platform.

And how! Every time I login (have multiple accounts), I have to repeatedly tell Discord that I’m not a student and not interested in their scholastic channels. The UI is really in-your-face constantly. Has my account already viewed this tutorial? Yes. Save that info forever and stop bugging me.

I will be switching.

I use about 15 servers and run my own server that's 1,500 strong. Never have I experienced the issues you're facing. I use the desktop and mobile clients daily. Literally all day.

You have a local problem there and need to reach out to support.

Discord support is notoriously bad - not responding to issues in a timely manner, and being obtuse with the information they give.

Do you actually log out and log in every day or do you just leave it signed into one account?

Chrome and Firefox, at least, have profiles which allow users to be signed into discord under different accounts, simultaneously.

You can also do this with Container Tabs in Firefox.

Why would I login and logout every day?

Or I’ll just use something that doesn’t bother me.

A freshly installed client will also require you to take a tutorial again once logged in. I like to try different OSes so this tutorial is also a pain.

Sure. No one is saying you can't do that.

All the best to you.

> I have to repeatedly tell Discord that I’m not a student and not interested in their scholastic channels

I am a student but I don't want to link my personal Discord account with school things, which they keep recommending, FFS.

on windows, if you change the USERPROFILE variable before running the software, you can operate it from different locations. Instead of using the preset folder in your user's appdata, it can be run from any other folder with entirely different saved data. As application running checks are from the path, you can essentially run multiple instances of the same application simultaneously (at the cost of having a complete second copy of the entire program). It's a pain to setup and maintain though, the software is clearly not designed with this in mind. The other issue is that when calls to open child programs (like clicking links in chat), this program maintains the changed variable, so apps like firefox run in a completely different directory

there is Element, which is different from Discord, but if you take a few weeks to get used to it it works as a Discord replacement just fine

The difference in quality, reliability, featureset, and native platform integration between Element and Discord is night and day. Discord wins in all categories other than "you can host it yourself".

Can you elaborate on what is missing from Element with regards to feature set and native platform integration? What is wrong with Element's quality in comparison to Discord?

Element works well for small group chats. It is not suited to hosting communities like Discord is.

Are you familiar with the new Spaces feature? If your concern is the ability to have many rooms linked under an umbrella, Spaces deliver that.

> Gamers aren't going to leave what they already have -why would they? Edus sure as heck won't -who does that leave, a couple of hackers? Maybe?

they do, you need target specific group of the population, then with time (years), it spreads to other new generations

that's how teamspeak died, it's userbase was aging and as a result died with time only for discord to take over

teamspeak / mumble / skype died because users kept getting ddosed

Maybe with Skype.

Mumble is atrocious for the end user, teamspeak is atrocious for folks running servers and end users and don't even get me started on what Skype ended up as. They really don't compare to something like Discord at all, which is a corporate hellscape but is admittedly very low barrier to entry (and more importantly just works).

Not saying they weren't UX nightmares, but that's where people were and that's why they switched off. Communities liked TS3, there was little delay, it was private, but you had to protect your IP.

that was true for steam too, yet it still is here and stronger than ever

Did you look at the link? It is compatible with Discord.

To some extent what you're suggesting is what https://revolt.chat is already attempting.

Revolt is a nice product but as far as I'm aware they don't enable self-hosting or decentralized. It's just one big hosted hub, right?

Not familiar but they seem to allow self hosting[1], as well as both the frontend[2] and backend[3] is open.

[1]: https://github.com/revoltchat/self-hosted

[2]: https://github.com/revoltchat/revite

[3]: https://github.com/revoltchat/delta

Ah yes, nothing inspires confidence quite like

> This is still a work-in-progress and some things may not work but for the most part everything has been tested without issue!

> What makes discord is the community around it

Which means I could swap clients and still participate in the same community, which seems to be what this project is about.

> Gamers aren't going to leave what they already have -why would they?

There are several reasons, based on personal experience with discord's limitations, why some gamer would switch.

1) Lack of accessibility. It is very hard to include deaf people in voice chats.

2) Lack of advanced voice capabilities. There is no way to setup channels where there talkers that are only heard by a subset of listeners. If you are using discord voice to coordinate large groups of players it can be extremely hard to manage.

3) Lack of Bot developer support. There are significant issues with how Discord has developed their APIs and how they treat 3rs party developers.

4) Censorship. Many gamers are irreverant / bot PC and the centralized nature if Discord pretty much guarantees that Discord will eventually face issues with moderation and censorship that will drive people elsewhere.

If Fosscord can keep (feature complete) client interoperability while adding additional features for self-hosted servers, there is a decent chance that a significant minority would move to Fosscord.

I would expect that if such starts to actually happen, Discord will do everything they can to put legal and technical roadblocks in the way of Fosscord.

#2, they've enhanced voice channel services for large events and there's been a "god mode" voice button (ie everyone else is turned down and God is full volume)

#3, there's way more discord bots than for any other platform and they're way more useful

#4 is pretty funny given people have been screaming at Discord for years that they have a lot of child porn, right-wing political extremist and white supremacist groups - including servers that exist for the sole purpose of coordinating attacks on LGBTQ community servers - and Discord has just shrugged and said "we don't have the resources to police it."

> there's been a "god mode" voice button

That doesn't accomplish what I am describing. For example, suppose you want several squads that can coordinate among themselves but also still hear the overall commander, there is no way to accomplish this.

> there's way more discord bots than for any other platform and they're way more useful

There's also been a lot of developer goodwill that's been burnt over the years and a thus reason to believe that 3rd party developers could help accelerate the move to an open source discord compatible ecosystem.

> pretty funny given people have been screaming at Discord for years that they have...

Which is precisely why more and more moderation from a centralized provider like Discord is inevitable.

Forgive my ignorance, but how could Discord accommodate deaf users in voice chats?

There are a number of services that provide speech-to-text services. Being able to hook a voice chat feed into one of them for live transcripting would be pretty game changing for conferences in general.

Side-tangent, but when i saw it introduced in MS Teams (for recorded meetings, there is now a transcript tab that you can watch in real time as the meeting goes; sorta like live captioning written in a format of a legit transcript that you can read later too), it blew my mind with how useful it was. Not that i need it, but it is super helpful to keep track of who said what and when (nice when you accidentally get distracted for 5 seconds and dont want to get halfway lost), and the transcript even assigns names to what was said.

In the specific example I have experience with, our deaf person had access to a live translation service but only if there was a way for the translator to access the Voice Chat via phone. We spent a while looking for a solution but weren't able to find one.

In the end, we were able to find and setup a bot and some other software to get transcription working but it was far from easy.

The very first bullet point states that it has Discord compatibility. Also, that isn't Discord's logo. I'm not sure if it's "legally distinct" enough, but it isn't stolen.

> Gamers aren't going to leave what they already have -why would they?

Maybe everyone else, who never felt home in that weird gaming platform, would.

If I found something better than Discord for gaming (less bloated, more FOSS, better microphone filtering), me and my friends would switch over-night. That said we don't dependent on any wider gaming community hubs on Discord, we just play with each other.

You are partially correct. Community and network effects are strong, but Discord has technical features no FOSS equivalent currently has:

* One-click audio-video screensharing

* One-click video conference and chatting

* Emojis and inline images

* Decent UI

Bonus: Discord gives people the super quick option to have a hosted private server.

Discord can do all this because you are the product. Sure, there is nitro, but Discord is spyware that looks at every process on your computer and I'm sure they are using/selling that data.

So I believe that a client/server architecture that can do self-hosting and meet those technical requirements, could possibly bolt-on "single identity" ala Discord.

Does Matrix support instant screenshare/video chat rooms?

> Discord is spyware that looks at every process on your computer and I'm sure they are using/selling that data

Is there solid evidence that supports this, or are you saying it based on intuition?

Not evidence that they are selling or even collecting this data, but discord _must_ look at the process and/or window table periodically to know when you are playing a video game so it can give you the one click stream button.

What do you think free apps do to make money? Especially one which is hosting real-time communications?

There's a reason they shove the app down your throat even though the website works perfectly...

They sell premium subscriptions

Personally, suspicion. The other two comments combined cover it: Discord does look at all your processes to see if you're playing games, and having not read the EULA but knowing how "free" apps that cost money to operate work, I assume they are doing some kind of analytics and selling that data.

It's just an electron app. Rather than just flinging mud, it'd be relatively easy for anyone to actually find evidence of this.

That there are several articles about people reverse engineering the client and protocol and nobody else has brought this up, I feel pretty comfortable calling this unfounded unless you can provide some indication otherwise.

> relatively easy

You would have to show all network activity from the app never includes this type of information or anything derived from it, because as soon as anything goes server-side it can be used for anything. Is this actually easy?

That's what you'd have to show (prove the negative) to disprove what unethical_ban is saying (that it is spying on you).

All any of the people claiming that discord is spying on you need to do is capture one packet going out that does have that sort of information, or find one piece of code in the client that supports doing so. That is the part that I think would be relatively easy given that it's primarily just a gob of javascript in a chromeless browser.

> find one piece of code in the client that supports doing so

But that's the point. There is a "server" running on your machine that is snooping on your processes (therefore the one-click integrations). The "client" you interact with never sees this info, instead just what the "server" exposes to it, so I claim you'd need to reverse engineer the "server" or wireshark your network and read probably-encrypted communications...

Discord definitely checks your process list, that's well-known and obvious (by default it shows everyone which game you're currently playing, if any).

Given that that information does go to the server, there's no way to know what it's used for.

Are you sure it's checking your process list, or is it using something like e.g. the Steam API to ask about the currently running game?

It definitely checks the process list. On Linux it lets me add "systemd" as a game to display on my status

Yes because non-Steam games are displayed too.

> Given that that information does go to the server

That "given" there is doing a lot of work. I've never seen any reference stating that it's sending the entire process list anywhere.

The current third party protocol implementations all expose setting the game/activity you're playing directly, sure making it look like everything is done client-side.

I have at this point lost count of the number of times I or someone else I know on Discord has described getting Youtube recs or ads directly referencing shit they'd just talked about.

I started getting blasted with YT recs for weeks for a channel I had never heard of, never watched, had no real common connections with ... until someone referenced them in a conversation on Discord.

Now, you can shit on that as anecdotal or "intuition" or whatever, but come on. This is HN. No one here is ignorant about the level of data sharing that goes on in the adtech space, and everyone claims they don't until Gmail's selling you ads based on your emails.

It's not like someone's just argued that the president is a space alien. We're talking about suggesting a for-profit internet company is doing something that literally damn near all the for-profit internet companies do and have done now for decades. The bigger question is to how anyone could be so credulous as to assume they are not.

This is the same thing people accuse Facebook of and nobody has convincingly proved Facebook does it. I despise Facebook as much as the next HNer but I am loath to make it seem more capable than it is. Likewise with Discord, I sincerely doubt they can handle combing through voice + text data to build profiles of users, and I'll keep that stance until someone convincingly proves that they do.

Natural Language Processing is literally a major wing of AI development and data science, but even that isn't really necessary. Matching text on ad-based keywords has been going on since fucking About.com.

I'm not shitting on it, I'm just asking what level of information we have about which data Discord is actually collecting/storing and what they're doing with it.

Unrelated to "looks at every process", but Discord stores messages unencrypted & refuses to delete messages.

With "refusal to delete messages" being a clear violation of GDPR, I think it's fair to assume fishy things are going on.

Matrix doesn't (yet), but Jitsi does, even without accounts for joined users. All you need to start a Jitsi chat with any number of people is a URL.

_Integration_ with Jitsi is a separate matter, however. Hosting it can be a pain too.

This is not the same as channels in Discord/Mumble/Teamspeak.

You missed the most important technical feature: shared chat history.

In Matrix (element.io here), you can click on one button in any room and start a video chat, and then after one more click screen share. The rooms aren't dedicated to voice/video but it definitely is very easy to do that.

It is implemented using Jitsi at a protocol level but the end-user doesn't usually notice that.

Discord is not spyware, it does not sell user data, and it doesn't collect all the programs you use on your computer. If you have the setting to show what game you are playing it periodically checks your processes and looks for a match locally before setting that match as your status.

Lol they're using the old discord logo that got all that buzz about the slight purple color tweak.

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