I hope that discourages open source projects and similar communities from using discord as forum / user support.
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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Yep, hate when I want to follow some project and they link you to X, Reddit and Discord lol
Need support? Contract us on @SupportThatNeverReplies on Shitter (the nazi-everything app)!
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I can say as a member of the PCSX2 project that I understand why we and other FOSS emulators use it as official support – but nevertheless wish that we didn't. We've discussed practicalities before, and the project doesn't stay there just from inertia or because of personal preference; there are major practical reasons to prefer it over a forum (which we have), a wiki (which we have), or Matrix.
I'd be willing to endure the pain points and to scale back support in order to be off of that shithole, but I also get that's a fringe minority sentiment shared by only a couple others. All of us would be tech-literate enough to use a client like Signal or Element for intra-project discussion, but very few people would come to Matrix for support (nor would we probably want them to due to the much greater moderation burden per end user), and the chatroom model – to most of us – is much easier for support than a forum. The only reason I'm still begrudgingly on Discord is for PCSX2.
I share your hope, but I seriously doubt this will come even close to dislodging us. Smaller projects, perhaps.
Putting valuable help, trouble solving and FAQ stuff into a discord is … annoying. You cant find it again. So it will only help the original poster
We do also maintain docs. I put a lot of effort into the Setup ones but got burnt-out before really getting into the other ones (which need a lot of work). And for actual bugs, we use GitHub.
Discord's search functionality is reasonably robust, and as long as you're already there, you can usually find old conversations about the problem you're having. The biggest problem is that it's gated off from the wider Internet, which is shitty.
I think what we all like about it over forums for providing support is that it's closer to real-time communication, it's more flexible (conversations can flow in and out of each other instead of being permanently stuck in one subject-specific thread), and it's more casual.
Maybe they've changed something since I last tried getting help via Discord, but I found the search feature extremely lacking. I never have trouble finding someone else with my same question/problem, but there's no means of viewing replies to the message in question, or even whether anyone replied at all. One is required to manually browse potential hours or days of messages in the hope of following a conversation chain that might not even exist. This is made even worse by the fact that replies to a message aren't necessarily registered as replies because they're just subsequent chat messages.
Damn it. I did not come here for a reasonable and valid explanation.
ಠ_ಠ
Begrudgingly puts away pitchfork
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I get it, but if bigger projects don't move to alternatives, those alternatives have a lot less pressure to evolve. If a big project bites the bullet and moves, then there are more technically minded folks with a vested interest in making the platform better.
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Stoat looks promising as an open source alternative
Theyve been around for a few years and I'm still not really impressed. No E2EE, No federation if the people running it go belly up. You might as well use signal ATP.
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Discord genuinely thinks they got the users by the balls... Thing is, people move platforms extremely easily. It happened to MSN Messenger, it happened to Skype, and it'll happen to Discord too.
For those who are looking for something very similar, look at Stoat (formerly known as Revolt). Their URL is https://stoat.chat/.
One problem will be that there are way too goddamn many software projects that use Discord as a shitty replacement for a blog and documentation, and they’re gonna be a pain to move to proper content platforms.
Sometimes the only way thru is shitty. And those devs might have to learn the hard way not to overcentralize- or to not use a damn chat software for what is way more suited to forums.
I’ve been complaining about this for years. Hope we’re finally starting to see the end of it.
"Look, Discord requires me to upload a pic of my face or ID, to which i can't legally agree to. Please provide another channel or i can't contribute."
That’ll work for individual users, but getting all that chat history out will be a problem for the owners once the users dry up.
And I’m sure Discord will do their best to make it impossible.
Serves them right for picking chat software in the first place, let alone one they don’t control.
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Mass migration like that occurs (from my memory at least) when the newer alternative has much better functionality, performance, and ease of use compared to the status quo service and has a low barrier to entry (sign up is quick and straightforward). Do any of the decentralized Discord alternatives fit these criteria (honest question, not rhetorical)?
Well, Stoat has the same features as Discord, including many premium ones for free, the ability to write HTML/CSS for your own server, with the only thing missing being video feed. Otherwise, it functions the same while being much faster.
Also sign up is very quick, but right now they're getting hugged to death, so sign up emails might take a while to arrive.
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They absolutely have their users by the balls and I guarantee most people will continue to use the app after this, unfortunately.
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Unless they trade me a face scan of each Discord employee and member, I'm out. Enough is enough, nothing is free.
Guess I’m not using discord anymore lol
Seeya ✌️
Didn't they just get busted for leaking their verification data that they totally weren't keeping?
I love how photo-based age verification scanning is the worst of both worlds - it destroys your anonymity, but not in a way that makes it easier to run a community where you can ban a person by their digital ID since they can just make a new one with the same face since facial recognition is too crude for that.
Well, the day it asks me for ID/face scan is the day I delete my account. Their days are numbered.
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I refuse to verify my age with a face scan or government ID for an online account/profile.. It's too easy to imagine how fucked up that will go.
The more I delete profiles to platforms with ~~unwanted~~ disturbing features the more recluse I become. It must look to acquaintances that I don't care to speak (to them) but what can I do? I cannot imagine convincing even computer-literate friends to switch to something - as they will have the same problem.
Do I need to retire my Discord gaming server before I'm locked out of controlling it?
Seriously, like, actually seriously, I want to believe that this time everyone will leave Discord, and not just a small group of weirdos like us who “care about privacy” and ended up on Lemmy.
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Age assurance is the foundation of this new experience and is designed to respect Discord users’ privacy and choice. Discord users can choose to use facial age estimation or submit a form of identification to its vendor partners, with more options coming in the future. Additionally, Discord will implement its age inference model, a new system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring users to verify their age. Some users may be asked to use multiple methods if more information is needed to assign an age group.
Key privacy protections of Discord’s age-assurance approach include:
- On-device processing: Video selfies for facial age estimation never leave a user’s device.
- Quick deletion: Identity documents submitted to our vendor partners are deleted quickly— in most cases, immediately after age confirmation.
- Straightforward verification: In most cases, users complete the process once and their Discord experience adapts to their verified age group. Users may be asked to use multiple methods only when more information is needed to assign an age group.
- Private status: A user’s age verification status cannot be seen by other users.
After completing a chosen method, users will receive confirmation via a direct message from Discord’s official account. A user’s assigned age group can also be viewed at any time in “My Account” settings. Users can always go to “My Account” settings to appeal their assigned age group by retrying the process. Discord prompts users to age-assure only within Discord and currently does not send emails or text messages about its age assurance process or results.
Not happy with the face-scanning either way. Gonna have a chat with some of my personal groups about how we might move forward.
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It seems like the restriction should be lifted for accounts without verification after 5 years. After all, you're not even allowed to sign up if you're under 13, so by 5 years you have to be at least 18.
Yeah that’s a hard no from me. Want me to prove my ID? I want you to prove that you’re not gonna store it. History suggests otherwise.
Not that I want to use your platform anyway.
"Content filtering" is just corporate jargon for subjective censorship, dynamically and discriminately restricting access to knowledge. I abhor all censorship.
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RIP Discord. Good riddance
This is the point where you need to teach a short, sharp lesson to companies by burning it to the ground.
One of my friends hit me with the "they already know everything about me" line on this one and literally said they'd give Discord "anything", so I don't think I'm gonna convince my group to move y'all. At least my best friend is educated enough at this point to be interested in moving so I'll still be investigating options.
My group has been tinkering with matrix but the ecosystem is such a mess that I think we'll be going to xmpp-based solutions, and once the kinks are ironed out, migrating it to i2p
Not to go all conspiracy-nut, but it feels like the net (at least the social spaces) is decaying, and it feels intentional / coordinated.
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What alternative should we all switch to?
Also thinking AI fake IDs will end up being an easy way around this.
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I am almost 70. I will just use a pic of good ol Harold. Will be funny to see if it accepts him.
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