Never again
Never again
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51 comments
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This is often done by people while the project is unstable. No need to write documentation that gets outdated every few weeks, when you can help people live in discord.
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thats understandable but at least use something searchable that has tagging capabilities and is archivable so that you can come back to it years later
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Dscord is technically searchable and fairly archiveable (messages never get deleted due to old age (in my experience at least) or if the original poster deletes their account). And some dscord servers even have a Q&A mode similar to stck verflow. But yeah, not the right tool for the job, not to mention ＡＢＳＯＬＵＴＥＬＹ ＰＲＯＰＲＩＥＴＡＲＹ
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I think what they really mean is searchable without an account, but otherwise you're right.
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But also Discord search is catastrophically bad and won't find lots of matches.
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Or find lots of things that aren't matches because it's a fuzzy search with no way to search for exact text.
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I’ve never seen Discord messages turn up in any Google or DuckDuckGo search
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Kinda tempted to make a bot that automatically joins dscord servers, indexes all the messages, and publishes them to a public website
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Why are you redacting platform names like it's profanity? My brain keeps trying to read it as markdown....
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Same reasons you'd censor profanity. To show that I don't necessarily agree with or support them. Maybe I should start using the vomit emoji instead of asterisks like u/pancakes [joking].
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To me it comes off like you're irrationally afraid to invoke its name.
I get and appreciate that you're trying to make a statement here, but in my opinion it isn't landing the way you think it is. By giving its name special reverence you're needlessly elevating it, not diminishing it.
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Well that's just fucking bullshit.
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I get the statement you're trying to make here - serving the name of a platform you dislike with the same reverence as he-who-must-not-be-named in Harry Potter (Voldemort) - but all you've done is obfuscate the search engine. Now if someone is skimming for information on the platform via search, you've hidden your comments and post from someone who might find your perspective useful. No one is going to try 15 ways of spelling a platform name (except maybe trying stackoverflow with and without spaces). Internet users are pretty lazy.
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Zulip is a little better in this regard. I'm involved in Lean, which uses Zulip as the primary mode of support and documentation. While it's usable, I still think that a Discourse style forum is the way to go.
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when you can help people live in discord.
That live support is super handy when you're 8 timezones apart from the maintainers.
- Hey there, how do I get this thing to compile?
11 hours later
- Ok just need to make sure you have this list of prerequisites installed and then we can walk you through the compilation process.
6 hours later
- Nevermind, I built and installed another project.
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Or if you find the project a while later, and the link/server is dead, either because the maintainer forgot to update the link, or the server shut down/removed invites for some reason, like spam prevention.
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There needs to be some plan to migrate to stable documentation at some point though.
Hell, even a small traditional forum is better searchable.
What I see happen is that the people with the knowledge get so busy answering questions in discord that it impacts the efforts on documentation and on the software itself.
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51 comments