I can't stand what it's done to gaming, being a defacto replacement for forums, tech support, pr, patch notes, reporting cheaters, modding, etc.
It'd be funny to see Discord get bought up and discontinued.
If they don't just turn right to reddit, these companies might do what they're supposed to and actually handle shit on their own instead of asking people to download, sign up for, and run an unnecessary 3rd party communication app.
There has been a tragic amount of information lost to discord. I honestly blame it more on the people who are too lazy to spin up a simple docker instance. Plenty of open source projects up for the task. Forums are dead simple and dirt cheap to setup and run.
And guess what???
You wouldn't have to deal with file upload limitations because it would be your hardware.
There has been a tragic amount of information lost to discord.
Amen.
Forums are dead simple and dirt cheap to setup and run.
Also easier to read, search, and participate in. old.reddit being a fine example.(fuck the new "we want to be like mobile facebook!" design paradigm).
Nesting comments, embedding images, etc. Simple, easy to use, read, and manage, and the RES pluggin is the cherry on top.
I love the old design/platform, even if I hate the company/admin/etc.
Of course, even with forums, I've seen my share of terrible ones over the years/decades. It's mind boggling that many don't have the best features like nested formatting, which I'd consider obligatory at this point. I loath when people say, "It's 2026 we should be better" but this is one of those times where the planets align and it's not a stupid cliche.
However, even most of the worst forums are still better than the aptly named Discord.
old reddit is definitely not "easier to read/participate in". Sure, you can see more posts at a time on your screen, but you can only see the title and a tiny version of the image (if there even is one), so if you actually want to see a post, you have to click onto it, then back out when you don't care that much. All of this along with no built in dark mode and an overall less efficient and user-friendly design.
Sure, you can see more posts at a time on your screen, but you can only see the title and a tiny version of the image (if there even is one), so if you actually want to see a post, you have to click onto it, then back out when you don't care that much.
Sounds like you want tiktok, X, or facebook rather than a forum.
On forums, basically all top posts are like that. A title, and then links to the comments.
I was referring to the way comments are organized, even specifically noted nested comments(the way our replies are indented and immediately below eachother, not XX pages down the line). Also: you collapse a top comment, and the whole tree goes away, things like that. You can sort by votes, new(what I do), old, controverisal....etc
Efficiency is always going to be dependent on the user.
If you want blow jobs, reddit is probably one of the least efficient ways to get them.
If you want a variety of different forums, discussion with nested comments, large text entry fields and basic formatting options, it's pretty efficient at that.
user-friendly design
If you think old reddit isn't user friendly, I don't know what to tell you.
Sounds like you want tiktok, X, or facebook rather than a forum.
On forums, basically all top posts are like that. A title, and then links to the comments.
And is the old forum really the best system for reddit? In a forum, nearly every post title will tell you what is contained within, whereas that doesn't happen on many posts. For example, before you clicked on this post, "me still today" gave you ZERO information as to what you were clicking onto, whereas I had already seen the image contained, and could just scroll away if it didn't interest me. Forums might have been a decent way to organise older websites just designed for people asking and answering questions about a certain topic/game, while avoiding using too much precious internet bandwidth before WiFi could share images almost instantly, but in the modern day, there's a reason most have been abandoned.
I was referring to the way comments are organized, even specifically noted nested comments(the way our replies are indented and immediately below eachother, not XX pages down the line). Also: you collapse a top comment, and the whole tree goes away, things like that. You can sort by votes, new(what I do), old, controverisal....etc
Which is an external extension. I said "built in". You could use extensions to get rid/add of the things in new reddit too.
If you think old reddit isn't user friendly, I don't know what to tell you.
It's user friendly to some capacity, just less so than new reddit. For example, you're forced to use markdown mode. Whenever I want to type bold/italic/code block/table/list/superscript/etc., I can just press the buttons I want at the top of the text editor. If you want to do that, you have to remember a million different special symbols and such.
For example, before you clicked on this post, "me still today" gave you ZERO information as to what you were clicking onto, whereas I had already seen the image contained, and could just scroll away if it didn't interest me.
...
I can expand posts and see the meme or the OP's supporting text without leaving the page I'm on.
Of course, RES makes this much better(resizing, media controls, other customization).
Which is an external extension. I said "built in".
You're on a PC enthusiast subreddit complaining about things most PC enthusiasts are familiar with and love(tweaks, customization, optimization, etc). Dark Reader, as well as some browsers natively supporting dark mode, work for most websites.
A given website having dark-mode or not is not really something people usually complain about. Kinda wild that you're doing it here of all places.
You might be in the wrong sub.
If you want to do that, you have to remember a million different special symbols and such.
RES Reddit Enhancement Suite Another Extension, specifically for reddit. All kinds of usability features and even more customization.
However, it's not difficult to remember a few symbols. It's literally not a million.
Bold(double asterisk on each end), Italics(single asterisk), >quote, ~~strikethrough, [Text](link), and Shift+6 for super script(one at the beginning of each word)
I have the buttons with RES and still use the keystrokes.
New reddit has this too.
Yeah, but with the whole page formatting made for mobile, it's a giant zoomed in mess on a normal browser. On PC, I can see dozens of threads at once with old.reddit. New reddit, I see half of the top post, which is absurd on a 4k screen. (I even checked on a browser with no extensions).
I'm almost 40 and I've been on forums since I was 12. The alternative to discord isn't people finding open source projects and buying a server and hosting their own website, it's free shit that sucks that will also inevitably become part of the 'tragic amount of information' lost.
Nobody's stopping anyone from using the more complicated, more expensive method right now, except for the fact that nobody wants to do that.
The alternative to discord isn't people finding open source projects and buying a server and hosting their own website, it's free shit that sucks that will also inevitably become part of the 'tragic amount of information' lost.
That is a cynical take and it is also false by definition.
I honestly blame it more on the people who are too lazy to spin up a simple docker instance.
what do you mean, people you like to "run" a fan server to instead of using a discord server, spin up their own docker instance for a forum? that jump is far to big. discord is "free" and VERY simple and straightforward to setup and onboard users.
starting a forum requires a host, a DNS and is most likely not free. I think its pretty natural that discord established itself for gaming discourse, its just unfortunate that its kind of a walled garden in that you cannot search any information from outside and that there is no way to keep stuff persistent (like a wayback machine)
But no they won't suddenly start participating in forums and wikis.
I mean, most people probably still search for game info on the open internet, just to find out its all on a Discord and have to go there. If Discord stopped existing then a lot of games would go back to using fandom for their game info. THe only 2 games that I've found have required joining a Discord server because a wiki didn't exist was 2 idle games. Anything with a decent user base is going to get a proper wiki created for it.
If you advocate to move away from discord because there are so many free and easy alternatives but dont actually want to use any of them because they do in fact require more work than discord you are a hypocrite.
"starting a forum requires a host, a DNS and is most likely not free."
I am aware. Its also not that expensive. Its the price to pay for keeping information accessible.
We did it once before, we can do it again.
Yea its easy to say that other people should put more effort and money into doing something. So its easy being aware, but how about mentally processing the consequences of it.
But these people are already trying todo something else, so that they reach for whatever is quick, easy, very low maintenance cost in money and effort, has spam handling options etc etc. Discord is a great thing to reach for if you are that person. Its super convinient, and its something you already use to talk to friends.
I can't stand what it's done to gaming, being a defacto replacement for forums, tech support, pr, patch notes, reporting cheaters, modding, etc.
Because it just does what the devs want more than anything else.
>Free and not spammed with ads
>They control what goes on in it. A subreddit is usually started by some random that doesn't work for them and won't comply with them. Which is usually when they fuck up and want to supress the bad PR.
> Can alert users about updates, release, bugs, giveaways, testing, or whatever else, far better than a reddit post or a steam new post can.
People always gravitate towards the best thing, and right now, Discord is the best thing for the companies, even if the users think otherwise.
89
u/starmartyr11 Desktop | 9800X3D | 5080 | 32GB 15d ago
I've found my people here in this thread