Official Discord Server

Feedback Wishlist
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Please create an official discord server. :slight_smile: It’s a way better alternative to forums, which I personally dislike. :smiley:

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:roll_eyes:

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Welcome!

Why do you dislike forums? Can you explain a little more? I’d love learning your point of view.

Thanks

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Note: for live text chat we have a very active IRC channel on freenode: #clearlinux

I don’t see a reason why people can’t create an unofficial discord server, but, we’re OSS developers and we don’t like non-OSS platforms, like discord. So while we have nothing against folks creating and discussing Clear Linux OS on any platform (open or closed), it’s unlikely that we will choose a closed source platform if open platforms exist that fill similar use cases.

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Am I okay to post this link to my unofficial Clear Linux discord in here? I looked around but couldn’t find one so I made this even though I’m a CL noob myself

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Yes, absolutely. Keep it linked here and perhaps make a separate forum post with it, too.

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so I assume you’re convinced of the value of chatrooms as a use case different from forums (lower bar for pointing simple questions in the right direction, when one doesn’t even know what term to search, and doesn’t want to spam a forum with “what does this mean?” insert phone screenshot of boot error. among others.)

so I’ll stick to IRC vs. Discord. IRC is effectively defunct and dead (95% user loss) for good reasons. see the 8 features IRC is still missing listed here. on top of that I’ll add:

  1. if you want your OS to be accessible to end users, make your chatroom accessible to end users
  2. lack of searchable history (help users find repeat answers)
  3. lack of integrated room structure. well organised discord servers have multiple channels in different categories (#dev, #dev-public, #support, etc.). IRC can create multiple rooms, but without a built in structure, you’re left pointing to them in your topic, easy to miss, and unmanageable for any decent number. most projects stick to 1 room, shoving all conversation into General Discussion with no clear guidelines for behaviour (”can I ask a question?”). discord servers often have an entire channel for rules, while allowing multiple important messages to be pinned to the top of each channel.
  4. lack of good mobile client. just spent the better part of my day trying to set one up with a decent list of channels on auto-join (handled by default on discord), paid $6 for an app, got banned from freenode and ##linux and still don’t have a working solution. so I’m giving up. I used mIRC back in the day, so I’m more familiar than most.

hope that helps. if you want to see an example of an open source grassroots community using discord in a variety of ways (discussing dev, testing releases, following events) check out Leela Chess Zero (discord invite = discord.gg/pKujYxD, can you invite to an IRC room with a direct web link? no, don’t think “irc://” counts. forgive the lack of link, I’m limited to 2 links per post as a new user to this forum).

P.S. reading about Mozilla’s move away from IRC (hub.packtpub.c0m/mozilla-announces-final-four-candidates-that-will-replace-its-irc-network/amp/) stumbled on Zulip (zulipchat.c0m/for/open-source) which targets FOSS features and communities, offering their commercial hosting for free (selfhosting also available)

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quassel, znc, irssi, hexchat… Quassel is even available for free on mobile (I even use it). All of these are also available in clearlinux itself. If you really have issues joining freenode, try the webchat client they have on their website first.

Note someone made an unofficial discord - I suggest joining it and growing that user group.

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I like the IRC channel, but sometimes it looks very inactive…

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Exactly. Lots of dev’s here, not so many in there, if any. To me, that’s a bit counterproductive and @wakamex summed it up pretty well why.

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So when this thread was originally created, there was no-one in Intel that was using Discord officially. More recently there has been a steady growth in interest in Discord as a channel to build community, especially around the Intel Insiders program.
The unofficial Discord server never really got a lot of traction and seems to be (to all intents and purposes) abandoned, but now there is interest from some Clear Linux users within Intel to start a more official Discord server. This would not replace the existing forum, but provide another channel for folks to interact and help each other out.
What do people here think? Would you be interested in using a Discord server as well or instead of the Forum?

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Ycombinator Discussion on the subject.

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To be clear here, this would run in addition to the forum, and not replace it. My question is whether people here would be more interested in using Discord rather than the forum.

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As long as people don’t post discord links when someone asks in the forums. Forums also help make it easier for new users to find a solution to a problem than Discord.

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@pixelgeek I don’t use discord and think I am too old to use it at 51 :laughing: . However, I will start using discord if there is a CL channel!

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For the time being.

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Hi! I am setting up the Discord server and can clarify a few things:

  • I am an engineer at Intel (not affiliated with Clear Linux) and want to see our projects succeed. I have no desire to split the community or create competition, only to leverage a new and modern platform.

  • I have been on discord since almost day 1 (october 2015) - and very vocal that live chat cannot replace forums. I still believe that. They are complimentary not competitors.

  • I have a number of friends and colleagues in their 50s (I’m in my 30s) who use discord, I don’t think it’s too old :slight_smile:

Forums also help make it easier for new users to find a solution to a problem than Discord.

I for sure agree with this :slight_smile: i dislike when people want you to join their discord because they refuse to setup a forum or a wiki. Discord is great for community interaction. It’s very horrible for static information, and discord’s search sucks

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Gladfully there are plenty of good open-source alternatives :

https://alternativeto.net/software/discord-app/?license=opensource

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And yet, it’s missing a few key points:

  • not every item on that list is actually an alternative. They seem like they are probably neat solutions in their own right, but not as actual alternatives to building a live-chat based community.
    • Element is actually matrix-based and is not free, but has a pricing model
    • Mumble is great if you want an Open Source voice chat platform to use while playing a video game. It’s not an alternative solution for a live chat community.
    • Tox at a glance, looks more like an alternative to what’s app, with loose “chat rooms” akin to a text group, and not really an alternative to a strongly managed, brand-cohesive live chat platform.
    • Wire is a non-free slack alternative that wants you to pay money per user to unlock more features from the “basic” tier. Note that there is a difference between tools focused on communities (like IRC and discord) and those trying to position themselves as Teams/Slack alternatives and focus on providing single-organization based chat.
    • Jami sounds more like an IP phone alternative, than live chat.
    • Mattermost is freemium, and also positions itself as a slack alternative, expecting you to self-host (does Clear Linux have resources for self-hosting, or will I need to turn to internal resources at Intel to try to get buy-in for them to host something?), and locks features behind per-user pricing. “Channel moderation including read-only announcement channels” for example, costs $10/user/month
    • Zulip another self-hosted freemium tool. Based on their pricing it certainly seems like the best self-hosted option of the lot, but still not the best choice for a community like Clear Linux IMO.
    • RetroShare This tools seems great for a friend goup looking for private group chat with modern features. It seems to lack in tooling for managing a public community. You aren’t going to exchange your “Retroshare certificate” with 5000 people for example.
    • Revolt This looks like an actual alternative, the first in the list so far. Looks like a straight-up discord knock-off, testing would be needed to determine if it’s a crappy knock-off or a good open source alternativo meaning to help users transition by offering a familiar interface.
    • Breifing, again, is more of an open-source zoom alternative, focusing on (temporary) video conferencing and seemingly lacking in many persistant live-chat features that make Discord an effective tool in fostering long-term cohesive communities.
    • Fosscord Basically someone trying to make a 1:1 clone of discord, complete with being able to use the same discord bots and anything else using Discord’s API, but free and open source. Certainly a commendable project. But also still in it’s infancy. Probably not the right solution to build a community on until it’s matured more. Definitely something to keep an eye on though.
    • Nertivia Looks straight up like a discord clone. Not a lot of information, their website just has download, login, and github links. Imagine it has the same issues other tools do - minimal actual users, barriers to entry requiring users to download new and unknown software and make new accounts. Also, Linux support is listed as “coming soon (maybe)”
    • Gitter Gitter is more aimed towards live support for github in my experience, and less a platform for building community. Claims to be built on top of Matrix, so I’m not sure how it differs?
    • Jam (a separate product apparently, not to be confused with the previous “jami”) is more of a zoom live video conference alternative, than a live chat platform
    • Infomaniak kMeet Live chat zoom alternative, not really relevant for reasons previously mentioned
    • Mirotalk Again, a zoom alternative, just provides video calls. Not a live chat platform or discord alternative.
    • Librem Chat Freemium matrix-based solution. Not clear what the benefits are over just matrix
    • Crust Not sure. The link from the alternativeto.net page is broken. The company themselves seems to be commercial though, with a pricing page for products that start at $3,900/month
    • dirc More of an IRC alternative, less of a discord alternative.
    • Linen This isn’t an alternative to Slack or Discord, but looks like some sort of aggregator. Actually a pretty neat idea if implemented well, but not an alternative.
    • There’s more. They all consist of “Dedicated Group Chat” app, “Slack alternative that wants you get you to upgrade to a paid plan”, “alternative discord clients” or some voice or video-only zoom alternative, with no actual live-chat platform
  • Intel has an official Discord community that they are putting time and effort into growing and managing - tooling, standards, knowledge, etc. that we can leverage for a new community. This isn’t available for say, Matrix or Revolt.
  • There is an existing Linux Community on discord that we can tap into to both grow awareness as well as invite to share their knowledge.

Of the listed alternatives, it seems like Matrix, Revolt, Fosscord, and maybe Nertivia (for windows users or maybe browser only), are the only real alternatives. Of those, time will tell whether some of the Open Source projects will be abandoned and die due to lack of users and support, or whether they will be good competitors.

If we want to take advantage of users already on a platform, and already interested in Linux, then self-hosting our own slack channel and requiring users to make a new account with a new application that they don’t already use (compared to Discord, where they can use an existing account, on a platform they already use regularly) is a few barriers to entry that will decrease buy-in from new members. This can be a good move for a community with a large existing user base - but that’s not exactly Clear Linux

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I’d add that I’ve see @Gorian has already set up an IRC bridge on Discord to the libera IRC Clear Linux chat. Maybe we can persuade him to do the same for the ~20 people on the Matrix Clear Linux room :slight_smile: