Screeps Discord?
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I think unification should be the primary goal, and platform features secondary. Whatever the decision, it should be approached aggressively (that is to say, if Discord is chosen, Slack should be archived and terminated).
I have a lot of issues with Slack, but most of them overlap with Discord as well, and they are philosophical in general. This doesn't apply as much to Screeps, since we are not strictly in a working environment, but many of the same issues are encountered. This article is an interesting read and echoes many of my thoughts:
https://abe-winter.github.io/plea's/help/2018/02/11/slack.html
Again, not strictly applicable, but perhaps interesting none-the-less.
One of the biggest issues I've had with Slack is fragmentation of channels. I'm never really sure where to start a discussion, or if a channel is even really alive. Does Discord solve this? I'm not sure.
Discord has better searchability in my experience. I also prefer its mechanisms for private chatting.
With Discord, voice chat becomes an easy to use option, should anyone desire it.
Slack's 'Code or Text Snippet' feature is nice, and very convenient for sharing large blocks of code. But I often wonder about the merits of posting such large chunks, and whether or not there is much value derived.
Discord-Screeps integration could prove interesting.
While Discord lacks those large chunks, it does support code formatting, along with syntax highlighting. It also supports markdown, which I have fallen in love with, and Slack does not. That one is big for me.
My personal preference is Discord, but I am not sure about the cost, not speaking financially, of switching platforms. It would be very unfortunate to reduce the size of active community members because of a tech switch. However, maybe Discord is attractive to some folks who are put off by Slack.
More discussion is needed. I will certainly give this some more thought, and maybe it's an excuse to do a little semi-formal comparative analysis.
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Now all that's left is to convince the devs @artch maybe?
I would point out that you have managed to obtain the consensus of a grand total of three people here in this forum. I don't believe that counts as a "consensus" by any means, considering slack has on average 400 active users.
Personally, I'm not a fan, for several reasons.
Firstly, I'm not a fan of every random dude in the screeps community being able to see what I'm playing. Discord doesn't allow me to disable game detection on a server to server basis.
Secondly, Discord doesn't allow the collapsing of large code blocks, and frankly code posting in general is annoying. This is liable to make sharing code more difficult, or more spammy. Possibly both.
Thirdly, voice. In my experience, Discord has some of the worst audio codecs apart from skype. There is no reason for the amount of bandwidth it takes up, and we don't need a bloody voice chat for Screeps.
Fourth, (and this will affect those new to discord less than others)- I have fifteen bloody servers already, and because discord is dumb, it likes to display things using icons, not with names. Slack doesn't do this because you're logging onto a specific server.
Fifth, I can't get on discord at work. I work IT, so my job has alternating downtime and busy segments, and I like to talk screeps and code during that free time. Slack is good, because it's a business communication application. I can't just open discord, a gaming voice comms app, at work and I know I'm not the only one.
Sixth, Discord doesn't have server specific user DM sorting. That is, if anyone in Screeps sends me a DM (and I tend to DM a lot of people) that gets added to a general pile of user DMs. Given the size of the screeps server, this could get out of hand very quickly.
Another, less specific issue, comes in the reliance on admins to create new channels. Regular users have much more limited control, which I understand is partially a positive thing, but the bitching about "Go to the channel for that" is going to get much, much worse if people don't have the ability to create channels for things.
Stepping Back For a Moment: I am somewhat concerned by the idea that three people constitutes a majority consensus (though other replies have appeared since I started this tirade. @artch I have mentioned in the past the need for a polling system for users, and I think this is a specific case for it. While I would be happy to set up such a system myself, I have considerable IRL commitments.
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@cashewthecat said in Screeps Discord?:
I think unification should be the primary goal,
I'd just like to point out, if unification is the primary goal, we already have that. Whatever your reasoning is for wanting to move to discord, it isn't this.
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I think unification should be the primary goal, and platform features secondary. Whatever the decision, it should be approached aggressively (that is to say, if Discord is chosen, Slack should be archived and terminated).
Since we're currently unified on slack, I would argue this decision should be primarily feature-based. If its unification only we're looking for, we shouldn't even be considering starting or moving to another platform. However, if we agree on discord being better feature-wise and/or philosophically, aggressive archiving sounds good.
I'm curious about your objection of fragmentation of channels. What kind of topics are you unsure about? I've found most things I want to post or discuss fit well into at least one of the public channels, and slack's ability to have any number of specific channels ensures there's some place any single thing fits in.
I guess it does make broad discussions a bit arbitrary, but there's always #general for that.
If we were to go to discord, sure, we'd have clear channels to put things in. However, those clear channels would be necessarily limited in number, and we wouldn't get to keep track of interesting discussions which happen in side channels.
In slack, I can read the archives of #servers or #operatingsystems and see what people have been talking about specifically about those two things. If we were to limit ourselves to discord, with all channels being open by everyone, I don't think we could sustain the number of unique channels we have today.
https://abe-winter.github.io/plea's/help/2018/02/11/slack.html
This is definitely an interesting article on slack, and I'd be convinced not to use it in a workplace. This seems orthogonal to using it as a game-discussion server, though. We do suffer to an extent from the "search" drawback, but none of the others are relevant to an open discussion board unrelated to a workplace.
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@knightshade said in Screeps Discord?:
@cashewthecat said in Screeps Discord?:
I think unification should be the primary goal,
I'd just like to point out, if unification is the primary goal, we already have that. Whatever your reasoning is for wanting to move to discord, it isn't this.
I wouldn't say I want to move to Discord, my post was mostly stream of consciousness thoughts about the pros and cons given my experience on both platforms. I reiterate, I believe a strong community is much more important than which technology we communicate via. I also believe, however, that a technology that makes communication difficult can weaken a community.
I take no stance on Slack vs Discord at this time, my only goal is to foster discussion and raise points.
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@daboross said in Screeps Discord?:
In slack, I can read the archives of #servers or #operatingsystems and see what people have been talking about specifically about those two things. If we were to limit ourselves to discord, with all channels being open by everyone, I don't think we could sustain the number of unique channels we have today.
One thing that annoyed me when I opened slack was that I was immediately told that I couldn't view the chat logs unless I paid.
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Guys, I'd like to highlight this a bit again:
On the other hand, Discord allows more features like integrating with the game client, e.g. an option to join Arena battles (we'll have the Arena mode eventually).
Screeps Arena is a huge separate project with great potential that we'd like to introduce in 2018. And Discord would integrate with it smoothly, regarding matchmaking, finding a party, spectating, etc.
See here: https://discordapp.com/rich-presence
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@daboross said in Screeps Discord?:
Since we're currently unified on slack, I would argue this decision should be primarily feature-based. If its unification only we're looking for, we shouldn't even be considering starting or moving to another platform. However, if we agree on discord being better feature-wise and/or philosophically, aggressive archiving sounds good.
Features are meaningless if there is a migration to a platform where 80% of the installed user base has some predisposed distaste for the new platform, and simply no longer communicates. That is more my point. It's not only unification, it's unification on a platform which suits the communities needs.
I'm curious about your objection of fragmentation of channels. What kind of topics are you unsure about? I've found most things I want to post or discuss fit well into at least one of the public channels, and slack's ability to have any number of specific channels ensures there's some place any single thing fits in.
This is probably more of an administration/maintenance thing, but I am part of about a dozen channels, and over the past week exactly 3 of them have had any activity. In several cases I was unsure of which channel to join (screepsmods vs mod-development), and some cases I just have no idea what the channel is for. Again, this isn't a problem specific to Slack.
If we were to go to discord, sure, we'd have clear channels to put things in. However, those clear channels would be necessarily limited in number, and we wouldn't get to keep track of interesting discussions which happen in side channels.
I think a reduction in channels would be a good thing. If the numbers i'm reading are right, we have about 2 active users per channel right now.
In slack, I can read the archives of #servers or #operatingsystems and see what people have been talking about specifically about those two things. If we were to limit ourselves to discord, with all channels being open by everyone, I don't think we could sustain the number of unique channels we have today.
As far as I can tell, this doesn't really work. Most of the channels I'm interested in tell me that the archive is unavailable without laying down some cash money.
I'll reiterate what I've said elsewhere, I'm really not on either side of the fence here, I'm mostly interested in promoting discussion and figuring out what is the best option for the Screeps community.
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One thing that annoyed me when I opened slack was that I was immediately told that I couldn't view the chat logs unless I paid.
Yep, this is definitely a pain. It works when you're only looking at ~24 hours of backlog, but we've gotten to the point that more than that disappears.
I'd mainly like to move to a platform where this is possible. In slack, it used to be, but paid restrictions stopped it. In discord, these discussions wouldn't be able to exist outside of large all-encompassing channels. I agree slack isn't ideal here, but it's better than Discord in terms of finding relevant discussions.
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@cashewthecat said in Screeps Discord?:
This is probably more of an administration/maintenance thing, but I am part of about a dozen channels, and over the past week exactly 3 of them have had any activity. In several cases I was unsure of which channel to join (screepsmods vs mod-development), and some cases I just have no idea what the channel is for. Again, this isn't a problem specific to Slack.
Just for comparison, I'm a part of 45 channels. 7 of them (#python,#quorum,#screepsplus,#botarena,#cpu-clinic,#operatingsystems,#servers) have regular, active, relevant discussions. The other 38 irregularly have messages, but when they do they're always messages relevant to the topic. I don't see this inactivity as bad, though, it's just a way to get things which are interest when people find them.
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@daboross said in Screeps Discord?:
In discord, these discussions wouldn't be able to exist outside of large all-encompassing channels.
Why exactly? Have you opened the template discord?
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+1 to the discord server
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Ok, so this conversation is going to crap both here and on slack, so I'd like to point out the following-
Right now, we're arguing blind. I'm seeing a lot of opinions being voiced, but to my knowledge no one has polled the admins, the community, etc. and asked what features people want, need, use, etc. I'm seeing arguments like "We're a game, so we should use discord." that are so categorically incorrect I'm not going to bother to refute them.
We're considering only two options. Seriously. We're taking a considerable hit to organization, group unity, etc. by moving regardless. The last thing I want is six months after a discord move to start hearing people talk about how shinzen.io or happychat.ru (I have no idea if those are actual links don't click them) is so much better and we need to move to that instead.
Both of these are mistakes.
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@gankdalf said in Screeps Discord?:
@daboross said in Screeps Discord?:
In discord, these discussions wouldn't be able to exist outside of large all-encompassing channels.
Why exactly? Have you opened the template discord?
Outside of some role-bot related shenanigans, discord doesn't allow optional channels, which will likely cause some havoc given that slack has some 150+ channels. I don't know if everyone wants to be joined to, say #operating-systems, and I doubt people want complex operating systems implementation details filling a help channel.
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@daboross said in Screeps Discord?:
In discord, these discussions wouldn't be able to exist outside of large all-encompassing channels.
Why exactly? Have you opened the template discord?
In most discord servers I've been in, there have been <10 channels. Any more than ~20 would be uneasonable to manage in the side-bar, with the layout they have.
I don't believe this discussions would exist because they require two or more people with specific, shared interests sharing a channel with low clutter. In #operatingsystems, people talk about implementing operating-system-style screeps AI, for example. However, there are 163 other of these channels, and I know at least ~15 of them are irregularly-active.
If any of those 15 channels were merged, it would be that much harder to find the people who are talking about things you're interested in talking about. I mean, I have 15 that I subscribe to and am interested in, but as previously mentioned there are a ton more out there. If you merge any two channels, you're going to have some people interested in one of them but not the other.
The other point I'd make is that a lot of these discussions happen over the course of hours, or days. In the sparsely-populated channels, people can talk back and forth without things happening in the meantime. If they were always active, this wouldn't be able to happen.
If you merge all 163 into the fewer than 20 that discord would allow, the discussions will be extremely diluted. It wouldn't be possible to find interesting discussions because:
- too many other, possibly uninteresting conversations will have happened between the ones one is interested in
- people who are having these discussions won't be able to meet and talk over a period of days, as they do in slack
Alright, hopefully that clarifies my argument for having tons of different channels. Slack isn't the best, still, because of history, but I find it better than discord's channel situation.
For the "template discord": could you clarify what you mean by this?
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@knightshade said in Screeps Discord?:
@gankdalf said in Screeps Discord?:
@daboross said in Screeps Discord?:
In discord, these discussions wouldn't be able to exist outside of large all-encompassing channels.
Why exactly? Have you opened the template discord?
Outside of some role-bot related shenanigans, discord doesn't allow optional channels, which will likely cause some havoc given that slack has some 150+ channels. I don't know if everyone wants to be joined to, say #operating-systems, and I doubt people want complex operating systems implementation details filling a help channel.
Indeed. The template has said "role-bot related shenanigans" which is why I asked.
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The template is also not visible in the root post.
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@daboross said in Screeps Discord?:
For the "template discord": could you clarify what you mean by this?
The one I linked in the original post as an example. It has been admin hidden behind a spoiler warning though, so you will have to click that to see it now.
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I love slack because it's simple, allowed on work and it looks way more organised then discord.
And i think the team should do a poll. This is just a small selection of the community that is commenting now.
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@gimmecookies My point exactly. Until we actually have some (or literally any, at this point) data, this is just a bunch of really shouty people in a room arguing over what color to paint the walls and whether to have regular conversations in Russian or Portuguese.
