this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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Everyone is like "discord is a bad project discussion and documentation space! "
Which could be read as "it's very hard to cut this steak with a plunger!"
People are complaining about using a tool incorrectly.
Well the specific context here is software projects using it as the platform for their community... So it's kind of like going to a steakhouse and being given a fork and plunger to eat with. It makes sense to both complain about the steakhouse, and remark on the shortcomings of using a plunger for the purpose it was imposed on you for.
Now of course, it's wrong to say that Discord or a plunger are bad tools per se-- They are both occasionally useful for when I need to deal with some problematic shit. They are unpleasant, but I just hold my nose and thoroughly wash my hands after.
Actually the plunger analogy tracks better than I expected.
To which I'm saying anyone who engages with discord in a project space that is silly. Creators and users. Software dev happens elsewhere. Fork it and make it better.
Fork... what? The software project that you're trying to get help with? The problem isn't that you need to change the code, the problem is that you want to be able to leverage the community.
Oh sorry are you not familiar with GitHub or other branching code managers?
Haha that's not the issue, but it's pretty clear that you're deliberately misunderstanding at this point.
I understand it fine. People are intrigued by a useful project, only to find the junk devs run a discord for community engagement, issue tracking, devlog, and so on.
People feel helpless they they have to engage with discord in this way, because it is shit for that stuff.
People have no ability to self correct their experience, even though the system has built in features to allow them to improve the project by forking it and raising the standards.
Great, I knew you could understand if you wanted to (hence the "deliberate" part).
So... Yes. Exactly. The complaint is about poor choices in the implementation of the project's community. Not everybody who would want to use the software (e.g. Typst, in this meme) knows how to code at all. Those people are reliant on the community for support, and may choose to avoid a project if the community isn't good for them. That's the premise of the meme, and orthogonal to any properties of the version control system.
Among those who can code, it's still reasonable that someone might consider the community when evaluating the cost of integrating the project... Especially if they plan to be an end-user of the application.
It's great if you grok the source of every project you use and accept the burden of maintaining them yourself in lieu of a good community. That's really neat. But I don't think it's practical for everybody to do that for everything they might want to use... Yes, even though the Fork button is right there.
So generally people would prefer to complain that improve? Very cool. Just flail and meme
Lol yes, people would often rather avoid getting involved with a piece of software at all (and perhaps complain about it), instead of taking over the burden of developing and supporting it themselves. Kids these days, right?
Sucks to suck I guess
We're complaining about having to use it incorrectly. We can't help if the software project (that's part of a software project, that's part of a software project we need) only offers support via discord.
To belabor your metaphor, you're saying that we shouldn't complain if we want a steak and the only place to get steak only offers plungers as utensils.
Does that really happen? I only used discord for limited socialization, discussing e.g. math in specific channels.
You don't have to. Fork it, make it better. Crush the existing developers, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their Patreon donators.
Conan the Developer has spoken!
It's open source software. Forking and improving is a core feature.
If people have a decent idea but a shit implementation, supercede them.
Sure. If you need software support, build a support system and get everyone else to use it. Makes perfect sense. I hope you live exclusively by this principal.
What? This is about documentation and maintenance of an open source project, this isn't a SaaS situation.
If your documentation sucks, you're no better than the discord hell the original project came from.
And yes, I only work with open source projects that are run well, or I fork them and maintain them for personal use.
I'm interested, what's your process for 'personal' forks? Any extra steps?
The one discord thing I do is mention I am making the fork, then spend the first while doing the documentation I wish existed. I set up the repo to accept issues and allow discussion.