IMO its origins in the gaming community, and all the moderation features that grew out of it, make Discord a much better fit for open source communities than Slack. For example:<p>- Individuals can block and report other users<p>- There are tiered mod levels<p>- Per-community pseudonyms, but a single account makes it easier to track bad actors<p>Markdown support, including syntax highlighting, is actually better in Discord than Slack already, too.<p>If you haven't checked out an OSS community on Discord yet here are a few:<p>- <a href="https://www.reactiflux.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reactiflux.com/</a><p>- <a href="https://chat.vuejs.org" rel="nofollow">https://chat.vuejs.org</a><p>- <a href="https://discord.gg/reasonml" rel="nofollow">https://discord.gg/reasonml</a>
One thing discord fails at accomplishing is voice activation in their web browser client. If anyone from the company is reading I will gladly write you a python/scipy program that will do the correct real-time DSP for voice activation if you implement it into your platform.<p>It's a window, an fft, a filter around a primary frequency range, an integration, and an N second timer since the last time the audio crosses the threshold.<p>Discord's current implementation drops in the <i>middle</i> for words! It's crazy.
I my startup company our dev team is pread across paris, copenhagen, dubai and beirut. We with struggled using slack and skype for communication but have recently went for discord, it really boosts the morale and connects the offices in such a cool way. Always being able to talk in a voice channel is just amazing, and everything works incredibly smooth.<p>You can even video chat if you make a group call outside of your channel though<p>Would recommend for other small companies in same boat
Discord's come a long way on this stuff. About a year ago they started getting used by hate groups for organizing and I was worried the platform would get taken over by bad people. I don't know that they've solved all the social problems but at least they're making an honest effort.
I started using Discord to game. Then pushed it out to some of my clients. It's great. Webhooks make it so I can replace Slack. Voice chat makes it so I can replace Slack / Skype. The ease of use, the voice channels... it's all so simple. Push to talk, who doesn't love that? Discord has been strong out the gate, much faster at getting features polished than any competitor I've seen.
Discord is awesome! Very easy to use, easy to connect with other player in the clan and organize events and raids. Also easy to sneak in other clan rooms and negotiate switch and maybe even snoop a little.<p>I really like it a lot and I was always wondering why it is not used more in business setting or for coordination in teams, because it could totally do that and it is ligher solution then slack or god forbid hipchat.
> "It's time to ditch Skype and TeamSpeak"<p>Why is this still not a solved problem ? Why is there no free open source Skype alternatives !?
Discord Bot/Webhook API is really great[1].<p>You can use it to push alerts and charts from monitoring[2]. It's straightforward.<p>In Slack, a comparable integration requires a bit more footwork with file uploads being a separate part of the API.<p>[1]: <a href="https://discordapp.com/developers/docs/resources/webhook" rel="nofollow">https://discordapp.com/developers/docs/resources/webhook</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://github.com/axibase/atsd/blob/master/rule-engine/notifications/discord.md" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/axibase/atsd/blob/master/rule-engine/noti...</a>
It's interesting seeing a post about censorship in China on the front page with many concerned HN posters, while under it is a post about Discord gaining many users where none of the comments point out the most important thing:<p>Discord is proprietary software, meaning users have no practical capability, or legal right, to study, modify, or share the code, and it is a centralized service. Thus Discord can be used for censorship and surveillance at a moments notice, and the only power people have is to not use it.
Such large software systems take a lot of time and effort to create. Network effects and motivated complacency make it unrealistic to simply wait until something bad happens before switching to a freedom respecting software.<p>Discord should be rejected outright simply for being proprietary, but software that is used for communications and forming communities have even stronger reasons not to be locked down and controlled by any one entity.
Am I the only one who finds Discord iOS unusable due to the small font which is not changeable? Also the font color is of low contrast whether you in its light or dark theme.
It appears by "safety concerns" the author means "right wingers might be able to chat on the platform". I'm not sure Discord wants to put themselves in the position of weaponizing their platform to suppress particular kinds of private political speech.