flori_ava_star:~:cursor_blinking: :made-with-estrogen: :verifiedlesbian: (@star)

abadidea @0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange

4mo

So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement

Things you don’t need:
- federation/distributed systems
- multiparty end-to-end encryption
- an entirely new operating system kernel specially designed to—

Things you DO need:
- a user interface that is Normal
- the ability to use languages other than English and writing systems other than Latin
- higher standards of user experience than how irc actually works in the real world
- any fucking clue how Discord works and why people use it

I have muted replies to this post due to the usual reasons

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abadidea @0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange

4mo

note that I didn’t even touch on audio/video calls and screen sharing, which are HEAVILY used features of discord, but we can start with “a solid chatroom experience” as the minimum viable replacement; if you can’t get that part right, discussing the rest with a straight face is clownshoes

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gabboman the wafrn dev @gabboman@gabboman.xyz

4mo

@0xabad1dea

I do consider federation important. Single point of failure and all that

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Fea the Wanderer @crowfea@app.wafrn.net

4mo

@0xabad1dea @gabboman

To be honest I do not think the normal user who is just sick of Discord and looks for something similar does really care, but it is good to have it in case you want it later I guess

Most of my friends do not even know what federation means, I have to explain to them what I learned from using Mastodon and WAFRN myself

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flori_ava_star:~

@star@amazonawaws.com

4mo

@crowfea @0xabad1dea @gabboman Federation doesn't have to mean bad UX. If you have to explain it, it's bad UX. E-Mail is federated, and you don't have to explain to someone how that works.

If you don't have federation, you are not solving the problem. It's like hitting "snooze" on your alarm in the morning, but the alarm is there for a good reason

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Katzenmann / Catperson @katzenmann@c3d2.social

4mo

@star @crowfea @0xabad1dea @gabboman Discord is good because it's got many users across many communities. An open discord alternative would need to be as seamless as discord. The community does not have the resources to host a single centralized discord alternative but many properly integrated small servers are possible.

Someone build this please

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flori_ava_star:~

@star@amazonawaws.com

4mo

@katzenmann @crowfea @0xabad1dea @gabboman I am of this opinion as well. Federation and decentralization are vitally important, but they need to be done well and focus on what actually matters to people, which in practice means hide all the complexity but keep the benefits visible

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flori_ava_star:~

@star@amazonawaws.com

4mo

@DerPumu @binaryDiv @katzenmann @crowfea @gabboman

I can't think of many use cases that would require servers to communicate with each other.

proceeds to list a whole suite of things that would require servers to communicate with each other /lh /nm

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DerPumu (he/him) @DerPumu@mstdn.games

4mo

@star @binaryDiv @katzenmann @crowfea @gabboman
I did write "can't think of MANY", not "can't think of ANY", didn't I? 1 actual use case and 2 gimmicks aren't many, definitely not a "whole suite" ¯\(ツ)/¯

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flori_ava_star:~

@star@amazonawaws.com

4mo

@DerPumu @binaryDiv @katzenmann @crowfea @gabboman It wasn't meant to be an offense. To me, an individual working on such a protocol, the humor comes from the contrast of "it's not much, right? just x, y and z", and x, y and z actually being very intricate and involved things to figure out and implement in a good way. I, for one, have been working on my version of how to do cross-server auth and message sending + profile management for over 2 years now. And again, this was meant to be lighthearted, not to offend. If I did offend you, I am sorry for that

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DerPumu (he/him) @DerPumu@mstdn.games

4mo

@star @binaryDiv @katzenmann @crowfea @gabboman oh I see - sorry for the misunderstanding.

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