Community chat - alternatives to discord

9rqnq

Repacking6528 the problem with Telegram is that it's not really an open platform, but rather a pretty shady company. And it's not really mainstream everywhere (for example, in Western Europe or the US). In my country, it's only popular among fringe groups of conspiracy theorists or right-wing activists. I know in other countries it's more popular or actually mainstream, but I believe it's not everywhere.

Of course, Matrix is not so popular (outside OSS and Privacy communities), but it's an open and privacy-respecting protocol and actually a pretty good alternative to Discord (with the possibility to have interoperability). And also, it is in line with using Discourse as forum software, as Kagi already does.

Repacking6528

9rqnq Telegram is mainstream whether you like it or not, a lot of people use it as an alternative to WhatsApp.

Telegram is #2 on the UK charts

Why is Telegram shady other than no E2EE by default?

9rqnq

Repacking6528 Interesting, do "normal" people use Telegram in the UK? Like for messaging, not for fringe "political" channels?

The financing of Telegram is not clear and really shady. They didn't have a real business model and lived off borrowed money. They also have a dubious legal presence, with the parent company in the British Virgin Islands and headquarter in Dubai. Connections with Russia are not really clear. Also, this story with ~~cryptoscam~~ cryptocurrency they had. For me, it is looking even worse than big tech like Meta or this VC-funded spyware, Discord.

Repacking6528

I agree with Matrix, a bridge solves this too.

Telegram is an alternative to Discord too as you can have channels now.

Repacking6528

9rqnq lots of people use telegram for communities and messaging, even sites like bitrefill.

It’s nice to have more options for communities regardless.

I never said it’s private or anything like that but neither is Discord, I’m simply talking from a community standpoint. Telegram is a big app and a lot of people use it.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/258749/most-popular-global-mobile-messenger-apps/

Vlad

The wild fragmentation of services is exactly the reason we went for Discord. It is not what all users like/tend to use but it does work for many/most.

Vlad

Repacking6528 The problem is of resources - we do not have people to manage all these communities, we are barely managing one on Discord. Users are of course free to create their own communities and these channels and we will even help them gain visibility.

sefidel

Perhaps it would be nice to start with bridging Matrix to Discord?
Discord moderators can ban/kick matrix users via the bridge bot, so I assume that it won't put too much of a burden on the current moderation team.

I'm willing to provide the Matrix<->Discord Bridge and Mjolnir (moderation tool; can subscribe to 'ban lists') instance.

brian

I really don't want to use Discord, and many other technical sorts don't either. Please add a bridge to an IRC channel (or Matrix, XMPP, whatever, just something that doesn't require installing spyware).

Vlad

brian any technical detail how is that done?

Fell

I agree, this would make me feel a bit better.

CatX

Vlad There are a lot of Discord bots that add this functionality. It's not something I personally use, so I can't make any specific recommendations, but it shouldn't be hard to find. I recommend going with something open-source and being careful with what discord permissions are given to the bot, just to be safe.

brian

Vlad in the Rocky Linux project, we use Matterbridge (https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge) and it works quite well for us. It doesn't require a Mattermost instance, it can bridge from / to any of the networks it connects to.

Valentin

Last weekend was Matrix Community Summit in Berlin and Franziska Heintel gave a talk about the Ethereum Foundation switching from Discord to Matrix. This was quite interesting. They also use a bridge and she points out some of the difficulties and challenges and explains why they considered to switch in the first place.

Talk Details: https://summit2023.matrixmeetup.de/conference/talk/7KBHAZ/
Youtube Stream:

a5sj0fh

Matrix would be great! Discord is the great evil.

Fell

I would love to see a Kagi Matrix channel or space! A single channel bridged to Discord would be a good compromise.

Ardemus

I'm not sure if a feature request, but I don't see an option to provide feedback, so this seems like the best fit.

Discord has an unacceptable user contract (terms of service), including Binding Arbitration and a Class Action Waiver (I know several executives, and several laywers, who all agree that that those terms are bad with a capital B. They effectively allow companies to escape liability for doing bad things to large numbers of people). I haven't signed contracts with those terms for decades, and I don't intend to start.

I noticed in your newest change log that you're consolidating "communities" to one discord server. I'm not sure what that mean. Some companies use discord for bugs, feature requests, feedback, and even customer service, so I'm concerned. Hopefully it's just combining two discord servers that I already can't use. I'm much more concerned if it means transitioning this sort of thing to Discord.

Regardless, I would like to have access to everything related to Kagi. Since this is in the feature suggestion forum, I suggest choosing platforms that don't require signing anti-consumer contracts (or at least providing alternates for those of us who need them).

Again, this is feedback, so this required field really doesn't apply. I hope there really is a way to provide feedback and I'm just missing it. It's frustrating when companies forbid broad swaths of communication from their customers.

Okay, now I'm really frustrated. Not only do I have to enter text here, which doesn't apply, but I have to select tags that also don't apply.

amk

Ardemus

As long as this is enforced. Using Discord for feedback and product support is notoriously bad idea.