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@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io · 11 hours ago

RE: https://mastodon.social/@verge/116041069446538092

Let's imagine I have like 2 or 3 reasons to be using discord today, and I'm trying to move them to something else in the next few weeks because I don't intend to give discord my ID.

The other comparable monolithic option appears to be Zulip, which is fine, as far as it goes. But are there good federated options? People are going to have to migrate to another platform, meaning they will have to bootstrap their identity and social connections all over again. It would be great if this was the last time they had to do that

(I'm aware of matrix, matrix is a bad option. I want good options)

Cregg

@Cregg@gamedev.lgbt replied · 8 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus as others have said, Stoat seems promising. But it isn't federated so you'd just have to self host or be stuck with another monolith

Analog AI

@Retreival9096@hachyderm.io replied · 10 hours ago

Jenniferplusplus

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io replied · 11 hours ago

What I think is *really* important in a discord replacement:

1. low friction invite/join/create flow for private or semi-private groups.
2. single login/identity used for multiple groups

And that's really all I need, personally. But orgs that make heavier use of discord also need:

3. enough control over roles and permissions to be able to moderate communication (within a group, not across groups) among people who often do not know each other

Jenniferplusplus

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io replied · 8 hours ago

In my ideal world, your chat identity would be the same as your social network identity. Your identity documents (aka your AP Actor, ATP DID doc, etc) would include addressing information and signing keys for real time chat protocols like xmpp, and that would be that.

scottley

@scottley@infosec.exchange replied · 6 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus the scary thing, to me, about single identity is how that can be abused by an authoritarian regime... one of the main challenges with creating a technocracy is that there isnt much difference between technocracy and autocracy... it is just the difference related to whom is allowed to define the rules.

Jenniferplusplus

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io replied · 6 hours ago

@scottley Yes. But, nothing about what I proposed would make it required to use a single identity in every instance. It would merely make it possible to use that identity in more than one instance.

That also makes it more vital, which makes it all the more important to protect such an identity anchor from the whims of an administrator (including governments). That's where a lot of the difficulty comes in.

scottley

@scottley@infosec.exchange replied · 6 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus good call... isolated trust roots for keys could work...

Jenniferplusplus

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io replied · 8 hours ago

Believe me, I understand why doing this is not straightforward. But it's not impossible, either. The time to start really committing resources to our own communications infrastructure was 8 or 9 years ago. The second best time is now.

Dan Wineman

@dwineman@xoxo.zone replied · 9 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus I think IRC meets all your requirements? People seem to have forgotten about it, and there are a lot of rough edges, but we’ve had all of this for nearly 40 years.

Jenniferplusplus

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io replied · 9 hours ago

@dwineman ok, and also requirement 0, message history and offline delivery. There are actual reasons people stopped using irc

Kevin Granade

@kevingranade@mastodon.gamedev.place replied · 9 hours ago

@dwineman @jenniferplusplus yea message history is the fundamental technical challenge that makes the jump from irc to discord-alikes hard, now you need a database somewhere to store all those messages.

Dan Wineman

@dwineman@xoxo.zone replied · 9 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus Fair enough. And I believe there were ad hoc solutions to both of those (bots that sat in your channel and could replay history and send notifications, etc.) It’s far from ideal. But if we were to build that ideal system, IRC is a pretty good starting point.

j5v

@j5v@mastodon.social replied · 9 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus What happened to "better discord" and other projects like it? (I have no idea - I heard folk talking about them many years ago)

Blain Smith

@blainsmith@fosstodon.org replied · 10 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus Our co-op self-hosts Mattermost and its been fine, but I think it has enough settings and knobs to be a viable replacement, especially for orgs who have $$$ to pay for a good option.

Yurii / Юра

@iurii@mastodon.world replied · 11 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus I want to try and selfhost https://stoat.chat/

If someone has done, please share your experience

kopper :colon_three:

@kopper@not-brain.d.on-t.work replied · 11 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io if there was a comparable option right now i truly believe we'd all have heard about it already. people aren't that reluctant to evangelize their favorite choice to anyone in vicinity, it's just none of them have the feature set necessary to actually be competition to discord

kopper :colon_three:

@kopper@not-brain.d.on-t.work replied · 11 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io i would say something like "i hope i'm wrong about this" but i know that'll only bring me irc, matrix, or xmpp evangelism. i'm aware of all three and none of them are anywhere close to replacing discord

revolt/stoat could be interesting but it's centralized so you may as well use zulip if it fits the bill

Jenniferplusplus

@jenniferplusplus@hachyderm.io replied · 10 hours ago

@kopper I mean, I'm kind of hoping that some of those xmpp folks will show up and tell me about the good, low friction option that I just didn't know about.

I think xmpp is the long term answer to this question. I just don't know if it can be the short term one.

helly ✅

@fluttersh@pony.social replied · 11 hours ago

@jenniferplusplus delta chat is pretty good imo

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