Exploring new communication channels

[Aaronepower]

I didn’t say that they did, but we would be going from some(mostly?) open meetings to none. That is a step backward in being more open. I’m not saying all communication should be, for example moderation team shouldn’t have open meetings. But unless there is a good reason for it not to be we should have those meetings open and easily linkable.

[Mark_Simulacrum]

I would hope that we could work with Discord on making links to logs public for discords like ours where there’s no need to sign up (i.e., intentionally open), but even if that’s not possible, I think we can put together a bot that posts public logs…

[CAD97]

Just as a note, Discord is better than IRC in terms of logs, since Discord has a history to its messages (even if it is behind joining the server) whereas IRC has no intrinsic history.

If a history bot is appropriate for IRC in this regard, this isn’t a point against Discord in comparison to IRC. The bot is probably just as simple to get working as well, assuming you choose a language with bindings to the API.

A Discord log bot does have to handle edits in some manner though.

[Soni]

IRC is an open standard, it should be possible to add long-term, self-healing logging to it. And in fact I’m working on it.

[RalfJung]

You can scroll directly to the mention by clicking on the “@” button to see a list of mentions, either globally or filtered by server and channel. The button is in the upper-right corner on desktop, and at the bottom of the sidebar on mobile.

Turns out this does not work when you are on vacation for two weeks – that button only shows “recent mentions”. So I now have some 6 or so mentions from my time off that I have no way to locate. I guess people will ask again…

Gitter and Zulip actually track which mentions one has seen, and hence do not have this problem.

[est31]

So I’ve given this discord thing a try, and while the UI and everything is more or less bearable, one thing puts me off really badly: I’m being sent an e-mail every time I want to log in, and every time I’m getting a captcha. Why is this needed? Except of targeted harassment, I can’t think of anything else. You can prevent spambots very easily simply by sending an e-mail ONCE at account creation and requiring a captcha ONCE at account creation.

So I’m trying to use discord without an account now but guess what, you can’t write anything without being logged in.

Sorry but discord is not any more “user friendly” or whatever than IRC is.

[CAD97]

Do you happen to be connecting via VPN? (Or some other reason that your IP you connect from changes regularly?) The only reason I can find for Discord consistently sending emails to verify login is “new login location” protection. Apparently you can also bypass this by enabling mobile (QR) 2FA.

If it’s not a highly variable IP location that your connection comes from (or a high rate of device fingerprint changing), then it would seem the algorithm of malicious behavior has incorrectly flagged your behavior as potentially problematic, which is indeed unfortunate.

[est31]

Yes, sometimes I travel and change my IP address. Maybe I’ll need to set up a bouncer or something.

[RalfJung]

I also need to solve a CAPTCHA every other time I log in to Discord. Sometimes even two. And that’s despite discordapp.com even being whitelisted for storing cookies across sessions. In contrast, both gitter and zulip manage to just keep me logged in across a browser restart if cookies are preserved.

[notriddle]

I’d turn on TOTP 2FA, then.

[RalfJung]

I’d turn on TOTP 2FA, then.

Not sure how making logging in harder is supposed to help with login being too annoying.

But I have figured out what it was: I had configured Firefox to clean all “offline website data”. It seems that the cookie settings (which I set to “session only”) actually apply to this “offline data” as well, so I do not need to configure elsewhere again that it should be cleaned. Now at least it keeps me logged in across browser restarts.

[uberjay]

If you want (IMO) a great middle ground, check out the Cookie AutoDelete add-on.

With it, cookies for non-whitelisted domains are automatically deleted. There are a few options for when they are removed:

1. On browser close.
2. N seconds after tab close.
3. After domain change within one tab.

As with these sorts of things, they may cause unexpected breakage… It feels worth it, to me…

(OTOH, it does occasionally feel like I’m fighting a losing battle. ¯\(ツ)/¯)

[newpavlov]

Firefox can delete all cookies (except for white-listed domains) on exit without any addons and deny third-party cookies. See “Privacy & Security” section in settings. Though considering fingerprinting I am not sure about effectiveness of such measures.

[nox]

FYI Discord yet again changed their TOS in a stealthy fashion, including some new alarming tidbits.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/discord-terms-of-service/

[Centril]

FYI Discord yet again changed their TOS in a stealthy fashion, including some new alarming tidbits.

Hey, so apparently Discord decided to quietly update their TOS with a clause that says you must forfeit your right to sue them or take part in a class-action lawsuit.

IANAL, and this may be of little consolation, but this may be null and void in some EU countries and elsewhere since you may not contract away some rights.

It might also violate GDPR, https://gdpr-info.eu/art-82-gdpr/

[gbutler]

Unfortunately, the U.S. people have decided that corporations should have more and greater rights than individuals in all cases and people should be subserviant to corporations. You can’t fight this on a case by base basis. It must be fought in the political realm through activism and, more importantly, intelligent voiting. Also, as @Centril points out, Discord could be setting themselves up for some real legal problems in non-US jurisdictions if they don’t watch it.

[nox]

IANAL, and this may be of little consolation, but this may be null and void in some EU countries and elsewhere since you may not contract away some rights.

This is true, but there are plenty of US citizens that use Rust, and I commented about this because some people were giving the benefit of the doubt to the Discord company earlier in this thread.

[gnzlbg]

I have been using Zulip for a while, and I have to say I love it, and have stopped joining Discord as a consequence.

Now, Zulip has its issues, I think @varkor raised very valid concerns here: Zulip shortcomings but they are honestly mostly stylistic. The most serious one for me are stream discoverability, and moderation.

[Centril]

Now, Zulip has its issues, I think @varkor raised very valid concerns here: Zulip shortcomings but they are honestly mostly stylistic

For me this is make or break; while I’ll always move wherever T-lang is, I would prefer to use a communications platform which frankly isn’t ugly and doesn’t feel claustrophobic and the visual design and UX of Discord is miles better than Zulip’s imo. The threading ability doesn’t offset it and T-lang mostly doesn’t need this threading and it can in most cases just be done by creating small topical channels (e.g. one for impl Trait).

[steveklabnik]

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