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Comment by mmcdermott | Hacker News Reader

That seems reasonable enough technically, but I doubt it would work out that way in practice. Most users would probably treat all Discord channels alike. Those who don't understand the setup would carry on as they always had, many of those who do would find it easier to treat all alike (if for no other reason than that the setting could always change).

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Users aren't nearly as stupid as most technical people think they are.

What they are is ignorant, which is not the same thing.

The solution to this problem is to have a very clear indicator on each channel that it's public or private. If you really want to, make it a link that explains what that means.

And you're done.

This is a problem in the same way that copy/paste is a problem. There are well-known solutions, it's just modern software that went to crap, not the users.

> Those who don't understand the setup would carry on as they always had, many of those who do would find it easier to treat all alike

This is exactly what used to happen on “legacy” forums, too. I’m all for reasonable guardrails[1] but at some point you have to just let people take some individual responsibility.

1. Alert users who are posting publicly, allow them to disable posting to public channels in their account settings, etc.

Right, they are. Choosing to communicate on a private platform such as Discord, rather than something public like Twitter or Reddits is exercising that responsibility.

> Choosing to communicate on a private platform such as Discord, rather than something public like Twitter or Reddits is exercising that responsibility.

I find it difficult to believe that people choose Discord over eg Reddit because they value privacy - you can create a private subreddit much more easily than you can create a new Discord instance. People choose Discord because they want live chat that works.

Anyone who is consciously choosing Discord for privacy reasons shouldn’t have a problem policing themselves when it comes to public vs. private channels, no?

I think people chose Discord because they want a private place to chat with friends.

I'm fine with only privacy-conscious people getting privacy.

Privacy should be the default so that people who go for privacy don't stick out.

Sorry, my comment was overly brief and flippant. I see this change as a net positive for privacy, and the fact that it's of only limited benefit for people who are less scrupulous about privacy is unfortunate but I am still pleased on the balance.

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