How is that silly? I know there’s threading now, but it has to be used by everyone. If you find someone that asked the same question you have, but without a reply, is it unanswered or answered out of the thread 1000 messages down the page? Without threading it’s a disaster.
> How many times have you searched an arcane error and been brought to a mailing list?
Tons, but forums were even better. I never get answers, or at least good answers, via Discord or Slack. It barely takes anything for my question to get pushed up the page and then no one sees it. If someone does answer, it’s often a naive, enthusiastic person that doesn’t even understand the problem I’m having.
I used to post a lot on forums. I’d post well tested, reproducible examples that exactly demonstrated my problem. I’d also take an “ask a question, answer a question” approach where I’d skim the first page or two of unanswered questions and leave a reply if I knew something off the top of my head.
Almost every Discord or Slack “support” channel I’ve tried is terrible. They’re a way for companies to reduce support by shifting the expectations towards ignoring users. Drone (CI) did this recently. Their Slack channel is nothing but users asking questions (at least for the several days I saw before unsubscribing from emails).
I think the real reason Discord, etc. are popular is because it’s low effort. No one expects you to come in with a fully baked example. It’s a conversation. So instead of the old expectation that you’d come prepared with a concrete example of your problem, you just blurt out some half-assed question and wait for someone to prompt you and hold your hand through the whole issue.
The price for that is the loss of people that want to participate in a high effort community rather than an emoji filled meme-fest with content splattered at mile-5 on the 1k mile continuous scroll. At least that’s my opinion.