So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
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@pup @0xabad1dea @isotopp @enejjohhem is there precedent for governments subpoenaing chatroom servers in order to Get pseudonymous queers who aren't planning anything other then the continued existence of the specific community represented by that chatroom? serious question.
@pup @0xabad1dea @isotopp @enejjohhem i'm not trying to like attack you with a rhetorical question, one of the communities i'm in is planning for what happens if they migrate to a different service and i need to know if this is something we should be preparing for.
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@ury easy export and ability to self-host should handle these goals, or do you also want server/instance interoperability
@tshepang yeah, what's the point of exporting and self-hosting if all my friends are on a different (even self-hosted) server?
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So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
Things you don’t need:
- federation/distributed systems
- multiparty end-to-end encryption
- an entirely new operating system kernel specially designed to—Things you DO need:
- a user interface that is Normal
- the ability to use languages other than English and writing systems other than Latin
- higher standards of user experience than how irc actually works in the real world
- any fucking clue how Discord works and why people use itI have muted replies to this post due to the usual reasons
I want my Discord alternative to be hooked into another service you already use so you already have an account on it against your will and I'm not joking (this is why I think Steam's alternative is promising)
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note that I didn’t even touch on audio/video calls and screen sharing, which are HEAVILY used features of discord, but we can start with “a solid chatroom experience” as the minimum viable replacement; if you can’t get that part right, discussing the rest with a straight face is clownshoes
@0xabad1dea I'm pretty sure you do need federation.
Running a single instance would crumble under any comparable user-share that discord handles + who would finance that, in my eyes the fediverse runs on homelabbers and some donations ?
But revolt/stoat kinda sounds like what you described no ?
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@nojhan AI featured prominently in pitch statement, hard pass.
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@pup @0xabad1dea @isotopp @enejjohhem i'm not trying to like attack you with a rhetorical question, one of the communities i'm in is planning for what happens if they migrate to a different service and i need to know if this is something we should be preparing for.
@shitpostalotl@axfedi.derg.rest @0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange @isotopp@infosec.exchange @enejjohhem@mastodon.social well, if the community discusses sexual health, kink, etc., or there's pornography (or queer art that the government deems pornographic), censorship is a very possible threat.
also, in late 2025 the UK made it illegal to share various types of kink content (it's Somehow Abuse Trust Me Bro
despite everyone involved being consenting adults), and they at least say it can be punished by prison sentence. if that sort of trend continues, and other countries follow suit, well... yeah -
@shitpostalotl@axfedi.derg.rest @0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange @isotopp@infosec.exchange @enejjohhem@mastodon.social well, if the community discusses sexual health, kink, etc., or there's pornography (or queer art that the government deems pornographic), censorship is a very possible threat.
also, in late 2025 the UK made it illegal to share various types of kink content (it's Somehow Abuse Trust Me Bro despite everyone involved being consenting adults), and they at least say it can be punished by prison sentence. if that sort of trend continues, and other countries follow suit, well... yeah@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange @isotopp@infosec.exchange @shitpostalotl@axfedi.derg.rest @enejjohhem@mastodon.social and god help you if you provide sexual health advice to a queer minor who has nobody else to turn to.
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@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange @isotopp@infosec.exchange @shitpostalotl@axfedi.derg.rest @enejjohhem@mastodon.social and god help you if you provide sexual health advice to a queer minor who has nobody else to turn to.
@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange @isotopp@infosec.exchange @shitpostalotl@axfedi.derg.rest @enejjohhem@mastodon.social like, there isn't much concrete precedent yet I can point to, but it's all but explicitly stated that these are exactly the kinds of things all the "child safety" bills are meant to do, and platforms like discord, which LOVES its automated message-scanning surveillance, are extremely willing to share chatlogs with law enforcement.
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@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange @isotopp@infosec.exchange @shitpostalotl@axfedi.derg.rest @enejjohhem@mastodon.social like, there isn't much concrete precedent yet I can point to, but it's all but explicitly stated that these are exactly the kinds of things all the "child safety" bills are meant to do, and platforms like discord, which LOVES its automated message-scanning surveillance, are extremely willing to share chatlogs with law enforcement.
@pup @0xabad1dea @shitpostalotl @enejjohhem in any of these use cases do not try to use a self cooked chat server and protocol, use signal.
Getting protection right for people who actually need this kind of protection is hard, and getting the posed part is hard enough. Don’t try to also amateur the protocol design, don’t become matrix. They suck at what they promise to do, AND using it is he’ll for everyone, even those that just want to chat.
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@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange @isotopp@infosec.exchange @shitpostalotl@axfedi.derg.rest @enejjohhem@mastodon.social like, there isn't much concrete precedent yet I can point to, but it's all but explicitly stated that these are exactly the kinds of things all the "child safety" bills are meant to do, and platforms like discord, which LOVES its automated message-scanning surveillance, are extremely willing to share chatlogs with law enforcement.
@pup @0xabad1dea @isotopp @enejjohhem well, on one hand you're correct that these laws are ment to have a chilling effect on queer activity. as such i'll bring this up in the discussion thread. but this would mean the threat model of the server (or room or whatever) would have to encompass both "a troll joins and starts telling people to kill themselves" (depressingly common) and "the united states or brittish government decides to target this specific chatroom in particular for censure" (theoretical), two threats very hard to defend against simultaneously. i think that an apt comparison here might be piracy, mainly because it's a direct but small threat to capital that the united states government has already mobilized against. the second reason why i think piracy is an apt comparison is that the community members can talk about how to pirate things publicly in the discord right now without discord using their panoptic vision and automatic moderation to smite us to hell. given the extra leeway of running the community out of the admin's private server rather then discord, getting special attention from the cops will probably seem like a pretty remote possibility. nonetheless, i'll push for us to have plans in place in order to migrate to signal or similar if such attacks against individual communities seem to be on the horizon.
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So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
Things you don’t need:
- federation/distributed systems
- multiparty end-to-end encryption
- an entirely new operating system kernel specially designed to—Things you DO need:
- a user interface that is Normal
- the ability to use languages other than English and writing systems other than Latin
- higher standards of user experience than how irc actually works in the real world
- any fucking clue how Discord works and why people use itI have muted replies to this post due to the usual reasons
@0xabad1dea Even if I could get all the others, I'd still be stuck on "Why people actually use it".
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@0xabad1dea what is
- a user interface that is Normal
???
- Because #Windows-esque #UI & #UX is fucking atrocious brainrot and I refuse to accept such neurotypical, proven-to-be-wrong horseshite to begin with!
For anyone reasonable, there's @zulip, @RocketChat and #IRC + #Mumble & #JitsiMeet already...
Remember:
DUMMY THICC APP & CENTRALIZATION = BAD!@kkarhan @0xabad1dea @zulip @RocketChat Normal But Bad may be better than Novel But Good, because we're talking about Rapid Adoption, with Established Expectations of UIUX, rather than making something New.
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@kkarhan @0xabad1dea @zulip @RocketChat Normal But Bad may be better than Novel But Good, because we're talking about Rapid Adoption, with Established Expectations of UIUX, rather than making something New.
@hyratel @0xabad1dea I do disagree, because there's usually only "novel and bad" (like with the #Enshittification of cars) and "old but good".
The window controls belong on the top-left side of a window.
- #Microsoft only moved it to the wrong corner in #Windows because they licensed said (long expired!) design patent from #Apple and stuck with the agreed-upon changes to it so Apple failed to sue them (unlike #Amiga)...
And this ain't like a localization thing, where RHD cars (i.e. manufacturers from Japan and UK) put the filler port on the left side and LHD cars (i.e. USA and Germany) mostly put it on the right side.
Certain things are quantifyably correct and some just are scientifically wrong!
- We don't allow "tiller steering" in modern cars because it's more dangerous and only works somewhat on non - power-steering vehicles.
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@pokecaptain yes! someone shared with me the other day, I still need to try it but it's so nice that there's people working on this
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N niels@social.data.coop shared this topic
