Discord

[Rhonda Huntress]

I am seeing more and more stores starting to use Discord for CSR.  This is cool and all but when users of a communication tool need to turn to outside communication tools in order to communicate with their customers ... maybe group chat functionality should become more of a priority over other new features?

Just brainstorming but what would it take to off load the whole chat system like we do with voice?

[Amanda Crisp]

7 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

I am seeing more and more stores starting to use Discord for CSR.  This is cool and all but when users of a communication tool need to turn to outside communication tools in order to communicate with their customers ... maybe group chat functionality should become more of a priority over other new features?

Just brainstorming but what would it take to off load the whole chat system like we do with voice?

Since I’m one with “questionable” ability to speak (I sound kinda drunk due to some drain brammage) and rely on text a lot - that skeers me 🙂

 

[Akasha Sternberg]

I love discord and it´s easily accessable on all those devices... I type in it  like 99% of the time or more so yeah... it is NOT just a voice chat program!!!!!!! There´s text channels, too! (Gah I´m really not a fan of that "oh discord=voice prejudice AT ALL...grr) ...*counts to 10*  AAAAANYWAYS
Rhonda, dearest they use it for the accessibility. It gives them the option to do their support AND socialize with us, spech with the large amount of bloggers and fashionistas always crying because of groupslots ^^ , you know to be... accessible

[Rhonda Huntress]

34 minutes ago, Akasha Sternberg said:

It gives them the option to do their support AND socialize with us, spech with the large amount of bloggers and fashionistas always crying because of groupslots ^^ , you know to be... accessible

Oh, I know.  There are many very valid reason people use Discord for SL communications.  Those reasons should not exist is my point.

Wouldn't it be nice to have unlimited groups with all the text features and reliability of Discord right here in world?  You know it can be done.  Discord does it.  Skype does it.  Hell, AOL could do it. Maybe it's just me but if I was part of the Linden Lab leadership team I would find it embarassing to learn that peole have to use outside resources to do what should be the basic functions of my platform.  It would be like have a TV network where people have to use a radio to hear what is happening

Edited April 15, 2020 by Rhonda Huntress

[Akasha Sternberg]

pfff yeah I see where you´re coming from but I´m too much of a Discord fangirl  XD of course it´d be super handy to just keep stuff inworld but I´ve never even thought about that XD my only thought on SL funcitons is what the perks of premium plus will be XD (and the cost ... xD) I swear I get sooooooooo annoyed by any other news right now   They are supposedly working on an app, too  which might help with accessiblility yet I heard Patch say that unlimited groups, while  loving this idea, would be kinda off limits cos something something server weight something I can´t remember exactly....

[Rhonda Huntress]

Discord should be an extra way to reach support.  "Also find us on Discord or email if you have a problem."  I should not be seeing notices that say "group chat is unreliable; here's our Discord channel"

Anyway.  I'll drop it.  Just a peeve at the moment.

[AyelaNewLife]

Discord is sadly lacking in features that actually matter, over finding ways to monetize blob emojis. The biggest one being the total lack of multi-account or multi-client support. Many of us have highly justifiable and inviolable reasons for keeping their SL and RL identities separate, and there's no way in hell I'm going to join a discord server where everyone can click my name and see AyelasRLUsername. Not happening.

There's a sloppy workaround however; if on PC, you can download the beta client (Discord Canary) and run that in parallel to the main client. You have to put up with updates every couple of days and there's no similar option for mobile devices, but it does allow you to run a second account at least.

But only a second client. Compartmentalisation is a cornerstone of basic online security, and Discord made the conscious decision not to carry that feature forward when copying drawing inspiration from Slack. If I was active in other online communities distinct from SL or RL, this workaround would be no good. As much as I end up using Discord these days, it is objectively not up to task and not something companies, creators or communities should be pushing this heavily.

[Skell Dagger]

4 hours ago, AyelaNewLife said:

There's a sloppy workaround however; if on PC, you can download the beta client (Discord Canary) and run that in parallel to the main client. You have to put up with updates every couple of days and there's no similar option for mobile devices, but it does allow you to run a second account at least.

No need to run the beta client. Just use the web browser version at discordapp.com. That's what I do. I have the program itself for my RL stuff and I use the web browser version in Chrome for anything SL-related using Skell's name.

ETA: I do, btw, agree with your gripe about the lack of multi-account support. It's one of the things that users are constantly asking for.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Skell Dagger

[Qie Niangao]

38 minutes ago, Skell Dagger said:

... I use the web browser version in Chrome for anything SL-related using Skell's name.

I'm not much of a Discord user, but I rely very heavily on running several simultaneous Chrome instances associated with different Google identities. I don't think Discord can see across those instances (if it can, I'm in big trouble!) so maybe that's a workaround for the multi-account thing.

It's always seemed weird that SL has so much trouble with group chat, apparently somehow exceeding the capabilities of off-the-shelf chat systems. Coincidentally(?), this came up in yesterday's Simulator User Group. There seems to be a tremendous amount of overhead associated with updating all participants with a reasonably timely list of all online group-members who might potentially participate. (It's a little bit combinatoric: more concurrent participants mean both longer update messages and more recipients needing the updates.)  But if that's hard, why can Discord do it? Or... maybe it couldn't, at the scale of SL's largest group concurrencies? Seems as if there must be such uses of Discord, though.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Qie Niangao
"yesterday's ... yesterday"

[Skell Dagger]

The group chat lag has been getting progressively worse since more people are staying at home. It's especially frustrating for those of us who are marked as moderators for group chats, as we're often the ones whose messages don't get through, and we have to sit and watch while other messages (often with misinformation and the like) do go through from random group members. I've asked on a few occasions if there is any way to fast-track or prioritise messages sent by group moderators and owners, but I'm not sure if the group chat code even allows for tweaks like that.

In fact, while I think about it, I'm going to tag @Oz Linden and ask if that could be done. Oz, might it be possible to prioritise group chat messages sent by those assigned to 'senior' roles such as Moderator in groups? Moderators are the ones whose messages sometimes need to be seen urgently, but we suffer the same kind of lag as everyone else. I'm not sure if that's even possible with the code as it is, but if you don't ask...

It's particularly vital when there's some kind of trouble (such as an active scammer spamming large events with items with our group's name on them) doing the rounds and lots of people start popping into chat to ask "is this legit?" and our replies are not going through! Not only that, but some people get irritated when they ask a question and seemingly no response is forthcoming, even though I have tried three times to get an answer out to them. It appears to them as 'poor service' when it actually isn't. I end up taking the reply into IM with them, and have to explain that they were not being ignored. Sometimes they accept that, other times they've given up and logged off. Occasionally I get a mouthful of abuse in response 

We try not to IM unless the person wants to, or if they're being deliberately awkward and causing issues in chat, or if they're struggling to understand because the chat is busy with other questions, or if their query is going to take a long time and monopolise the chat for (potentially) hours. Keeping assistance in the main chat always helps the several hundred silent lurkers always on the edge of the chat window who are just watching.

That's why so many large support groups (the one I work in among them) have had to resort to opening Discord channels as secondary avenues of support. It's not ideal, I'll admit, but when you encounter these frustrations on a daily basis it's good to have another - non-laggy (mostly) - place in which to herd cats help people.

[Oz Linden]

6 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

Oz, might it be possible to prioritise group chat messages sent by those assigned to 'senior' roles such as Moderator in groups?

Not at present.

The recent increase in load (a good problem to have) has probably caused some of the performance changes you've seen. We're aware of this issue and working on it.

[Paul Hexem]

7 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

But if that's hard, why can Discord do it?

Group chat online is like, 30+ year old technology.

It never ceases to amaze me that LL can create something like SL, but they're too dumb to figure out how to do something other people were doing decades before SL was even a thought. 

[Amanda Crisp]

13 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

The group chat lag has been getting progressively worse since more people are staying at home.

Formal group chat and Ad Hoc groups have both been dodgy lately.

SL needs better built in chat tech. If we had that, I would use the SL client exclusively.

[Amanda Crisp]

21 hours ago, Akasha Sternberg said:

(Gah I´m really not a fan of that "oh discord=voice prejudice AT ALL...grr)

Heh, well I have been on the Recieving end of some Voice users hilarity for not joining in when I was having a very bad “speech day” - so probably part of my dislike of voice-client-priority in some things stems from that.

I can cope on the radio at work because I’m largely using phrases I have rehearsed a thousand times (and my co-workers can decipher my drunkspeak when I’m tired or stressed).

I -know- that voice is considered a boon To the average user, but it can also be frustrating when someone inworld ignores your text for an hour (standing next to you) and their first response after that is “sorry, I was in skype with friends”.

Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like a social underclass if voice is not an option, so I remind myself that -I- am the one with a problem. I would not wish others to have to deal with that issue, so I find ways to cope 🙂

[Garnet Psaltery]

Discord and I don't get on.  I'm always confused in it, and I can never remember how to log out, so I panic.  

[Anna Nova]

I dislike Discord intensely.

I will never use it.

It smells of Googlelikeness and Facebooklikeness, and I don't trust it. (I don't use those either)

There, someone had to say it.

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, Anna Nova said:

I dislike Discord intensely.

I will never use it.

There, someone had to say it.

to the first, .. i don't hate it in special, i just dislike groupchats in general, it't the first thing i disable when joining a group.
to the second .. same here
to the third =  👍

[Qie Niangao]

10 hours ago, Gadget Portal said:

Group chat online is like, 30+ year old technology.

It never ceases to amaze me that LL can create something like SL, but they're too dumb to figure out how to do something other people were doing decades before SL was even a thought. 

Right, but I recall an earlier attempt to fix capacity problems with SL group chat that went pretty far in an attempt to incorporate a then-popular open source online chat framework. This was pre-Sansar, for sure, and I kinda think Andrew was still around, so pre-High Fidelity even. Anyway, the effort eventually hit a wall that was judged intractable for that software.

Unfortunately this was long enough ago that I can't remember what that software was, let alone the specific bottleneck.

It wasn't IRC, maybe Jabber or something else XMPP-based? I just can't recall. I just wonder what scaling magic is underpinning Discord.

[Paul Hexem]

42 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Right, but I recall an earlier attempt to fix capacity problems with SL group chat that went pretty far in an attempt to incorporate a then-popular open source online chat framework. This was pre-Sansar, for sure, and I kinda think Andrew was still around, so pre-High Fidelity even. Anyway, the effort eventually hit a wall that was judged intractable for that software.

Unfortunately this was long enough ago that I can't remember what that software was, let alone the specific bottleneck.

It wasn't IRC, maybe Jabber or something else XMPP-based? I just can't recall. I just wonder what scaling magic is underpinning Discord.

XMPP sounds right.

The real issue is that apparently group chat and all the other various group functions are somehow connected, so just opening the chat window to say hello has something to do with land controls.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

I use Discord pretty much daily... for my other commitment in terms of gaming, including voice chat, media sharing, planning, screen sharing. In those regards, I greatly prefer it over Teamspeak.

SL is featured with merely 3 Discords (SL Syndicate, Omega, Signature) - muted, only meant for reading, tucked away in a folder, which literally means that I ever look at them. It doesn't really blend with my typical SL usage.

[FairreLilette]

I haven't tried Discord yet but I have a question...does it 'give out' your real life name?  

If so, that ain't cool...that's intrusion to me.  

I hope this info I have is incorrect...this is too much "Big Brother" if it gives our RL info.  

I am also wondering if "voice" will become more popular as most younger generations come online because they don't know how to type.  Is not knowing how to type a problem going forward as younger ones come on board to the internet?

I don't believe American schools teach typing except perhaps through an "elective" course.   I taught myself typing by buying a book from the Library called "Teach Yourself To Type" and bought a very cheap used typewriter at the time.  I began on the internet and computer in about 1997, I think it was, but I knew how to type by teaching myself.  

Edited April 16, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Solar Legion]

56 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I haven't tried Discord yet but I have a question...does it 'give out' your real life name? 

Only if you're foolish enough to set that as your handle or to link in your Facebook/Other Social media options and have them displayed on your Profile.

In simpler terms: No, you have to provide that information and leave it set to public/shown.

[Solar Legion]

On the greater topic: Even without the varied issues with the Group Chat system, you'd still have groups that prefer to use Discord or other, external services for announcements and such - just as some have shown a preference for using a Blog or dedicated Website. And yes, this sort of thing exists in other services as well.

Yep, Linden Lab needs to detangle the mess and try to fix it. No, no one is being forced to use these alternatives - it is a choice and one that would have existed even if their system had been 'perfect' from day one.

[Rathgrith027]

As someone who uses Discord, Linden Lab should really consider changes to the group chat system, 

8 hours ago, Anna Nova said:

I dislike Discord intensely.

I will never use it.

It smells of Googlelikeness and Facebooklikeness, and I don't trust it. (I don't use those either)

There, someone had to say it.

How? As far as I'm aware Discord isn't one of those companies. By that logic, why are you here? Linden Lab is in a similar boat.

[AyelaNewLife]

7 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

The real issue is that apparently group chat and all the other various group functions are somehow connected, so just opening the chat window to say hello has something to do with land controls.

I die inside a little every time I read this.