I see it's once again time to post this: https://taggart-tech.com/discord-alternatives

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@rootwyrm

most of Discord's power user moderation tools are reliant on third-party bots or demonstrably ineffective.

As an admin of a 3000+ user server, I strongly disagree. AutoMod is a lifesaver and I can't imagine running a public space without something equivalent.

[rootwyrm@weird.autos]

@mttaggart I also admin on rather large servers. If Discord makes one more claim their 'automod' actually stops the hacked account spamming, I will stab that employee in the face.
It absolutely does not. Literally 99% of the 'moderation' I do, is cleaning up after spammers posting obvious phishing links in every single channel that their 'suspected spam' block continuously lets through.

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@rootwyrm That's true, but the ability to create useful blocklists of terms limits the attacks to one per technique. The lists I have block the vast majority of attempts. If Stoat has that capacity, great.

[mikesiegel@infosec.exchange]

@mttaggart I'll just go back to IRC. Wait I never left...

[leberschnitzel@existiert.ch]

@mttaggart ah yeah if you manage big communities that might be a problem. For my 25 friends it doesn't really matter.
I tried it when it was still revolt and really liked it, but never actually made the move

@rootwyrm

[murdoccc@infosec.exchange]

@32x33 I miss the CrankySec community, but I really don't miss Discord.

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@gme I'm not sure what criteria you're using, but for public communities it absolutely is not. The utter lack of moderation capability makes it unsafe for that use case. Private comms? Fine. But that's not really Discord's primary purpose.

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@gme That is not what I'm talking about. When you run a community, moderation is per room, which doesn't scale in the least. The automation via bots like Draupnir is rudimentary at best, and incredibly hamfisted (especially for E2EE). Yes, I can take action on individual users. I cannot prevent attacks usefully at scale. And setting all of the additional tooling up for what does exist is the kind of sysadmin nightmare that Discord successfully abstracted away.

Meanwhile, Discourse has these tools out of the box. They serve different purposes, but I contend that for community building, one is far superior.

[bretthaines@infosec.exchange]

@mttaggart the first company I worked for used Rocket.Chat for their IMs and it worked better than MS Teams or Google Chat, both of which I've used at later employers. Didn't look as flashy but it was far more stable. I really hope they stick with it for my old coworkers' sake.

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@bretthaines It's very good! And their native federation protocol has entered general availability.

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@gme Ah, but what has a community profited to gain E2EE, only to lose trust and safety? As always, "it depends," but IME a public Matrix server is just courting disaster.

[shom@gts.shom.dev]

@mttaggart this is fantastic!
I've had excellent experience with Discourse but haven't been part of one that has enabled chat. Have you had a chance to try it?

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@shom I have. It's functional, but I wouldn't call it a first-class citizen yet. And as noted elsewhere E2EE is not a feature, so be aware of that.

[tehfishman@ioc.exchange]

@mttaggart Have you tried the streaming functionality? I have a small Discord community that uses the streaming features pretty often, and it'll be a hard to convince people to ditch Discord if streaming isn't very good.

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@tehfishman I haven't, but I'm keen to.

[shom@gts.shom.dev]

@mttaggart thanks, good to know. Best to treat it like the Fediverse where everything iis quasi public.

[wjmaggos@liberal.city]

@mttaggart

you seem to be very knowledgeable and fair about all these, but I so want the answer to be #matrix cause it could also theoretically do all our messaging and video chat and even POTS eventually. I feel like if we want the less techy to embrace our world, it can't be just about switching apps yet again, but also must at least offer the possibility of eliminating the need for other apps. IDK.

[mttaggart@infosec.exchange]

@wjmaggos Matrix can be the answer! I was very optimistic, and I still think there's a lot to like. For private communities, I think it's wonderful. The problem arises in large public communities because of the lack of moderation tooling. Without that aspect of the platform, it's simply too dangerous to open the doors to the general internet.

[amici@fribygda.no]

@mttaggart

missing consideration: video chatting

[cos@sauna.social]

@mttaggart good list, but I don't think it's fair to Matrix today.

The CSAM attacks happened, but moderation tools have taken a big leap since. You can quite easily use a moderation bot that subscribes to public ban lists. This almost fully ends any generic spam.

Also you talk about matrix.org as "flagship server". Friends don't let friends use matrix.org. Use small/medium sized servers instead and you get better performance. Same applies to Mastodon - don't use mastodon.social, decentralize!

My main criticism would be the buggy mobile clients, and super slow migration from Element Classic to Element X. Element web/desktop are decent quality, but far from polished.

Oh and you don't even mention bridges. Other alternatives don't even try to support them. Bridges are a key feature.