New Discord To Discuss Nix/NixOS and the Wider Ecosystem
Hey everyone! We’re a passionate group of Nix users, and today we are launching a new, unofficial, Discord server to discuss Nix! Our server focuses on Nix, NixOS, and surrounding topics.
We have paid extra special attention to the new-user experience, keeping explosive channel lists under wraps, and using new discord features wherever possible.
Why a new server?
Our mission is to create a space that everyone feels welcome to participate in, and share their ideas. We want our space to be inclusive, respectful, and productive.
There are other Nix spaces for discord, but we believe there is room for a new space that prioritizes:
I’m happy that Nix might be exposed to a wider audience, but using proprietary solutions for promoting open source software/managing a FOSS-centric community seems very much backwards.
I’d rather recommend people to join the official Matrix. Many people are already there and it is easy to get into contact with many people. Sure matrix as a software is not perfect and lacks features compared to Discord but it is free and you can participate with ease with the matrix nixos module with your own server.
@marshmallow Don’t get discouraged by people who won’t be part of your local NixOS group anyway. I’m also here for the open sauce, I also won’t use Discord, and yet: Congratulations to your kick-off and good luck with your community!
Happy to see people enthusiastic about trying new things. Those extra spaces for exchange are really important. Tell us how it goes, and what you learn on the way. Surely we can learn something from it, too.
Just please make sure your server can’t be misunderstood as official. Put something specific, unique, distinguishing in the name; maybe there’s something that you want it to be like or about in particular. Same for using the Nix logo: Make a distinct variant, changing the shape or color, and you’re good.
Though this may not be clear enough for people who weren’t participants in the 11k member discord, it was pretty unwelcoming for new users who didn’t want to be subject to mocking, slurs, porn/gore/crypto bots, etc. - all problems pretty endemic to discord, so I’ve no idea how this server will address them.
That would require the agreement of the existing server admins, would be limited to one channel, and you’d still have to deal with the problems of that server.
fwiw I personally dislike discord and matrix, so I hang around here, but I recognize that some folks want real-time assistance and matrix is a massive entry barrier.
In my experience, people in the existing Discord server were very welcoming for me when I was a new user. No one mocked me or made fun of my questions. My experience with it overall is pretty positive.
I’m excited to see Nix grow and meet people where they are. We should be encouraging participation in the community in whatever way makes sense for users, and I personally think that one-size-fits-all is inappropriate for a diverse and large community.