1
b2plane
2y

You guys probably use slack at work. Or teams. But what about using discord? Would it be a good idea to use a discord server and create and manage clients' projects that way? Its free and simple to do. I have the most experience with discord even coding custom discord hooks.

For example I'd categorize each project by discord categories, and within each category I'd have channels such as general, ui, coding etc so engineers team project managers designers and clients can communicate in real time.

The biggest downside to this approach is... Discord allows maximum 50 categories per server. What if i have more than 50 projects to work on? I wouldn't be able to create a new category for that project. The growth and scalability of a company is limited thst way. That's what sucks. I'd have to create a brand new server and repeat this cycle again. And each server having max 50 projects. This doesnt sound very efficient right?

Is there a better way? Or do i have to use slack?

Comments
  • 4
    ever heard of a thing called "data safety"?

    any data that's in the cloud is basically leaked by default.

    any solution that wants to have any chance of not being a clusterfuck has to be selfhosted. so basically all three of those are out. (and discord, being targeted at gamers, might make a very unprofessional impression).

    we're using rocketchat, by the way.
  • 0
    @tosensei solid point. I'll research and test out rocketchat. Can you tell me in summary how rocketchat works and is it worth it? I see it's not free (30 day free trial). Do you think it's the best way to communicate with the clients using such medium or what would you prefer as second option next to rocketchat?
  • 1
    @b2plane we're using rocketchat community. has everything we need, and is free.

    and i don't know what you mean by "how it works" - it's a chat-app. you can start 1:1-conversations, you have group chats, you can integrate it with lots of stuff (like videochats)...

    for customers, we use guest accounts that have only access to group chats they're assigned to.
  • 0
    @tosensei and how are you guys organizing projects by clients' in rocketchat? So far i see i can create team channels under Teams category and other channels within Channels category. Is there a way to create more categories?

    For example this is how i imagine it:

    Lets say you have 3 clients (3 different unique projects). That means you group them in 3 different categories on rocketchat:

    - ProjectName1
    -- Channel1
    -- Channel2
    -- etc
    - ProjectName2
    -- Channel1
    -- Channel2
    -- etc
    - ProjectName3
    -- Channel1
    -- etc

    And repeat this for each new project/client. That way in each category i can have channels for UI, coding, general, project management, git pull logs, crash logs maybe etc.

    Is that possible?
  • 1
    three major groups:

    * internal groups (based on teams etc.)

    * internal project groups

    * external project groups (only where customers need to chat with us on a group-basis)

    what you want is possible too, i guess, but i'm not the one administrating our instance, so i can't say for sure.
  • 0
    @tosensei something like this? For example in Teams category i add everyone who is assigned to work on the project (internal).

    In Channels category i assign everyone who works on that project + clients (external).

    But that's sort of not flexible enough. What if i want to decouple a separate channel for ui, so i dont clog the team project-1 channel with images and ui changes?

    I can't find any option to create more categories. It seems like it forces only Teams and Channels. Do you also have only these 2 categories or are there more?
  • 0
    @tosensei seems like rocketchat cant do that. A bunch of requests on github from 2016 and 2018 and it was never added. People are pissed. So rocketchat is good but not flexible enough for me, so I'll pass.

    Slack is good but just for creating a new category i have to buy the whole slack paid subscription.... Pass

    Only discord is the most flexible and free...
  • 1
    @b2plane you can use Discord, if the customer wants that. In one project we do use a separate server for one project. However, it is purely informative and we use it for meetings and updates. No login data nor userdata nor passwords or other secrets are shared, that is managed through other means of communication. However usually it is handled either through company internal teams for internal projects, or external organisations teams for customer projects. Some customers also used slack, and other stuff aswell. There is not one solution to rule them all.
  • 1
    @b2plane if you need _group channels_ for communicating separate parts of a project in _this detail_ - then you're doing something wrong.

    at this granularity, communication between companies should be completely one on one IMHO. or you're creating too much management overhead.

    or, in code-speak: your management objects are too tightly coupled, you need to enforce a more layered architecture.
  • 0
    @thebiochemic "some customers use slack" does that mean the medium of communication used (rocketchat, discord, slack, teams, etc) depends on what the customer wants or should it be forced down to what the company has organized (1 of the mediums)?

    I just want a medium (any) but everything what discord can do. Just to create categories (projects) and within them group channels per each project
  • 0
    @tosensei it could be true. Like i said im not sure if this is the best way to do it. I just have to decouple different clients (projects) and teams assigned to each project. They should not know about each other. Clients should not be able to communicate with each other nor teams who arent assigned to work on that project. Everyone should be isolated and grouped in "pods"

    This is one approach of how i would do it, but is there a smarter approach with less overhead?

    How would you do it so you achieve that which i explained was the goal?
  • 1
    @b2plane yes exactly. Customers want to use their own shit, whatever it is. If they have built their own infrastructure, then youll be likely to use that. In my past few years experience that was true without exceptions.

    For internal communication that is a different story
  • 2
    in one of my past employments we used mattermost for the internal communications between devs. Not sure about it's state tho, since i havent heard from that software in a while
  • 1
    @thebiochemic what do you recommend me to use?
  • 2
    +1 for rocket chat. I remember that discord was not good with sharing (big) files. Also, rocket chat probably has Jira / CI plugins, don't know if discord has that?
  • 1
    @retoor i think discord can have anything if you integrate it through webhooks. But if i use rocketchat what is the correct way of organizing channels on a company level overview?
  • 1
    @b2plane I didn't use rocket chat for years now so I don't know. But it was the best slack alternative. Worked the same back then
  • 1
    @retoor do you remember at least how the project you worked on was organized by channels and categories?
  • 1
    @b2plane check this out:
    https://mattermost.com/

    otherwise
    https://microsoft.com/en-us/...

    or
    https://slack.com/

    use discord as a last resort.
  • 1
    @retoor it does not. But you can use webhooks with Gitlab for example. Mattermost worked with that stuff aswell if i remember.

    i never used rocket chat personally, bit i have heard good things about it.

    @b2plane i terms of organizing these services internally, we usually have all employees in there of *our* Organisation and then split them off by teams. These teams then have their topics, which are completely up to the teams (since different teams have different requirements). Here aswell there is no answer for everything.
  • 1
    @b2plane Mattermost is a self-hostable Slack clone. I used it at a project (customer was a university) for 9mo, it was on par. The website also says it's "Built for security, privacy and compliance"
  • 0
    @b2plane just in channels
  • 3
    What about Unreal Tournament?
  • 2
    @swolebrothers is not free. Try alien arena
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