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by TheBrokenRail 1091 days ago
Please no.

As someone who doesn't use voice channels, I can't even count how many times I've accidentally joined them because I mis-clicked. And then I have to find the "end call" button because, of course, it's small and located away from the channel itself. It is so unbelievably annoying.

The best feature Discord added recently was the ability to hide channels, so I can finally, once and for all, forget about voice channels.

8 comments

I've been using Discord since 2017 and in that time I think I've literally never accidentally joined a voice channel? The app even prompts you if you're sure about joining under some circumstances.

GP is right, frictionless voice channels is a killer feature. Maybe a toggleable prompt or some other feature to prevent accidentally joining can be an opt-in.

> I've been using Discord since 2017 and in that time I think I've literally never accidentally joined a voice channel?

I've also been on Discord since 2017, and I've done it many times. Especially on servers which put voice channels right next to text channels. And I'm not the only one either, judging by another comment[0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36439417

> The app even prompts you if you're sure about joining under some circumstances.

The app is even worse! It brings a full-screen pop-up and if you haven't granted Discord microphone permissions, it will bug you, every, single, time.

Maybe ask the server admins to make a voice channel category and then not only are text/voice separated/grouped but you can collapse the voice category when not using a voice channel. I really just don't see this problem, it's not even that I haven't done it but also I don't see other people doing it. To be fair though, like half the servers I'm active in organize their channels in this separated way.

Anyway, I think opt-in for some kind of friction makes sense.

Part of the issue here is that historically, audio channels didn't have any association with text channels, and so you'd find setups where people would pair them up and interleave them.

Nowadays each audio channel has an associated text channel, making it a lot easier.

Yeah, it's obvious - just have a user setting: "Join voice channels without confirmation". Requiring confirmation should be the default, to prevent users from accidentally joining.
At least on all the commercial platforms you can now say that specific apps don’t have access to the microphone so this is a fixed problem.
Any design which removes friction in an application gets my blessing. Having to long press and confirm or approve some benign action is super frustrating. Is accidentally joining a call really that bad? "Whoops" *Drop call*
Exposing your microphone to countless strangers could in theory have worse outcomes than “woops” based off numerous factors, such as what you’re doing/talking about/listening to and how long it takes you to notice that you are broadcasting the audio of the room that you’re in.
I use push to talk because I'm considerate.

Keep your mic muted if this is a concern.

Discord makes it clear when you're in a call.

I simply do not believe in adding friction because of bad users.

Push-to-talk is literally adding friction because of “bad users”.

If everybody were “considerate” then a simple toggle wouldn’t cause any issues.

Push-to-talk is a feature, not friction, as far as I'm concerned. I refuse to use apps that only have auto-record.
Friction is not an automatic bad thing. The fact that you have to continue pressing down the button to keep using the feature is friction to stop you from unintentionally using the feature
Also once the session is up, it's too late for your purposes. PTT or "just don't talk" is not a solution at all.
Necro, sry.

Revolt has your mic muted by default.

It's not a huge deal in same sense as exposing parts of your initials, half masked e-mail addresses, or the last 4 digits of credit card numbers are not a huge deal, each of which could allow your adversary recover full details in some cases should they exist.
You just described the appropriate solution to this problem: better visual separation. You don’t need to add friction for people that like voice chats, just make it clear what you’re clicking on so you don’t have an oopsie
When someone clicks a voice channel, prompt the user to confirm that they want to join along with a “don’t ask again” option. Have this option be reconfigurable in user settings if you decide that you do want the prompt later.
The wonderful thing about free software is that you're free to change that behavior to something else that you like better.
Please yes. This is the killer feature. To solve your issue all you need is an otional modal to confirm joining. The idea is that you are joining a room not having a phone call. This enables things like joining by yourself while other participants join.
Yep, I wish there was a feature to hide them completely by default.
I believe they recently added that modal, in a recent installation it prompted me for confirmation before I clicked the "dont ask again" option