[joenot443]

Something I think we're slowly coming to terms with is that the current generation of techies (the ones who can afford to spend hours upon hours tweaking models and sharing results) really prefer Discord over our Web 2.0 forum type communities like this one. Even reddit on, which is lagging in popularity amongst Gen-Z when compared to Discord or TikTok, you can immediately tell upon reading /r/LocalLLMs that a really big chunk of this community are underaged. To be clear, I think this is a good thing!

There was a generation that preferred mailing lists. There was a generation that preferred IRC and BBS, and "my" generation which likes forums and lengthy comment threads. One would be naiive to think this style (the one we're engaging in here) would last forever.

There are definitely very real criticisms of Discord, searchability and discoverability being the most common, but at this point I think the die has been cast. Young people have made their choice.

[BandButcher]

Agree, im in my early 30s and jump through most platforms, but very little with tiktok/discord. but i have to admit a lot of newer content (and tech framework support) has migrated to discord channels. Even some YouTube sports talk shows have their own discord for call ins, etc...

These big teleconference apps are usually hit or miss but discord seems to be the winner currently for actual "social networking", also add in its trend in the gaming community

[tavavex]

I kind of disagree? I am gen Z myself, and have used reddit extensively. While I like Discord a lot, I strongly disagree with using it to host content, essentially gating non-members from getting what they want (which is what leads to these communities with ludicrously inflated member counts). And this sentiment definitely isn't just me, a lot of the techie "CS major" people I know lean towards using slightly older services - which is also probably why the aforementioned /r/localllama community still has more than 60 thousand members.

That being said, Discord does have some advantages over older forum-type communities - it's usually way better for cultivating smaller communities, and its no-effort-required chat systems means that you can always hop on and discuss things that are on the cutting edge. This is quite important in a field like AI, where it feels like something revolutionary happens every other week.

(Also, I don't know if that implication was intentional, but gen Z and "underaged" haven't meant the same thing for many years now)

[joenot443]

That's good to know! Yeah - I shouldn't imply that these preferences are universal or absolute, just trends I've personally noticed.

Glad to hear you and your peers are still posting on the open web!

[ThrowawayTestr]

Are we so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong.