This is a copy of https://github.com/discord/discord-api-docs/discussions/3731
It has been posted here for multiple reasons, including safety and availability.
If the above link doesn't work, does it mean that it has been deleted... Most likely not by me tho.Discord did in fact lock the discussion as of writing this (29th of august, 2021).
Not sure when this happened, but Discord did in fact delete the discussion completely. Thankfully is the web-archive (And this gist) still present.
For the past months did I consider whether I should write this here or not, but after the info that the Discord.py Dev stoped his work because of recent events did I now decide to write this down.
It will be a long read, so I won't blame you, if you either stop midway or take breaks in-between.
For multiple reasons, including to have proof that I wrote this, will this be crossposted to a Gist and also a web-archive entry made.
Since the day I started developing my bot was I told that the Discord API and Discord itself isn't the best. I first didn't want to believe, but after over 3 years now can I say that I was wrong here.
That fact and the fact of at least 2 library devs left or at least took a break because of Discord's recent decisions made me do this post.
For the question "Why here?": This is the best place where Discord will find it. The Discord feedback page is more dead than my grandfather (May he rest in peace) and your chance at getting your feedback the exposure to even get seen by Discord is lower than winning in the lottery... 6 times in a row.
There have been several issues I had with Discord that only became bigger and bigger with time.
The biggest issue was and still is, that Discord doesn't seem to care about feedback of well-known people unless they're hand-picked by Discord themself it seems.
This was pointed out in the Gist of Rapptz where Discord seems to have a server for big bot devs to share sneak-peeks with them, but not with those that need to squeeze this API change into their libraries to even support it.
A fellow dev, who has a large bot even mentioned that they (Discord) no longer seem to invite devs to that server in those cases.
Library devs but also other people gave countless feedback, explaining what they dislike about something being implemented.
In other cases does Discord do unrealistic market-research or surveys that are extremely unrealistic and perhaps even biased to some extend.
Take their Redesign for example.
In a Reddit post I made did I point out, how Discord mentions, that they have over 150 million users each month, but then state in their blog post that they only asked around 26,000 people about how their redesign should look like. This is an EXTREMELY low number to take feedback of... To put it in perspective: 26,000 is only 0.0173% of the entire monthly userbase they claim to have, which is basically nothing.
And what the result is can you see everywhere: People complaining that this redesign is pointless, shouldn't exist, is an eyesore and even bad for colour blind people.
This is only one of the many examples where Discord "takes feedback" from either the wrong demographic or doesn't take enough feedback at all to have a valuable source.
Many lib devs could probably tell you many stories of how much Discord loves to just ignore feedback given to them unless it's in a yes-man kind of way (Approving everything and not complaining).
Slash commands are another example. Many devs gave their general feedback about what is missing before slash commands were even in public beta, yet Discord ignored the feedback or implemented it in such a way that it was worse than what has been suggested and published a badly made, half-polished feature barely anyone in the dev community really liked.
Instead of a flexible system that would allow devs to define their own features and behaviours would you have a limited, rigid system where you can't even set the commands as guild only without doing API-spam.
Other examples are the entire mess of the Presence and Member Intents and that with their implementation bots lost a critical way of chunking members for better handling of things such as nickname changes and alike (Better ways of caching and such).
It's things like those take make me question why I'm still on this platform or why it is that popular to begin with.
While Discord seems to claim that they don't force their slash commands on bot devs do I see the opposite.
You give us a deadline to move to this system before the bot loses access to messages, the most crucial thing needed by a majority of bots, late on in 2022.
Yes, I'm aware that this "only" affects bots over 100 servers (that require verification) but the majority of bots will sooner or later reach this critical mass and the only bots that stay below this number are often private ones that are used on only a hand full of servers.
Further is Discord's verification system laughable at best.
Multiple devs constantly report their bot being flagged for "Inorganic growth" because they do what every bot dev would do: Adding their bot to a bot list.
Of course, will the bot have a sudden growth, because people will find it more easily through a google search now. And instead of fixing their system does Discord instead "recommend" to not add the bot to the bot list...
Guys... If you're aware that the bot is on a bot list, either by finding it out on your own or by getting it told to you by the dev, should you perhaps consider removing that flag? There is no clear justification for keeping the bot flagged or even unapproved just because your system sees it as inorganic growth that a dev does add their bot to a bot list to get exposure... Do you want us to share our bots or not?!
I still remember that one video about the introduction of Nitro, where Discord claims they will never put core features behind a paywall... Oh how fun where those times.
Now Discord seems to push a lot of features with some core features/options being Nitro (Not Nitro Classic) or boost exclusive.
The line of what counts as "core features" and what is extra becomes more and more blurry.
Not only that, but Discord in one way or another even encourages spam now through their implementation of 4k message length for Nitro users.
It's extremely disgusting that Nitro gets more and more and more, while Nitro classic stays where it is, getting no benefits anymore...
This seems to be the biggest issue here. Discord seems to lack a proper way of communication with the majority of people they offer their service towards.
People ask for a command system? Discord gives a system that has limitations that nobody likes.
A severe issue was found like the everyone mention exploit? Discord takes a long time to fix it because it's "not important".
Generally speaking do I feel like Discord has a completely wrong look of what people expect or want. This is most commonly present with their redesign and branding which seems to specifically target younger children below the age of 13 that their Site requires to be used.
Another case is bug reports where a bug is labelled as "Not important" while the reported bug in question is reproducible across multiple platforms, is mentioned by several people and causes annoyance and bad user experience everywhere.
It also seems like that library devs, the core part between bot devs and Discord, seem to get no real communication whatsoever.
Features are shared with them once it's already out, giving little to no time to devs to adabt.
They are released in a often unpolished or unfinished state, requiring the dev to do quirky things to support it as best as they can.
When a breaking change is made is it mentioned vaguely (i.e. through a API Docs PR) or only after it has been live after some time.
The core issue here is that library devs are expected to implement new features ASAP, but don't get the time they need to do so. Meanwhile, Discord releases feature after feature after feature without any breathing room in between and with those features being in a fairly unfinished state as so much else.
Libraries offered for the Discord API are often not an "Implement feature and Release" but often have many important steps in between like testing, writing proper documentation and fixing bugs that may appear during initial tests. This takes time and is in conflict with Discord's "release feature and tell devs" mentality as of now.
I get that normal users are the core customer to you and I do get that you need to make money which is why many features are behind paywalls, but I don't get how you can treat devs, the people that put effort, sweat and love into their stuff, which such little care.
Improve your communication, open up a server or specific channels for lib devs to have more direct contact with you (Not just a few selected people of large bots. THEY are NOT the ones that have to implement the stuff you release!) and actually care more about feedback instead of just giving basic "Won't be necessary" or "Won't be implemented because not needed" responses (I'm looking at you night... No hate, but sometimes you're just... ugh...).
While you try to cater to one group do you (unknowingly) alienate the devs that bring life to Discord too.
After all are bots what can make a server more enjoyable and safe. And not everyone can or will add Dyno, Mee6 and Rhythm to their server, because other bots exist too.
But with the constant bad changes you do, I see more and more bots stopping to exist. This happened with the introduction of verification and it happens now with the message intent... You destroy your own fanbase with each update you do...
I know I sound harsh here and as if I only have hate for Discord.
But it's only because I care for this platform. It is the place where I made new friends, discovered new groups of people and interests, where I even found love for some time and not to mention where I made a project that I still work on to this very day and that made many, MANY people happy...
But seeing all those changes Discord makes I can't stand this anymore, let alone because devs I started to value a lot going away for reasons they state are coming from Discord.
So please... Take this not as a direct attack towards you Discord... Take it as an honest critique of what you should do better, because if this continues, will your platform die sooner than you think.
Sincerely,
Andre