Note by @fastfinge

Nolan Darilek @nolan@gts.thewordnerd.info

4mo

So what is the likely self-hosted Discord alternative for folks wanting to host a chat/online community these days and not be at Discord's mercy whenever it chooses to alter the deal even further?

I don't think it's Matrix unless Element accessibility has improved significantly since I checked last, which was a few months ago.

Delta Chat might be interesting if they get their supergroups idea specced and merged, but even that would just be a simple single group whereas what I'd like is more like a Discord server or Matrix space.

I hate this so much. Been watching alternatives flounder with accessibility issues for years. Then the corporate incumbent does something shitty and blind folks are just stuck with it because it's the most accessible option even with its huge glaring flaws. See also Windows, GitHub, GSuite, etc. This has to stop.

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

4mo

@nolan @svenja Maybe xmpp? Or something involving IRCV3?

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modulux @modulux@node.isonomia.net

4mo

@fastfinge @nolan @svenja To be fair the a11y of discord was sort of there, but also crappy. I never understood how people put up with it.

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Nolan Darilek @nolan@gts.thewordnerd.info

4mo

@modulux @fastfinge @svenja Sure, but at least they were trying. Meanwhile a few years ago the folks at Element made some blog post or other about how privacy/private communication was a human right, I tried applying for a job with them making the case that accessibility needed to be factored into that human right calculus, and radio silence. That was, like, 2019. Here we are in 2026, Discord at least seems to be sort of on top of a11y issues, but I see some of the same issues in Element I saw in 2019. So yeah, it wasn't great, but I could at least participate in Discord in ways I can't easily with Element. Other clients are certainly an option, but if there's one that's both more accessible and featureful then I don't know it.

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🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca

4mo

@nolan @modulux @svenja And the sad thing is any one of us in this thread could do better. But that doesn’t matter for chat apps. We have to use whatever everyone else picks.

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