What forum software is still viable?
isnt discourse good enough?
Compared with phpBB, no. It looks great but is far harder to use.
Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
11–20 of 34 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
#12Slack and A Forum are not comparable. Slack is largely for real-time communication which is rarely referenced historically, a forum is more of a knowledge store.
Re: Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
#13Yeah, we use a (virtual?) private instance of stack overflow. Now I just have another "inbox" to check. In the comments to the post you linked, someone mentioned funnelling their slack's @here or @username messages to their email inbox and processing them in arrival order. This made me realize what bothers me about me about slack the most -- it's the lack of customizability. The only experience with slack you can hav…
I've explored the idea of SO for work but I think you've hit the problem with Slack + any other discussion tool: its another inbox to check and that is a mental hurdle for a lot of people. Its not mentally taxing to check someplace else it will just get forgotten if the main mode of communication is instantly sending slack messages.
What might be handy is a bot to take a slack thread and dump it to a wiki page for things you want to live on beyond the organizations slack retention period.
Re: Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
#14Yeah, we use a (virtual?) private instance of stack overflow. Now I just have another "inbox" to check. In the comments to the post you linked, someone mentioned funnelling their slack's @here or @username messages to their email inbox and processing them in arrival order. This made me realize what bothers me about me about slack the most -- it's the lack of customizability. The only experience with slack you can hav…
A tough part about slack is messages deletion after whatever time frame. Not sure what the pricing policies are but even the enterprise account I use for work deletes (private maybe?) messages, and separately the free tier do as well. (maybe the company is just cheap) I'd personally not care too much if it's slack/forum like platform but my biggest request/need is message persistence - especially for professional/ent…
Pretty sure this is a company setting. The basic paid plan has unlimited message retention.
But most companies don’t want unlimited retention because it’s a massive business risk, so they pick a time horizon and set it globally.
Re: Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
#15We use Zulip and productivity sky rocketed, it's Cross between forums and chat and we replaced task tracking too.
Re: Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
#16Slack is more like Sametime Connect
Re: Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
#17Quill was like a cross between slack and some forum functions. Never used it at work but did for another project. Sadly was bought and decommissioned by Twitter.
Re: Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
#18Re: Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
#19I create this account to answer. Yes. In 2010 Aprox i was at charge of a team of four junior programmers and a female documentator. The business was related to Mexican IRS things, mangaing sensitive information. I create am open forum MYBB for all of them and a CATEGORY with my team name, and a forum for each one. Example : Junior 1 forum, he can see and create, but not edit passing x time. He cant see the junior 2,3 or 4 forum. For me and upper management was transparent. I can see the individual forums and general, and documentation was in another subforum.
I ask all the people to say daily what they do (general manner), biggest problem, and biggest acheivement. If they had problem with sales asking suare circles, they put as a problem, if they have problem with internet put there, if they need ask for a schedule change to go to baby, bank , Mexican IRS or similar they do there.
Other forums in the category include tips, code, snippets, rules, etc. Was a complet success. We got a surprise inspection from partners and customers and pass all the security , traceability, scrum and agiles controls. This last aprox two whole years.
Two months later i was demoted/changed to other area of API and special projects because i refuse to obbey against the law / Mexican IRS orders, and internal desorganization. They do the order to not use more, but not erase. Aprox six months later, planning my exit of the business, i ask public in mails permissions to erase all the repositories / forums / database of that era, because have sensible information, that was true. i get authorization and erase all.
The better part was two weeks later we receive a surprise inspection and get 0/10, yes, zero. The people in my old position was a friend of a founder and use the time playing electric guitar in the office. I leave when they ask me to fix all the mess of three years, without power, all responsability, for the same money, but too they ask me for erase all the referential integrity. I quit because in an IRS related business, was suicidal.
But yes, the forum appl yvery well but need take time to proper put levels of visbility and edition.
Re: Ask HN: Have you tried using forum software in place of Slack at work?
#20Yeah, we use a (virtual?) private instance of stack overflow. Now I just have another "inbox" to check. In the comments to the post you linked, someone mentioned funnelling their slack's @here or @username messages to their email inbox and processing them in arrival order. This made me realize what bothers me about me about slack the most -- it's the lack of customizability. The only experience with slack you can hav…
I've explored the idea of SO for work but I think you've hit the problem with Slack + any other discussion tool: its another inbox to check and that is a mental hurdle for a lot of people. Its not mentally taxing to check someplace else it will just get forgotten if the main mode of communication is instantly sending slack messages. What might be handy is a bot to take a slack thread and dump it to a wiki page for th…
> its another inbox to check
Them having a slick way to process emails as well as chat in the same client would be pretty useful. Even though, I know, it disregards an ancient warning [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law