Ask HN: What to do when Slack gets too disruptive? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What to do when Slack gets too disruptive?

#41

Post by t0mbstone » Sat, Aug 19, 2017, 2:44 AM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #9

I find strange that they don't support "mute" for custom group of users, notifications or integrations. For example, I need to receive notifications from channel #servers on my mobile, but I don't want to receive ALL notifications. I'd like to have the ability to include and exclude based on source (username, integration, etc.)

If you want advanced notifications that use regular expressions or whatever kind of rules you can dream up, you can always write a slack bot that listens to channels you are in and pings you directly whenever a rule matches. Any average software dev should be able to write a bot that does that, with less than a couple of hours worth of work. There are all sorts of existing bots that are open source and that can be easily modified and deployed. Slack's API is phenomenal.

Re: Ask HN: What to do when Slack gets too disruptive?

#42

Post by t0mbstone » Sat, Aug 19, 2017, 2:48 AM UTC

si13b wrote: post #40

Deactivate your account. I'm serious, but of course your manager needs to support you in your decision. For me Slack represents a 20-30% productivity hit, and it should be Slack that justifies taking up my time rather than vice versa. If someone needs to talk to me, they can email or approach my desk. I know this approach wouldn't be practical for remote teams. But perhaps some of the async communication options like…

Wow. You really don't seem to understand how to use slack.

All anyone has to do to make slack manageable is just mute all of the channels they are in and disable notifications for anything except direct mentions and direct messages.

Done. Now you can still be reached for a direct chat (if necessary), but you aren't forcing people to write you a letter.

Anyone who thinks email is an efficient method of communication is a moron.

Re: Ask HN: What to do when Slack gets too disruptive?

#43

Post by si13b » Sat, Aug 19, 2017, 12:00 PM UTC

t0mbstone wrote: post #42

si13b wrote: post #40

Deactivate your account. I'm serious, but of course your manager needs to support you in your decision. For me Slack represents a 20-30% productivity hit, and it should be Slack that justifies taking up my time rather than vice versa. If someone needs to talk to me, they can email or approach my desk. I know this approach wouldn't be practical for remote teams. But perhaps some of the async communication options like…

Wow. You really don't seem to understand how to use slack. All anyone has to do to make slack manageable is just mute all of the channels they are in and disable notifications for anything except direct mentions and direct messages. Done. Now you can still be reached for a direct chat (if necessary), but you aren't forcing people to write you a letter. Anyone who thinks email is an efficient method of communication i…

Do you always try to make your point by attacking people?

Re: Ask HN: What to do when Slack gets too disruptive?

#44

Post by si13b » Sat, Aug 19, 2017, 12:02 PM UTC

t0mbstone wrote: post #42

si13b wrote: post #40

Deactivate your account. I'm serious, but of course your manager needs to support you in your decision. For me Slack represents a 20-30% productivity hit, and it should be Slack that justifies taking up my time rather than vice versa. If someone needs to talk to me, they can email or approach my desk. I know this approach wouldn't be practical for remote teams. But perhaps some of the async communication options like…

Wow. You really don't seem to understand how to use slack. All anyone has to do to make slack manageable is just mute all of the channels they are in and disable notifications for anything except direct mentions and direct messages. Done. Now you can still be reached for a direct chat (if necessary), but you aren't forcing people to write you a letter. Anyone who thinks email is an efficient method of communication i…

That's the whole point of my comment. Email is less efficient so it will discourage unnecessary communication. Only the important information is divulged and the useless chatter forgotten.

Re: Ask HN: What to do when Slack gets too disruptive?

#45

Post by t0mbstone » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 5:32 AM UTC

si13b wrote: post #43

t0mbstone wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. You really don't seem to understand how to use slack. All anyone has to do to make slack manageable is just mute all of the channels they are in and disable notifications for anything except direct mentions and direct messages. Done. Now you can still be reached for a direct chat (if necessary), but you aren't forcing people to write you a letter. Anyone who thinks email is an efficient method of communication i…

Do you always try to make your point by attacking people?

I apologize. The reason I came on so offensively is because you are spreading something that I perceive as misinformation. Misinformation, I might add, that when heard by the masses, makes my day-to-day job harder.

For example, there are people in my company who are just like you. They can't be bothered to learn how to use slack. They are hard to get a hold of. They are always offline. When asked, they spout misinformation about how distracting slack is, and they actively fight the idea of using it.

Every single one of their complaints can be easily answered if they would just listen for a second and use the notification and channel muting system correctly, and if they were just a little bit more open to the idea of trying new things.