11–20 of 94 posts
Not only are they phasing out @username, they are removing the very simple /msg username – I now must type /msg @username and hit enter twice to initiate a DM. It's annoying.
Why is this HN material? It's a Slack customer advisory.
Within the technology parts of our org everyone knows each other by handle, and we still let people pick their own handle when they join. It's even pretty common to only know people by handle and not their real/full name. Monday morning and all of a sudden you can't ping a colleague anymore by @username, you have no idea why and now you need to know or find out what their first name is. Eventually that got fixed for everyone but it made Monday worse than usual.
I'm also not sure how this is going to interact with Enterprise Grid though. Since display names aren't unique you can get two people in a channel with the same display name. So if you now ping @John The Ripper, does it bug both, does it not go anywhere?
I have no idea what the product manager was thinking here... Can someone elaborate why this "feature" - which implies potentially a lot of confusion - benefits most users?
I have no idea what the product manager was thinking here... Can someone elaborate why this "feature" - which implies potentially a lot of confusion - benefits most users?
So I think it’s because they’re introducing shared channels between multiple teams/workspaces. As a result usernames can clash.
Long live the username on hacker news.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I think it’s because they’re introducing shared channels between multiple teams/workspaces. As a result usernames can clash.
I can't help but notice that slack is starting to get "enterprise" (threaded comments, this username thingy, ... ). They seem to be introducing a lot of complexity for all of the users, while only some of them would benefit from these new features. I'm hoping that they start realizing this, and keep simple chat the default, while allowing you to opt-in for all these "handy" features...
I have no idea what the product manager was thinking here... Can someone elaborate why this "feature" - which implies potentially a lot of confusion - benefits most users?
Display Name: what everyone sees next to your username, no guarantees that you don't change it every 5 minutes though...
username: something short you choose and change rarely, can be cool, memorable, fun, and quite creative, always unique
[Real Name: who cares, often necessary for work tools even though email ought to be enough]
Sounds like it's time to say a lingering farewell to Slack.