Related: "Slack is the opposite of organizational memory"
https://abe-winter.github.io/plea's/help/2018/02/11/slack.ht...
Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?
81–85 of 85 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?
#82Because it's good enough, has nice integrations, and is better than email. Convincing non-technical parts of my team to use a chat application is impossible if it can't go on their phones and is basically one single step to get going. Slack fits that criteria. That being said, their notification logic. I remember seeing this insane flowchart demonstrating how complicated slack's logic was when determining whether to…
> is better than email
You need to define better first, for many a-synchronous tasks or less-time-critical email is superior to Slack
Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
@boublepop good day are you around can you explain to me how this comm style isn't also annoying pls ? dropped VOIP call @channel can anyone else help me with this
I can’t explain to you why you find it annoying. I honestly don’t. What’s annoying about asking people if they are around? Or asking a question in a channel?
I mean, apart from anything else it's literally exactly the same issues you were highlighting with email: unnecessary verbiage to warm the discussion up and copying in loads of people indirectly involved, which may or may not be related to internal politics. And the fact the discussion which actually resolves the issue often won't take place in the channel.
With Slack you've got the added irritation of an expectation of real time responses, especially when someone's @mentioning the boss or everyone else in the division a minute after you haven't responded...
Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slack prevents deep work. I respond to e-mails 2-4 times a day during task transitions. The sender does not anticipate an immediate response so the 1-2 hours delay is OK. Compare this to Slack which requires constant monitoring where senders anticipate an immediate response. Not to mention the increase in casual "water cooler" conversations. The find the same people that recommend Slack are the same people that recom…
If you think that Slack requires constant monitoring then I think you are using it wrong. I believe there is zero difference in the reply expectations of Slack and email. As per my initial comment, you are someone who doesn't check email and that's ok, in my engineering manager role I receive over 200 emails a day. Most of these could be 3 - 10 word slack messages but they arrive in my inbox with the same urgency as…
I check (and respond to) e-mails multiple times a day. I said that in the comment you're replying to. Your replies make it clear that you do not have experience at scale. Replying to e-mails in 2-3 hours is not "someone who doesn't check email" and receiving 200+ e-mails where most could "be 3 - 10 work slack messages" is not effective nor efficient leadership.
Re: Ask HN: Why do people love Slack?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slack prevents deep work. I respond to e-mails 2-4 times a day during task transitions. The sender does not anticipate an immediate response so the 1-2 hours delay is OK. Compare this to Slack which requires constant monitoring where senders anticipate an immediate response. Not to mention the increase in casual "water cooler" conversations. The find the same people that recommend Slack are the same people that recom…
I disable Slack notifications, and approach the replies just like I do with email. The only exception are meetings and escalations when something is on fire.
Is there a benefit to using Slack and e-mail if there's no distinction in the use case? Perhaps that's where I'm differing from others here.