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Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

blog.zulip.com

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Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#121

Post by krisreddy »

nikisweeting wrote: post #54

Zulip has been absolutely pivotal in our company's remote work setup. It becomes a searchable knolwledgebase as a side-effect of its threading model (the exact opposite of the pile of unorganized mess that Slack usually devolves into): https://monadical.com/posts/how-to-make-remote-work-part-two...

I dont get why everyone thinks that searching for anything in a chat system is a good idea. This has nothing to do with how good the search engine is within the system. Because of Slack's inadequate design, they promoted searching, and now everyone thinks search is a MUST. If you really have to search in chat, I say you already have done something wrong. If searching in an email system, with its vastly more structured data, is itself inefficient, why would anyone think searching in chat is a good idea?

Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#122

Post by varispeed »

krisreddy wrote: post #121
nikisweeting wrote: post #54

Zulip has been absolutely pivotal in our company's remote work setup. It becomes a searchable knolwledgebase as a side-effect of its threading model (the exact opposite of the pile of unorganized mess that Slack usually devolves into): https://monadical.com/posts/how-to-make-remote-work-part-two...

I dont get why everyone thinks that searching for anything in a chat system is a good idea. This has nothing to do with how good the search engine is within the system. Because of Slack's inadequate design, they promoted searching, and now everyone thinks search is a MUST. If you really have to search in chat, I say you already have done something wrong. If searching in an email system, with its vastly more structure…

Well, if you discussed some detail and can't remember which channel / thread it was on then the search is a must. I could agree that search may not be needed for a small team of a couple of people, but large teams with dozens of channels and topics should be able to search them to find required information.

Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#123

Post by cookiecaper »

muska3 wrote: post #24

Honestly I found Zulip way too confusing. Am I the only one?

No, we've had several experienced users immediately disengage because they felt overwhelmed and/or confused (not using as synonyms here, but common related reactions) by the interface. Performance issues, especially on mobile, haven't helped. Most people are just annoyed that you aren't using their favorite chat app already.

Zulip is promising but I think there's a little bit of a bubble around it here on HN. In the real world, its reception is much more mixed, and outside the context of software development, topic threads are awkward and difficult to manage.

Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#124

Post by PudgePacket »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #120
PudgePacket wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can add crates from other registries or git urls. https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/specifying-depende...

That's not the issue - the issue is uploading crates to crates.io not using crates published by others.

That's what I meant though. Neither parts needs to use crates.io.

Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#125

Post by hereisdx »

rst wrote: post #64
hereisdx wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share what you did not like about the app? I would love to know what the users don't like so we can work on those areas.

The UI is somewhat confusing; also, it seems designed to give a view of particular, selected streams and topics of interest, and doesn't always seem to keep up even with those -- but volume on my server is low enough that I want "all messages", and if there's UI which does that reliably... it's not signposted well enough for me to find it before my patience ran out.

Thanks for your response. I've brought this up for discussion on our community server and we will try to find ways to make our UI more intuitive.

Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#126

Post by tabbott »

sandGorgon wrote: post #77

Does Zulip have India/Asia pricing? Slack has an exchange rate adjusted pricing which is much cheaper (in dollar terms) for people paying from India.

We don't at present have an official policy on it, but we'd certainly be open to creating one. (And of course one can always self-host).

What is Slack's adjusted pricing in India/Asia? I don't see it advertised on their website.

Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#127

Post by krisreddy »

varispeed wrote: post #122
krisreddy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont get why everyone thinks that searching for anything in a chat system is a good idea. This has nothing to do with how good the search engine is within the system. Because of Slack's inadequate design, they promoted searching, and now everyone thinks search is a MUST. If you really have to search in chat, I say you already have done something wrong. If searching in an email system, with its vastly more structure…

Well, if you discussed some detail and can't remember which channel / thread it was on then the search is a must. I could agree that search may not be needed for a small team of a couple of people, but large teams with dozens of channels and topics should be able to search them to find required information.

If thats the scenario you think search is most applicable for, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Firstly you have to remember what it is you are looking for. Even if you do, the information is hidden in so many channels that you are unlikely to find what you are looking for without some effort. I think the best search is no search at all. Searching makes sennse for VERY large universe of data, as in WWW. The sheer volume makes creation of optimized search engine a profitable one. But a small universe search engine is inherently sub-optiomal, & is going to make the user sift through the "results" to find what they are looking for.

Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#128

Post by krisreddy »

isbjorn16 wrote: post #6
chubot wrote: post #4

Threads are one major reason I like Zulip over Slack, but speed is another. I usually have two different instances open on my browser with no problems, and one of them has dozens of conversations going on at once. Zulip is also one of the only apps I put on my iPhone, and it's straightforward and unobtrusive. For some reason when I use Slack, the keys feel mushy. I think they're doing so much stuff in the background…

They are the primary reason to use Zulip. In this way, Zulip is more of a Teams competitor than it is a Slack competitor. I, frankly, cannot stand threads. I want a chat room, not a realtime forum. I understand why people would like that, but it still bothers the shit out of me. I work for MS so we have to use Teams, but I'd prefer opt-in to threads vs. threads by default. I fully understand and accept that my way is…

We found the basic models in Slack, Teams and Zulip too rigid. In all such clones of the Slack design, the members of channels (and threads) are static. You are either a participant in the entire channel or you arent. But it doesnt work like that in the real world.

For starters, a thread is a personal idea. (I think this is what you mean by opt-in). My idea of a thread is probably not your idea of a thread. So the concept of shared thread (channel) is hard to fathom. Second, my thread is made of activities I need to complete for the task at hand. In the process, I will interact with as many people or as few as I see fit, all in the pursuit of my goal.

Not all the people I interact with (thread participants) are necessarily members of my team. This is where the rigidity is a real problem with the aforementioned products. I cannot know all the participants at the time of channel creation. And once involve a non-team-member user in the thread, they become unwitting recipients of noise, and they cant do a damn thing about it.

There's gotta be a better way.

Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#129

Post by nikisweeting »

mderazon wrote: post #109
nikisweeting wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google chat is completely unthreaded as far as I can tell. Unless you mean Google Groups?

The other other Google chat https://gsuite.google.com/products/chat/ http://chat.google.com

Woah wth I've never even seen this before. Since when does this exist? Is it cross-compatible with Hangouts at all?

Re: Zulip 3.0: Threaded Open Source Team Chat

#130

Post by mderazon »

nikisweeting wrote: post #129
mderazon wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other other Google chat https://gsuite.google.com/products/chat/ http://chat.google.com

Woah wth I've never even seen this before. Since when does this exist? Is it cross-compatible with Hangouts at all?

It is completely different product, any GSuite accounts gets this included for free.

It has weird relationship with Hangouts. It was previously called "Hangouts Chat" but that was too confusing (doh) so they've changed it to "Google Chat"

When someone sends you a message there, it sometimes pops in your Gmail Hangouts widget... So a lot of people are not aware it exists.

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