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Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

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Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#121

Post by charcircuit »

shmerl wrote: post #72
dariusj18 wrote: post #65

For me Slack did not replace email, it replaced Instant Messenger. It replaced standing up from my desk and walking into another office to ask a question that I ether needed the answer to now, or never. EDIT: I hate how all these code projects have their own Slack though, it's super annoying and has been a horrible way to engage with the community and get answers to questions. (Discord too)

I'm more annoyed that more of them don't use Matrix.

I'd prefer Discord itself since it has better UX than matrix.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#122

Post by tptacek »

kasey_junk wrote: post #102
tptacek wrote: post #25

I think the answer here is pretty straightforward: run a Discourse board alongside your Slack, and nudge conversations out of the Slack and onto the board. The board works for long-form stuff, and for stuff you need to reference in the future; Slack works for interactivity when you want the interactivity . We've been doing this for over a year at Fly.io and it's worked out great; I wish every other place I've worked…

Question. What is the value of slack at that point? It seems, as someone with no experience with this setup, that it’s just notifications? Couldn’t your threaded system just poll more?

It's a good question and I don't have the answer, beyond that there is a lot of value to it; if we lost Slack, it'd be a big problem, even though the board works really well.

There is something to being able to just randomly vent or muse on Slack and have a conversation organically pick up --- or not pick up, it's the optionality that's maybe important? Whereas, every message board post feels like an appeal for feedback and discussion, and so requires just a bit more activation energy.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#123

Post by tourist2d »

philip1209 wrote: post #51
edgyquant wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m interested in your idea, bringing what we’ve mastered in chat to the forum, but I don’t want to give my phone number or spin up a forum just to see. Is there an example forum?

I've been posting updates here, where you can see a demo: https://bookletupdates.substack.com I'm working on "public" groups, so that I can link directly to a meta group about the project from the homepage. It should be live early next week! -- I'm using phone number as primary login for these reasons: 1. I want passwordless login 2. Passwordless login with email is confusing because most people have multiple emails.…

Let me share with you, this one quick, easy trick on how to lose 90% of sign ups.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#124

Post by stedman »

nescioquid wrote: post #88
Spoom wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an unofficial policy in my company that all pertinent information should be in the first message specifically to avoid the scenario you mention. Highly recommended.

Can you shed light on how this consciousness was raised? I'm the sort who demurs to be his own cause. edit: this is evidence (for me) of why UX is B.S. completely detached from HCI.

Curious to hear more about your UX vs HCI thesis

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#125

Post by inevaexisted »

I introduced a similar thing at my work place and it works (there's a few points where people forget or sometimes there's cross over) we added some state to it to so in the context of triaging bugs.

we reacted to the original message with:

ticks - to indicate the bug or issue was accepted and we had enough information to raise the problem/issue into our tracking system

cross - to indicate not a bug

jiraicon - to indicate a ticket had been raised (and linked into the thread) all the information so far would be in the ticket and further comms hence forth would be in the ticket system.

in the channels we did this in, messages would be pinned till they were given the tick/cross so people knew what needed triage and what didn't (treated triage as a team sport, whomever got to it first saved the rest from having to dive into it, unless they so wished)

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#126

Post by onion2k »

steelframe wrote: post #73
philip1209 wrote: post #47

I'm tired of constant chatting. Slack encourages quick, stream-of-consciousness, short responses. Plus, it's hard to find past discussion, and it's hard to jump in after being gone for a few days (or, even a few hours). Threads are absolutely the answer. But, the defaults matter - Slack isn't encouraging threaded, long-form messages. Instead, it makes all messages feel urgent - and it makes the cost of sending a mess…

My friend works at a company that -- on orders from legal -- has set a 5-day "disappearing messages" policy for all of the corp Slack. Unfortunately nearly all technical discussions happen on Slack. He tells me that it's not unusual for messages to start disappearing before the issue being worked on has even been resolved, and everyone has to re-ask the same questions and re-post the answers at that point, and someti…

This seems like a very simple problem to solve - the issue owner should move important discussions to somewhere that isn't Slack. Writing a summary (or just cut and paste from the Slack messages) into a Jira or Github issue comment isn't much effort, and reading a summary of a problem is a lot easier for new people.

This actually highlights a problem of Slack. Reading an old Slack conversation is massively inefficient, especially if people have chimed in with irrevelevant stuff. Taking what you learn from a Slack conversation and using it to update proper docs or an issue is far better for anyone who isn't part of that conversation at the time.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#127

Post by scarface74 »

What if you had culture where Slack messages don’t warrant immediate replies?

I set aside time to do “deep work” where I quit Slack and Outlook. If there is something urgent someone could text me (it never happens). If it is an “emergency”, I would get a page through my paging app that has a special entitlement to allow it to bypass silent and DND.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#128

Post by PikachuEXE »

philip1209 wrote: post #79
PikachuEXE wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have tried Zulip but I think Twist has better UX & UI. https://twist.com/slack-alternative Supported by Doist which also supports Todoist which I am using

I've used Twist. It's a good piece of software, but I think it's too work-focused. Consumerization of Enterprise is real - people don't want work to feel like work. Even Slack is more of a social tool than a work tool [1]. So, I think that the key to building a great work-focused tool is to start on non-work use cases - such as social groups. Looking at Twist - I don't think it emphasizes usability, users in multiple…

No problem!

Please suggest more solutions.

We can always use more choices.

I am just mentioning what works for me (for now).

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#129

Post by shmerl »

charcircuit wrote: post #121
shmerl wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more annoyed that more of them don't use Matrix.

I'd prefer Discord itself since it has better UX than matrix.

I prefer to avoid closed and non federated IM services if possible.

Re: Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?

#130

Post by vvoyer »

If you want to be ahead of other engineers and have a meaningful impact, then you’ll want to maximize the number of uninterrupted deep work sessions. The more you can fit in a week the more you’ll achieve (rfcs, implementations, reviews).

This is one of the biggest contributor for high performing profiles.

To manage this when using Slack you can:

- set your status as “deep work” and decide to pause notifications for x hours

- use “mark as unread”. when you want to peek something but not act on it yet

- use “remind me” on messages you want to deal later on through the week

- avoid DMs has much as possible, so not just one person can help you, but anyone from your team

- avoid Slack on the phone

Then deal with notifications in bulk.

Slack isn’t killing our productivity, HN and twitter are not killing it either.

Our addictions to notifications is, but we can manage this with discipline and training.

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