Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline? • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by madeofpalk » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 9:08 AM UTC

habosa wrote: post #150

I'm new to Slack (just leaving a FAANG for a startup) and all the inbox management skills I've built up over the years seem to be useless now. Is there a good way to create an async task list from Slack? Right now if I get a message on Slack that I want to handle later I can: a) Ignore it, so I keep the unread "red dot" b) Use the "remind me" feature to make it synchronous but later c) Just ... handle it now (sigh) W…

Just don't look at slack that often?

I work at an all-remote company and I just... don't notice when someone messages me on Slack, and i check it on my own schedule. It all just works.

I mute all channels I join apart from a few directly related to me on a daily basis. I very deliberately completely silence Slack so it's impossible for it to make a noise. I'm on windows so I don't get the notification toasts or the jumping in the Mac dock, so someone messaging me isn't distracting.

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

#152

Post by OskarS » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 9:18 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #126

steelframe wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inefficien…

The problem here isn’t Slack. Clearly the participants prefer discussing things like this in Slack over doing it in issues or Jira or whatever (which I understand, it’s a much nicer medium for discussion, IMHO), otherwise they would already be doing that. Your suggestion is essentially “just subvert the IT/legal policies by discussing it elsewhere, in a less efficient way”.

Clearly the problem here is the policy.

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

#153

Post by selfhoster11 » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 9:24 AM UTC

eitland wrote: post #133

wintercarver wrote: post #131

At my company we have a “thoughtful communication” guide[1] that addresses Slack and other communication tools. The simple rule for Slack is it’s for ephemeral or urgent communication only. All “conversation” material essentially routes through email and it works great. Takes some getting used to but our Slack instance is very, very relaxed. Most employees silence all Slack notifications and are encouraged to do so t…

> The simple rule for Slack is it’s for ephemeral or urgent communication only. [...] Most employees silence all Slack notifications and are encouraged to do so [...] How do urgent combine with silencing notifications? Honest question, it seems I am missing something from the context here.

If it's anything like one of the places I've worked at, it doesn't combine. You're simply expected to be switched on throughout the work day.

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

#154

Post by quietbritishjim » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 9:25 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #126

steelframe wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inefficien…

> move important discussions to somewhere that isn't Slack

At first I read this as having the discussion on a different medium in the first place, which seems a bit extreme. But from the rest of your comment I think mean just copy the discussion rather than move it, by copying and pasting (or manually re-summarising) elsewhere. I definitely agree with that. As you say at the end, that's a good idea even if Slack messages aren't auto-destroyed. (But there are definitely cases where it seems like you'll never need some scrap of information again and then it turns out you do.)

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

#155

Post by blitzar » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 9:43 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #71

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…

I never bother reading slack backlogs. I use slack to get quick answers to questions and then for any kind of design decisions, they go in to a diagram or wiki page which will be discussed in the next meeting.

Slack is like twitter, if you are scrolling back through the feed bad things are happening.

Have the conversation and put the relevant stuff into the ticket / bug / wiki. If there are FAQ, time to write an FAQ!

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

#156

Post by blitzar » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 9:45 AM UTC

philip1209 wrote: post #58

adenozine wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landing page isn't particularly appetizing with "SATAN'S COFFEE" in big block letters. Is that sentimental to you?

Yes, the homepage is a placeholder. Planning to update it in the next couple of weeks. Satan's Coffee is a great little spot in Barcelona. The inspiration was that Booklet should feel like a fika [1] where once a day you sit down and participate in some thoughtful conversations. I spent a couple of years as a digital nomad, and have fond memories of some cafes such as Satan's Coffee! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

No wifi, no decaf, no bullshit.

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

#157

Post by aheckler » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 9:45 AM UTC

alberth wrote: post #45

Has anyone used P2 (by Wordpress) as a replacement for Slack? https://wordpress.com/p2/ It seems most similar to FB Workplace from what I’m reading.

I work at Automattic (makers of P2) and even we don't use it as a replacement for Slack. What P2 replaces for us is all internal email.

In fact, we use Slack quite heavily ourselves, for any real-time/synchronous discussions. P2 is for non-realtime/async discussions, and more or less serves as the "paper of record" for the company.

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

#158

Post by blitzar » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 9:55 AM UTC

novok wrote: post #100

nescioquid wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Casual, asynchronous chat is great ... I'm in the lead-weight-dragging tail (working in a bank using Teams, but dealt with this at the last job in Slack as well). The major hassle seems to be getting people to understand this is asynchronous communication (perpetrators are both developers and executives) and this problem seems to stand before the rest of the more sophisticated complaints evinced here can be even ad…

I put my status as nohello.net , and if people don't follow, I politely say that nohello.net is the better way to do things in the future, and everyone can answer you questions faster if you do it that way.

I one day dream of having someone place my outgoing calls Is this xyz? Please hold for Blitzar. I might have to extend this to all messages.

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

#159

Post by tvaughan » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 10:32 AM UTC

philip1209 wrote: post #84

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12

> For the next five years I operated in “Slack culture”, the communication paradigm that I suspect is in use by many companies these days. Email inboxes were more or less reserved for broadcasts from exec and HR along with JIRA spam. Everything else happens on Slack. This is the real problem, IMO. Slack shouldn't be replacing e-mail or meetings or phone calls. It's great for impromptu discussions with a lot of back-a…

This behavior is caused by the presence indicator. People subsconsiously are afraid that closing Slack will signal to their boss (and team) that they're not working. However, the result is that they spend their days slacking - not working. Presence indicators are a dark pattern.

With Twist, https://twist.com/, everything is a thread and no presence indicators

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

#160

Post by Jiejeing » Fri, Feb 18, 2022, 10:50 AM UTC

Microsoft has a solution to that problem: Teams. It is so painful to use and to do anything in it that it encourages people to actually use the bug tracker or other venues to discuss any serious topic.