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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?

#101

Post by novok »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #13
e2021 wrote: post #3

One of the things I miss working at Facebook is the internal FB (called Workplace). It basically replaced email for the whole company, and worked really well for long form posts where maybe you would write some proposal up or make an announcement and get a bunch of comments. I now work at a slack centric company, and it just doesn't compare - there is no 'newsfeed', so unless you remember to check all the channels, y…

Does it show completely different posts each time you reload the page, like it does on Facebook.com?

Yeah you miss a lot with newsfeeds lol.

If people need you to see something, they can message you directly. I just look at some priority channels semi regularly. No channels create notifications for me, thread replies do not either only DMs and direct @mentions do.

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

#102

Post by kasey_junk »

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?

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

#103

Post by nescioquid »

ungamed wrote: post #96
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.

The business I work for has the same, it is branded "Naked pings suck".

That's grand and I'm envious. I guess what I'm suggesting is that if UX were grounded in HCI in any way, this would be the _primary_ problem to be addressed and is the issue which thereby outs UX as an over-priced modern-day hardware store color palette for the blind (primarily preoccupied only with forestalling law-suites).

I guess my question, really, is what affordance could be surfaced to suggest this communication medium is asynchronous and discourage this imposing behavior? Or, while the more socialized effete users know this is a problem and are properly socialized and are more concerned with problems on the frontier, I'm suggesting that there are major problems in the hinterland that have simply been ignored.

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

#104

Post by philip1209 »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #89
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…

It sounds like what should be brought back is NNTP or mailing list.

I think of Booklet as a better mailing list

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

#105

Post by nescioquid »

icedchai wrote: post #81
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…

Yes, I see this problem as well. People need to be told that they don't need to ask if you can ask... just ask.

I have enough respect for the study and discipline of HCI to think there is an interface solution here which doesn't resort to the (threat of the) cat o' nine tails.

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

#106

Post by XorNot »

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 went to try out this service and the sign up process feels pretty invasive: a phone number, a code, my email, a code, and then "pick a username" - with no indication of what sort of visibility it's going to have or how far and wide on the service it's going to go.

I'd prefer to fill out a reCaptcha.

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

#107

Post by philip1209 »

XorNot wrote: post #106
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 went to try out this service and the sign up process feels pretty invasive: a phone number, a code, my email, a code, and then "pick a username" - with no indication of what sort of visibility it's going to have or how far and wide on the service it's going to go. I'd prefer to fill out a reCaptcha.

Good feedback - thanks!

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

#108

Post by eropple »

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.…

YMMV, but I'm absolutely not giving my phone number to a service of dubious providence because my employer told me to. I'd suggest federated login ASAP.

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

#109

Post by KennyBlanken »

underwater wrote: post #90
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…

I'm struggle to understand a situation where that would ever be justifiable. If they have a good reason for deleting messages, that's bad. If their legal team is overzealous and that power is unchecked, that's also bad.

A situation where the corporation is engaged in embarrassing or illegal shit and they're using Slack so they can do all the above-board, non-embarassing stuff via email that would show up in discovery.

5 day retention is so wildly impractical, it's a tacit admission the corp is up to something. Gives legal time to drag anything out in court until it's all gone. By the time the other party learns they have the 5-day retention, it's too late.

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

#110

Post by whoisthemachine »

I always felt like the ultimate flow with Slack was to make focused channels for a given topic; threads are too generic and hard to track and I generally get the impression that they're meant to be ephemeral, whereas a focused channel will of course ensure all participants know the intent of the channel, and the content is not lost. Essentially, a channel should be treated as an e-mail thread. Once the topic has finished, you can close the channel and archive it for future reference.
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