How we scaled Slack to support 1000s of developers • Hacker News Board

Re: How we scaled Slack to support 1000s of developers

#121

Post by steve_adams_86 » Wed, Jan 29, 2025, 8:56 PM UTC

nightpool wrote: post #120

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see Slack as a support channel I almost certainly won't use the support, and I'm less likely to use the product. At least I can organize and search emails by default, and it's relatively private. It's annoying having to anonymize my issues for my employer so I can publicly request support.

Did you even read the article? This is about offering companies a private 1:1 slack channel between your team and the support/sales team. Many companies offer this nowadays if you're on a large enough plan to be assigned an account manager and I prefer it >100x to email because I know a human is going to be in the loop.

I did read the article, but my experience is that many companies offer support in a public chat context (Slack, Discord) as their first line. 1:1 is certainly better, but you're still limited in your ownership of the conversation (you literally have to copy and paste it out of Slack if you want records, because they may otherwise vanish outside of your control). I also like being able to find all communication information in one place. I can search across multiple channels and contexts with email all at once, but not with Slack.

I get that it's a preference thing, so I'm not saying my position is correct for you. If you don't care about any of these things, I can see Slack being better.

"Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that"."

Re: How we scaled Slack to support 1000s of developers

#122

Post by bigfatkitten » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:10 AM UTC

whstl wrote: post #51

defanor wrote: post #27

> It gives us 50x better engagement than email and 8x better response times to customers. Does it mean that it forces the customers to send 50 messages instead of a single mail message? > However, developers hate email. Always feels awkward when there are general statements about the group you belong to, which are certainly false at least for you, and possibly for most others you know in that group. If anything, I wo…

I'll offer a counterpoint: The one thing I like better about Slack over email is the lack of constant spam from random apps. Working in a company means that only 1% of my email is actually from humans. I must constantly add new filters, because even small companies today use dozens of SaaS products that are constantly fighting for my attention, and only a small fraction of those messages is actually useful for me. Sl…

I have 30-40 Slack apps or bots at work that spam me about pointless things. I can't block or filter their messages.

Re: How we scaled Slack to support 1000s of developers

#123

Post by bigfatkitten » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:29 AM UTC

> However, developers hate email.

I don't mind email, but I despise Slack.

I miss the olden days of being able to check my email once or twice a day with nobody expecting an immediate response, and being able to focus the rest of the time.

Three or four times a year, in response to something genuinely urgent, I might get a phone call.

Re: How we scaled Slack to support 1000s of developers

#124

Post by andai » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 7:48 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #61

andai wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangential, but you might want to look into GTD, I've found it very helpful for handling stuff I know I'd forget otherwise. Here's a good intro https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15747703

I’ve never thought GTD is a good system for programmers. The last thing I want to do is interrupt some important piece of work because an incoming request will only take a couple of minutes.

I assume you're referring to the 2 minute rule here. One of the main points of GTD is that you can just make a note of the interruption, so you don't have to deal with it right then, because you know it's waiting for you in a trusted system. (Which incidentally might just be a sticky note on your desk!)

Also, the 2 minute rule itself is flexible, just like the rest of the system. Sometimes it's a 30 second rule, and sometimes it's a 5 minute rule.