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Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

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Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#151

Post by brandon272 »

linkregister wrote: post #143
TheRealmccoy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Event: Your boss shares an article on @channel at Slack. Reaction:: Since our boss has posted it and you don't want to be seemed a second rung player and the one who is NOT on her/his toes, you jump on the keyboard and first "Like/Thumbs Up" that post and then comment for the heck of it, something like "Wow", Amazing", "Insightful". Then you look over your back ie, to see how many others have commented before you, an…

This seems like the hallmark of a pre-dysfunctional workplace. None of the engineering managers I've worked with wouldn't expect their engineers to drop what they're doing and look at an article. All but one were too busy themselves to be doing that sort of thing. None would want to jeopardize their schedules by distracting their engineers. Most managers aren't trying to be friends with their engineers; they have the…

I cannot relate to the parent post at all. My boss shares content all the time on Slack. People rarely respond, nor is it expected, nor is the lack of expectation communicated, it's just implicit based on the culture. (i.e. "Check this out if you have time")

If my boss was sharing content and then my coworkers were "looking over their backs" to see who liked something first or liked something with enough enthusiasm, I feel like a lot of other things would also be wrong with that work environment to make people behave that way.

Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#152

Post by dood »

Stratoscope wrote: post #141
dood wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that Slack allows multi-line posts and discrete conversations, but both go totally against the grain of the system design. Expecting people to use Slack in a way it wasn't designed for can only result in failure or constant friction.

Not just the system design, but also the culture. I know a few people who post coherent, properly punctuated and capitalized sentences and paragraphs here on HN, but they write on Slack like this: one line at a time no caps or periods stream of thought enter each time I posted a parody of this style a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11239614

What you describe is the most natural, effortless way to use Slack. Conversely the design makes it very cumbersome to compose thoughtful, well-formatted responses. And the more people use the former style, the less value the latter has. So users tend toward spewing out crap rather than having considered discussion, because Slack's system design strongly encourages it.

It takes so much cultural pressure, moaning and nagging to use Slack in a high signal-to-noise manner that I'm quite bearish on it's long-term prospects, and applaud OP's effort at building a system designed more for collaboration than shitposting.

Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#153

Post by mrisoli »

s_kilk wrote: post #80
wpietri wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That isn't a problem with Slack. That's a problem with the way people are using Slack. The notion that tools exist in some sort of vacuum away from users baffles me. Since Slack's only purpose is talking with other people, I don't how one can even theoretically evaluate it separate from usage. This is a very common thing that happens with Slack. If it were just one team struggling to use it well, you might have a p…

> The notion that tools exist in some sort of vacuum away from users baffles me This x1000 Software is developed and used in a social context. We can't disavow responsibility for the effects our Software cause.

The thing about software is that it enables us to do things we do well faster and more consistently by a large factor, it also causes the things we don't do well to multiply their damage.

My previous workplace everyone had tight deadlines and goals to meet, they were pressured both internally and externally to act in their best interest, this means that everyone believes their problem is top priority even when it's not a priority at all, and Slack makes communication a billion times faster so they bother whoever they can on Slack.

This usually means one of two things, either going to someone directly or blasting everyone on the channels that contain the entire company, this became the default for us and it was hell, at some point people would notify the entire channel because they couldn't find their mug.

IMO what Slack does, in this case, is expose much bigger issues within the structure of the company, these can't be fixed by switching chat apps.

My current company the communication channels and prioritization are very clear, Slack is not a problem, it is a helping tool.

Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#154

Post by mrisoli »

Slack reminds me of my school years, I grew up as cell phones became commonplace.

We've always had chat software, but mostly we talked to each other during breaks or after school using our desktop computers.

Then cell phones became normal, and SMS was normal, later on, it was chat apps, social media. Things sped up by a factor of a billion.

All of the sudden we have entire conversations happening as the teacher is lecturing, people are making weekend plans, gossiping, bullying, relationships are forming and falling apart in minutes time.

Honestly, I can't even imagine what hell school must be now that everyone has social media and ephemeral messaging everywhere.

And I believe Slack did a little bit of this to the workplace, we've always had chat apps, but it was always a little bit to the side, but Slack integrated it with our work tools, now we have all these notifications from services bundled in the same software that offers you public channels, private channels, private groups and direct messaging, there is a whole new level of communication going on both on and off the record.

In some workplaces, I felt like it was school all over again.

Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#155

Post by icebraining »

lightedman wrote: post #149
TheRealmccoy wrote: post #55

The biggest drawback of a real time communication tool like Slack is the React v/s Respond conundrum. Productive communication and teamwork requires that we respond, rather than react. What happens specifically with tools like Slack which start off as demi-official tool and then transcend to official is that, one gets into the habit of reacting, instead of responding. I have personally seen this "fastest finger first…

"I have personally seen this "fastest finger first" played, almost always." There's your problem - typing first. Put everyone on a voice/video collab stream. Now at least you get to hear what's being suggested first like a real office, and respond without having to move away from your work window. "That idea is nonsense, it won't work within our framework guidelines for x reasons." Bam no waiting for people to read w…

No wonder nobody wants my solution - everyone's too busy listening to the hype of programs instead of the soundness of their workflow.

We're just waiting for you to post it in the form of a sound recording :)

Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#156

Post by colbyh »

efsavage wrote: post #138
TheRealmccoy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Event: Your boss shares an article on @channel at Slack. Reaction:: Since our boss has posted it and you don't want to be seemed a second rung player and the one who is NOT on her/his toes, you jump on the keyboard and first "Like/Thumbs Up" that post and then comment for the heck of it, something like "Wow", Amazing", "Insightful". Then you look over your back ie, to see how many others have commented before you, an…

If my boss posts something I will assume they found value in it and thinks it is worth the time of X people to read it for information. If they have a question about it, they will ask. If reading it right now matters, they will say so. If they are just trawling for likes and noticing who posts something first, I will find a new boss.

I ignore stuff our CEO posts all the time. there isn't a pretense that everything he shares is a big deal, and if it is something important he'll send in an email or mark it as such.

might just be our culture though, there's aren't really any "jockeying for position" situations.

Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#157

Post by icebraining »

bahjoite wrote: post #119
davidw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> old-school forums Most open source projects still use mailing lists, which are even better than forums in that everyone can read and write emails in whatever client they prefer. And yes, it's far better than chat for serious discussions, with a global group of people. You don't want to exclude the Americans from important decisions when everyone in Europe is awake and on the chat in the morning, and vice versa. I t…

Mailing lists are close to perfect; one missing feature from mailing list software is the ability to easily reach back in time to discover threads from before one joined a project. For quick questions and discussions, irc is hard to beat.

It's not hard to provide an archive, both in website and in mbox formats. There are multiple free tools available.

Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#158

Post by dsacco »

TheRealmccoy wrote: post #55

The biggest drawback of a real time communication tool like Slack is the React v/s Respond conundrum. Productive communication and teamwork requires that we respond, rather than react. What happens specifically with tools like Slack which start off as demi-official tool and then transcend to official is that, one gets into the habit of reacting, instead of responding. I have personally seen this "fastest finger first…

As a counterpoint, I've used Slack for nearly two years (across several companies at one time or another), and I've never observed this.

I did observe that some employees would consistently answer more quickly than others, but I never saw unsubstantive responses, and it didn't appear to have a chilling effect on people who responded afterwards or the overall result of the discussion.

Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#159

Post by mhink »

_jal wrote: post #126
dsr_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usenet news. 1. You enter groups devoted to large topics (like "all company" or "software development" or maybe "Smith Project") 2. You see conversations delimited by subject lines, completely threaded, with full history. 3. You normally reply to a message with another message, quoting or not, and your message is threaded in. 4. The tools are good for showing you what you haven't read yet. 5. You can ignore a topic f…

Yep. That was exactly my thought. Everything old is new again. (And Usenet is even still there.) I'm still convinced that Usenet gets ignored precisely because it is federated and mature - it is harder to extract nickels from than a centralized service; user-surveillance and other ad-related choke points are fragmented, it works already, there are already robust end-user filters. (I also believe Twitter should have b…

> I also believe Twitter should have been an RFC, not a startup.

I have this reaction to _so many_ online services these days.

Re: Why we’re betting against real-time team messaging

#160

Post by onion2k »

devmunchies wrote: post #104
onion2k wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real-time chat happens quickly — one line at a time — discouraging full, thoughtful conversations. Slack supports shift+CRLF for line breaks, so users can write epic poems broken up in to hundreds of stanzas if they want to. Using Slack as a one-line-at-a-time chat service is a choice that a user makes. Slack itself doesn't enforce it. Topics are all jumbled together in a channel so it’s nearly impossible to piece to…

> Using Slack as a one-line-at-a-time chat service is a choice that a user makes. Slack itself doesn't enforce it. Thats like saying you can drive your car with your feet, the car doesn't enforce driving by hands. The point of this post is saying that slack has these shortcoming by the nature of its design. You can make as many arguments as you want defending it, but everything has a design that influences usage.

Thats like saying you can drive your car with your feet, the car doesn't enforce driving by hands.

That's a slightly odd analogy, but let's go with it. You're right that you can drive a car in ways that are dangerous, and the car doesn't enforce safe driving. The law is what enforces the way you drive (by punishing you for driving dangerously). This is exactly the same as company rules to ensure Slack is used properly. So, yeah, I guess it works pretty well, and people who use Slack badly are "foot-drivers".

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