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Threaded messaging comes to Slack

slackhq.com

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Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#21

Post by bjterry »

bluetidepro wrote: post #6
tabbott wrote: post #4

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the problem of how to make threading work as the lead developer of Zulip, an open source group chat application where every conversation is threaded, and I think adding Facebook-style comment threads to messages is the wrong approach. Fundamentally, what you want is to be able to read and participate in multiple conversations with a given group of people (a channel) at the same…

Your comment seemed pretty genuine, until you had the 3 paragraph plug for your Zulip product that competes with Slack.

Zulip is an open source project with no way to purchase it from what the home page shows, so doesn't seem like that big a deal to me.

Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#22

Post by scrollaway »

obiefernandez wrote: post #19

This is annoying. I know people use Slack in different ways, but as a fan and long-time user in a variety of different contexts (from a few users to hundreds) I've never, ever said to myself... "man, I wish Slack had threaded messaging." I worry that they're gonna start messing with what made them special in the first place.

We've been using Discord at my company. Granted we're in gaming and it's very gamer-oriented, but it fits really well. And it doesn't have threaded messaging :)

Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#23

Post by mi100hael »

obiefernandez wrote: post #19

This is annoying. I know people use Slack in different ways, but as a fan and long-time user in a variety of different contexts (from a few users to hundreds) I've never, ever said to myself... "man, I wish Slack had threaded messaging." I worry that they're gonna start messing with what made them special in the first place.

All that made them special in the first place was offline history and mobile apps for IRC. If anything, their shitty Electron desktop client is a downgrade.

Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#24

Post by scrumper »

obiefernandez wrote: post #19

This is annoying. I know people use Slack in different ways, but as a fan and long-time user in a variety of different contexts (from a few users to hundreds) I've never, ever said to myself... "man, I wish Slack had threaded messaging." I worry that they're gonna start messing with what made them special in the first place.

Yep, fairly heavy user here and it's basically fine for me, probably because I'm used to it. Simplicity works. Only thing I really wish for is a proper, first class, not-electron desktop app.

Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#25

Post by colept »

For mixed teams, where tech and non-tech types interact - this is brilliant.

Each channel has a purpose, but threads allow more efficient cross-talk. For example I work with another team in a different channel because our projects use the same language. Sometimes our work collides as we work with the same libraries. We lose track of details between repos and channels frequently because we operate parallel but separate.

Threads will allow us to cross-talk about issues that affect both projects without having to create a new channel for each issue. This also helps one off discussions where two or three people use a public channel when the topic should be private. Ultimately, features like these matter mostly in use and I think this implementation is great for my teams.

Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#26

Post by VA3FXP »

So what do you get when you put IRC and Usenet into a blender?

A mess.

If my memory serves me correctly, isn't this part of what Google Wave was offering?

My company uses slack. I despised it at first, I tolerate it now. I suspect that we are not using it to it's full potential either.

Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#27

Post by colept »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #7

On IRC you just take the discussion to another channel, which can be created ad-hoc and trivially disposed of when no longer necessary. Or you just become good at reading around multiple conversations at once. There's also no expectation that you need to read everything to catch up when you come back after a while - take that to email if you need to. Much better real time chat culture, imo.

Isn't the whole point of Slack to reduce friction and make teamwork easier? The name is Slack after all :)

IRC in it's heyday was alright but I think Discord has replaced it's function. The last few encounters I have had with IRC have been negative because of the "in-group" being unwelcoming.

Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#28

Post by rasjani »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #5

I really think one of the things that Flowdock nailed was their threading implementation - it took a little bit of getting used to, but not much, and allowed contextual conversation without feeling like the conversation was buried in a thread somewhere (as this implementation does). For people interested in the thread, you could focus on just that, but for everyone else, it just acted like a normal chat room. Conside…

Came to mention Flowdock and ask for comparison. On busy channels 'flows' where really good feature. Too bad the product is not that known.

Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#29

Post by hug »

scrollaway wrote: post #22
obiefernandez wrote: post #19

This is annoying. I know people use Slack in different ways, but as a fan and long-time user in a variety of different contexts (from a few users to hundreds) I've never, ever said to myself... "man, I wish Slack had threaded messaging." I worry that they're gonna start messing with what made them special in the first place.

We've been using Discord at my company. Granted we're in gaming and it's very gamer-oriented, but it fits really well. And it doesn't have threaded messaging :)

Discord is by far and away the best Electron app I have ever used. I don't know what their secret sauce is, but it's the first time I haven't run back into the arms of a functionally-inferior competitor product written in literally anything else. It's responsive to input at all times, doesn't eat all of the RAM in sight, and doesn't consume unnecessarily large amounts of CPU cycles.

VS Code is second best and somehow manages to best Atom in every way, but is still painfully sluggish at times (on a i7 6500u, no less) and isn't exactly RAM friendly.

Slack desktop is basically a dumpster fire, and from what I can tell Slack's attempt at mitigating that are to piss on it.

Re: Threaded messaging comes to Slack

#30

Post by nkantar »

Is this really more important than some rather basic messaging principles Slack is still ignoring?

- No way to ignore/mute users. Yes, I sometimes need to do that even on my team.

- Group DMs inherit notification preferences of channels instead of DMs.

- No visual distinction between "/me says hi" and "_says hi_". (OK, may be minor, but as a long-time IRC user it's quite annoying.)

I can't wait for this threading to introduce the headaches inherent to some users using them and others not.

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