Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory • Hacker News Board

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#21

Post by dan-robertson » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

ReaLNero wrote: post #13

joshstrange wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely "notion" is in that chain somewhere as well lol. Yeah, I really dislike when tools try to reach outside their "lane" (See: everything Dropbox has done that isn't storing files), you get abandoned half-implemented things that you get forced to use because "well we already pay for X and it has Y feature". If ever there was a use for the "I want X, we have X at home"-meme it would be cases like this. I wish more…

> I wish more companies strived (strove? apparently both are valid) to just be the best at 1 thing instead of branching out into things they just aren't good at and won't continue working on. GNU/Linux takes a similar approach to commands available in user space. IMO, companies are obligated to chase the profit to the detriment of their product being simple, and this is why this naturally occurs.

There are about 4 upper/lower case letters which are not valid options to ls. Maybe it really is just doing one thing but I’m not exactly sure that this is an example to follow.

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#22

Post by bsder » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

ttr2021 wrote: post #5

Yet another 'digital container' of disparate information to house your data and make it difficult for someone find it across an organisation. As someone who was working in a scale up I found that we had information spread across coda, wiki, markdown, tickets, collaborative whiteboards (Miro), git issues, google docs, coda, (insert random lastest cool SaaS that someone stumbled across one night and used the company ca…

It's not about the options, but the reward.

What's the reward for creating good documentation? That's now describes the upper bound of time and effort people are willing to put in.

Since there is no reward, people will put in the absolute minimum they need to and that's rational behavior.

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#23

Post by tootie » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

julienreszka wrote: post #15

This article is unreadable

Even if you scroll past the wall of ads it's almost all a nonsequitar press release.

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#24

Post by tootie » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

Probably ten years ago Google chat added a slightly secret feature that let you send a quick doodle directly in the app. They never really publicized it and then they decided to run in circles with their communication tools until everyone gave up.

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#25

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

ttr2021 wrote: post #5

Yet another 'digital container' of disparate information to house your data and make it difficult for someone find it across an organisation. As someone who was working in a scale up I found that we had information spread across coda, wiki, markdown, tickets, collaborative whiteboards (Miro), git issues, google docs, coda, (insert random lastest cool SaaS that someone stumbled across one night and used the company ca…

[deleted]

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#26

Post by ckdarby » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 9:51 PM UTC

muglug wrote: post #14

bengale wrote: post #11

Best news in that article was a brief reference to video calls coming to huddles. Been finding huddles really useful but sometimes a quick chat moves onto a more full on discussion and most of the time now we move over to zoom for that so we can talk face to face. Being able to turn on video for these huddles will be great.

It is great! I work at Slack, where we've been testing that functionality for a while, and I use it for one-on-ones with remote colleagues. Huddles become like Zoom calls, but with much more context.

Huddle needs much love. It is not a first class citizen. Not even full API support for it :(

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#27

Post by prng2021 » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

davidmurdoch wrote: post #7

I wonder how this will work with slack orgs with short data retention policies. It wouldn't make sense to delete parts of a Canvas, as "Canvas docs are collaborative, and all their comments are just Slack threads." (from https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/20/23361717/slack-canvas-doc... )

That’s an interesting question. My bet is it would work similarly to Confluence, Google Docs etc. Basically the canvas would be deleted based on the creation date.

As for the associated Slack message thread, those should be just like they are today. Each individual message in the thread is deleted based on when it was originally created.

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#28

Post by paxys » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

ttr2021 wrote: post #5

Yet another 'digital container' of disparate information to house your data and make it difficult for someone find it across an organisation. As someone who was working in a scale up I found that we had information spread across coda, wiki, markdown, tickets, collaborative whiteboards (Miro), git issues, google docs, coda, (insert random lastest cool SaaS that someone stumbled across one night and used the company ca…

> It just seems like it's not the tool itself, it's more there are actually too many options out there

And that's exactly why every company is building their own version of such a tool. They all want to be the "one place" where all information is stored.

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#29

Post by paxys » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

fooby wrote: post #20

muglug wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is great! I work at Slack, where we've been testing that functionality for a while, and I use it for one-on-ones with remote colleagues. Huddles become like Zoom calls, but with much more context.

Is there any love for discord style "drop-in" voice channels? I'm never going to start a huddle in a channel of 30 people and say "its optional" -- but with a voice channel, people can see we are idling / chatting nonsense and join as needed.

Isn't that what Huddles already are? There's an indicator next to the channel name showing whether people are talking or not. You can choose to drop in if you want.

Re: Slack’s brand-new feature has an unexpectedly rich backstory

#30

Post by jacobr1 » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #9

RichardCNormos wrote: post #2

This is a great feature. One of Slack's deficiencies is that it's very difficult to summarize a conversation in-situ. I've tried to do this with Google Docs, but it's too disconnected.

> One of Slack's deficiencies is that it's very difficult to summarize a conversation in-situ We used to call that email. :)

Email has the same problem. Long threads, especially with branched conversations, are pain to summarize. Getting cc'd on an email chain dozens of replies long sucks to read through (especially with top posting being the corporate default).

Slack is at least better in how it manages the deduplication of content in the thread.

What we really need is some kind of AI auto-summarizer that actually works and is smart enough to ask clarifying question when ambiguities appear. A virtual administrative assistant. What were the decisions, who owns the next steps, what justifications led to the decisions, who needs to be informed, etc ... Most of that can be inferred from a given thread.