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Introducing Threads in Beta

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Re: Introducing Threads in Beta

#31

Post by MrJohz »

sandstrom wrote: post #28

What I'd prefer is the Twist-style threads (Zulip may also have them), where every room/channel must contain only topics/threads, and those topics have a title/description, and any messages in them are 1-level (no nested threading). It looks like this: #office [room/channel] * Lunch [thread/topic] - Anyone wants to grab lunch today? [message] - Sure, I'll join! [message] - Me too! [message] * Printer doesn't work [th…

This is pretty much the classic forum system, isn't it? A bunch of sections (sometimes nested), inside which you can post threads, and reply linearly to those threads.

Re: Introducing Threads in Beta

#32

Post by XorNot »

viccuad wrote: post #14

1-level threads is not enough. You fork a thread for a new topic, and users can keep derailing the topic with tangents inside of that thread. The traditional chat client expects the convention of users going back to the main room to create a completely separate thread. There's other ways. Example, technical email discussions (convention: bottom posting, with good mail client with threading). Or reddit/HN. On email, e…

Maybe rapid ejection for new threads? i.e. single level threading, with a UI that makes it easy to range select a bunch of messages and eject them into their own thread topic?

Of course at some point this becomes a management problem: if no one's taking the lead and given the authority to enforce this, then no one will. Arguably a lot of companies are big enough that technically someone should be employed as a "forum moderator" for online discussion spaces anyway.

Re: Introducing Threads in Beta

#33

Post by nkozyra »

MrJohz wrote: post #31
sandstrom wrote: post #28

What I'd prefer is the Twist-style threads (Zulip may also have them), where every room/channel must contain only topics/threads, and those topics have a title/description, and any messages in them are 1-level (no nested threading). It looks like this: #office [room/channel] * Lunch [thread/topic] - Anyone wants to grab lunch today? [message] - Sure, I'll join! [message] - Me too! [message] * Printer doesn't work [th…

This is pretty much the classic forum system, isn't it? A bunch of sections (sometimes nested), inside which you can post threads, and reply linearly to those threads.

Nesting was around pretty early on, but yeah.

I think what all of these platforms are discovering is that we figured out some pretty intuitive patterns early on and are on a constant loop of wanting to do something different before eventually realizing this and reverting.

There's a hybrid wherein you keep references to a branch in a thread but you still display a flat discussion. If you choose to follow the branch you can but otherwise all discussion sits on one level. I like this way more than default nesting, which can be impossible to follow.

Re: Introducing Threads in Beta

#35

Post by loloquwowndueo »

sandstrom wrote: post #28

What I'd prefer is the Twist-style threads (Zulip may also have them), where every room/channel must contain only topics/threads, and those topics have a title/description, and any messages in them are 1-level (no nested threading). It looks like this: #office [room/channel] * Lunch [thread/topic] - Anyone wants to grab lunch today? [message] - Sure, I'll join! [message] - Me too! [message] * Printer doesn't work [th…

Why is Twist “worse in probably every dimension”? (Asking honestly, I’d like to know where you find it inferior to slack, which I have used in the past, while I haven’t looked at Twist in depth)

Re: Introducing Threads in Beta

#36

Post by dexterdog »

m3adow wrote: post #15
kadoban wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see the issue with it. In Slack, we have a channel for our team. In that channel we have conversations, often more than one at a time, spread out over minutes to days. Why shouldn't each conversation have its own separate thread? The only real problem(s) I have with threads in Slack are: 1. some people suck at remembering to reply in thread. This isn't too serious though, once there's more than 2 messa…

I totally agree here. At the beginning I disliked Slack threads. But apart from the notification issue, I think the advantages of having a more focussed discussion where everything can be found in one place outweighs the disadvantages.

Finding is the problem. Searching for stuff in slack is maddening.

Re: Introducing Threads in Beta

#37

Post by mikepurvis »

m3adow wrote: post #15
kadoban wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see the issue with it. In Slack, we have a channel for our team. In that channel we have conversations, often more than one at a time, spread out over minutes to days. Why shouldn't each conversation have its own separate thread? The only real problem(s) I have with threads in Slack are: 1. some people suck at remembering to reply in thread. This isn't too serious though, once there's more than 2 messa…

I totally agree here. At the beginning I disliked Slack threads. But apart from the notification issue, I think the advantages of having a more focussed discussion where everything can be found in one place outweighs the disadvantages.

Yup, I'm enough of a fan that I wish there was a UI option to steer people away from making new top level posts, like a kind of “tick this box to confirm your post is a new subject and not a reply to an existing subject.” And maybe better tools for channel moderators to move accidental top level posts into being replies instead.

Re: Introducing Threads in Beta

#38

Post by imtringued »

viccuad wrote: post #17
alanfranz wrote: post #2

I think threading in chat apps is a terrible idea. It’s a way to merge email and chat, but chat apps like Slack aren’t really suited for such replacement imho. Why threading if there’s not much noise? And if the noise is too much, maybe a public chat is not the best idea. on Slack, navigating a channel between “main” messages and thread messages is a nightmare, and since “main” messages are not just a subject, you sp…

The underlying issue to me is the different velocity of different conversations between the same people in a room. Conversation 1 can be fast, with short messages and informal, Conversation 2 can be slow, with long technical messages or attached files. And all in between. Sometimes one type of convo transforms into another. And the tool should reframe it so: either by providing a schism for a new thread, changing the…

Wow, these chat apps are just badly reinventing ticket queues/forums but with a focus on real time communication.

Re: Introducing Threads in Beta

#39

Post by ksala_ »

Threads are probably a good idea, but as many people have pointed out I still have to find an app that have a good implementation of them. Most of my experience is with Slack so maybe Twist/Zulip are better at this.

* I hate threads in direct messages. Please, Slack, just give people a nice way to quote messages instead - which in my experience is mostly what people want. Right now it's a mix of copying a message and adding ">", sending a message as a thread with the "also post in the channel" flag or sharing the message and adding your reply there. I've had persons randomly pick one of my messages and then start a thread on top of that in direct messages, loosing context, but I'm not going to blame slack for that (but still, give me a way to disable threads there!)

* They work great in big channels (hundreds or thousands of people - think channels like #rust-interest or similar), but then inevitably someone will reply outside of the thread, triggering other people to comment "reply in the thread" (modern "don't reply to this email!" in a reply all) or react with that damned thread emoji. A channel should have some way to "enforce" conversation by thread - offer tooling to move messages in threads and split threads, and make it slightly harder to accidentally post outside of a thread (maybe a different button, a confirmation message, or enforcing some style in the message. I'm sure nothing will 100% work after seeing people use @here and @channel and completely ignoring all the warnings, but still).

* They are... meh in medium channels (team sized ones, thing 5 to 20 people), mostly because it's a pick and mix of people that want to use them and people that ignore them. This would at least improve if we had tooling to merge and slice threads, so that someone could at least try to enforce a style. But also from my experience it doesn't really matter too much, because not a lot of conversations will be happening there at the same time.

* Thread discoverability sucks, you get notifications but then they're tucked in a single "thread" pane. That should be collapsable and show your recent threads, with individual notifications.

* Using threads sucks too, you can either open one and lose context on everything else, or open one in a small sidebar, where posting more than 3 lines of code will fill it up and it's completely unreadable anyway. Having tabs or opening the thread in-line would be so much better.

/rant

Re: Introducing Threads in Beta

#40

Post by heyoni »

nkozyra wrote: post #33
MrJohz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much the classic forum system, isn't it? A bunch of sections (sometimes nested), inside which you can post threads, and reply linearly to those threads.

Nesting was around pretty early on, but yeah. I think what all of these platforms are discovering is that we figured out some pretty intuitive patterns early on and are on a constant loop of wanting to do something different before eventually realizing this and reverting. There's a hybrid wherein you keep references to a branch in a thread but you still display a flat discussion. If you choose to follow the branch yo…

Which slack does already.
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