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We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

medium.freecodecamp.com

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Re: We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

#81

Post by Spoom »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #57
mi100hael wrote: post #54

There's a perfect alternative: * Free * Handles thousands of users seamlessly * Archived via bot same as free Slack * No noticeable performance hit for high user volumes * Wide variety of interfaces and integration bots to choose from * Widely deployed and trusted across tech communities It's called IRC. Edit: I can tell more people are encountering challenges using Slack these days. In the past, a suggestion to use…

There are drawbacks, though: * no built-in file uploads * a bot is required for archiving * a bot is required for notifications * no native scrollback/history - IRC bouncers solve this problem, but it's not a plausible solution for most non-techies * the last two issues also mean that mobile solutions are going to be lacking. It's possible to have IRC as fully featured as slack, but it does mean either rolling your o…

Matrix[1] solves some of these issues, notably the archiving and native scrollback, and has a working IRC gateway. We're experimenting with it at our IRC network now.

1. http://matrix.org/

Re: We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

#82

Post by mulletbum »

gizmo wrote: post #22
simonlc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He never said he had no intention, I just think he didn't want to pay half a million dollars for slack.

He wouldn't have paid $50,000 per year either. It's pretty obvious he signed up with the full intention of staying on the free version forever.

Paying would not have helped him anyway.

Re: We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

#83

Post by zellyn »

AckSyn wrote: post #67
pavel_lishin wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are drawbacks, though: * no built-in file uploads * a bot is required for archiving * a bot is required for notifications * no native scrollback/history - IRC bouncers solve this problem, but it's not a plausible solution for most non-techies * the last two issues also mean that mobile solutions are going to be lacking. It's possible to have IRC as fully featured as slack, but it does mean either rolling your o…

* file uploads in your chat client are misplaced at best, and "rich" environments with formatting and images are 99.999% distractions * channel services can provide archiving and notifications. * scrollback can be handled by a bouncer, yes, but it's up to the IT dept to set it up per-user * there are plenty of usable irc clients for mobile, web, and desktop to satisfy this need. source: Started using telegram/slack b…

> * file uploads in your chat client are misplaced at best, and "rich" environments with formatting and images are 99.999% distractions

Nope. They're extremely useful. Just offhand I can think of tons of times we've (a) pasted metric graphs, (b) pasted annotated screengrabs, (c) pasted snippets of code, (d) pasted snippets of test output. None of this is easy in IRC.

Re: We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

#84

Post by nottorp »

Speaking of Slack, what's an alternative with a different pricing model?

We have a core team that's always around, and for that Slack pricing is fine, but we have a significant number of "drive by" users that aren't worth paying $60 per year.

We're generally happy with Slack's features, so which are the similar services that charge something different than per-user?

Re: We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

#86

Post by dahart »

mulletbum wrote: post #77
dahart wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to have not read the article. The very first complaint is about the 10k message limit warnings. The author then complains "Slack would aggressively archive messages, sometimes only minutes after they were sent." He's lucky the messages even went through. He asked Slack for guarantees, after the fact, on the free plan with no intention of paying Slack's rates. Even the user limit problem is silly. It's call…

His point, which you have missed, is that although the archive thing was a problem, it may been their own fault. However, the number of users allowed was not, plus paying for the service wouldn't change that the cap exists.

My point, which you have missed, is that the author should have uncovered this cap before moving his community. It was clearly on sketchy ground before he did it. You can't say anything about what paying would have done, because he had no intention to pay. And if he had paid the 0.5 million, I'd be willing to bet that Slack would attend to his needs. But none of that happened, so it's a straw man.

Re: We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

#87

Post by quirkot »

lilbobbytables wrote: post #18
quirkot wrote: post #3

I'm generally a slack fan, but isn't that just plain ol' illegal false advertising?

It sounds like more of an engineering issue. I'd imagine that unlimited-up-to-the-capacity-our-system-can-handle is reasonable. The biggest takeaway from this should be: if you think you might be pushing a system, you should probably talk to a human first to get confirmation on how it will work for your specific scenario, and not just use their sales page. Particularly when that tool is so important to your operation…

>> The biggest takeaway from this should be: if you think you might be pushing a system, you should probably talk to a human first

Two things: a) I wouldn't blink at 10k if my line in the sand was "Unlimited number of people" (would I similarly ask a human if Amharic glyphs are supported if the advertisement suggested "chat in all languages"?) b) It may behoove me to verify claims before jumping in, but it is absolutely 100% the responsibility of the organization to set expectations in line with what it can deliver

Re: We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

#88

Post by sgift »

dahart wrote: post #66
erelde wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then I guess they expect the word "team" should be self explanatory... Maybe it's not.

This is a completely legitimate point. They are expecting "team" to be self explanatory, and it is a vague term that is not self-explanatory. If there's a size limit, it would be best if they stated that plainly. But, come on, you have to admit that an online community of thousands of people does not fit even the most charitable interpretation of the word "team".

> But, come on, you have to admit that an online community of thousands of people does not fit even the most charitable interpretation of the word "team".

That is basically what the whole thread and article evolves about. Are 10k people a team? Really? Sure, you can argue all day that technically it may be the case, the whole world could be my team, some kind of super team and so a service shouldn't make any assumptions and so on, but reality is that everyone who hears "team" has a pretty good idea of a ball park figure how many people that will be and that freecodecamp doesn't fit into this. So, in the end it's just playing around semantics "but, but, but ... you said of any size .."

Re: We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

#89

Post by Nomentatus »

Like the author, I'm always "that guy" who plays a game or uses a program in a way that seems reasonable, or optimal to me (and often is very efficient) but is so unusual that the program eventually "falls off the edge of the world" and starts crashing all over the place because none of the beta-testers ever did anything quite like what I'm doing with the program.

Like this guy, I usually don't know at first just what is so unusual about my behavior, and often I never do find out. My favorite game (not yet a decade old) crashes every several minutes for me, playing the way I like. I just save extremely frequently and keep right on playing it.

The moral: Where business is concerned: "Be a smart herder" - don't make any false moves, or adopt odd implementations or uses of key software products (or software controlled products) because the minute your behavior is similar to only 1/1000 users (sometimes 1/100 users), you are using the equivalent of an alpha or beta product, and you should count on getting zero product support. Your complaints will, likely, not even be properly comprehended or will be understood, but labeled "impossible" and abruptly closed (I'm looking at you Open Office.)

Re: We Tried Slack and We Deeply Regretted It (2015)

#90

Post by Nomentatus »

dahart wrote: post #86
mulletbum wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His point, which you have missed, is that although the archive thing was a problem, it may been their own fault. However, the number of users allowed was not, plus paying for the service wouldn't change that the cap exists.

My point, which you have missed, is that the author should have uncovered this cap before moving his community. It was clearly on sketchy ground before he did it. You can't say anything about what paying would have done, because he had no intention to pay. And if he had paid the 0.5 million, I'd be willing to bet that Slack would attend to his needs. But none of that happened, so it's a straw man.

Please share your method of uncovering, in advance, undocumented limits inherent in software; it's desperately needed.

The guy left a free trial for another free trial; if he's at fault we're all at fault every time we change our go-to software. The lesson might be that "there be dragons" - you should guess that any "better" program or SaaS out there is less that half of what it says once unknown limits have been discovered.

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