5 ms·

I worked at a Slack shop for several years, and share the author's opinion. I can't think of any five minute period during my entire tenure where the Slack tab

I worked at a Slack shop for several years, and share the author's opinion. I can't think of any five minute period during my entire tenure where the Slack tab didn't have a little red circle telling me that I absolutely needed to check it right this second. There was no way to filter notifications beyond "Everything", so that little bubble would go up every time anybody in the company pressed a key. And heaven forbid somebody typed "Good morning, @channel" (which happened 20 times per morning per timezone), because then you'd get the dreaded Red Exclamation Mark in the tab. I can't fathom how anybody would have been able to work if they had gone as far as allowing notifications to be turned on and make noises at them every time Slack thought something Important Enough To Interrupt You had happened.

smileysteve 9y ago
Half of my team has audio notifications on and nobody seems to n read the @channel warning.
twobyfour 9y ago
More granular controls really would fix this problem. For instance, per-channel settings to have the channel highlighted in the sidebar when it has new messages, but without badging the tab/dock. That way you could reserve the badges for the channels you really need to monitor closely, but not have to check every single other channel explicitly to see if there are new messages.
- mikepurvis 9y ago
  Man, that would be amazing. It would be sweet if there was a third party slack notifier that could do that kind of thing. Basically you just run the notifier and quit the main slack app, until the notifier tells you to pull it up. Then you interact with it, and when you're done, quit it again.
- dasil003 9y ago
  Take a look at the Channel List under Preferences -> Advanced to only show unreads, then combine that with individually muted channels. That's how I have most channels set up so I can passively aware of activity with badges.
  - twobyfour 9y ago
    The problem is that instead of having to check every single one of my dozens of muted channels once or twice a day, I'd like them to be highlighted in the sidebar (but not badged!) when unread. Plus it'd be nice to still get notifications of mentions and highlight words in said channels.
    - dasil003 9y ago
      By hiding the ones with unused messages you implicitly tell which ones have new messages because those are the only ones that are visible. It works quite well and enabled me to passively track dozens of channels without being overwhelmed. As to mentions and highlight words, I don't think there's a solution for that for muted channels. When I developed this technique I would have liked targetted mentions, but not @here or @channel, which, at the time was indistinguishable. However Slack added a per-channel option to Ignore notifications for @channel & @here, which means I might try the above technique without muting the channel. Play around with it, you might find the settings can be combined in an optimal way once you understand how they all interact.
      - twobyfour 9y ago
        But then if you want to start a conversation in a channel with no unreads, you have to go digging for it.
        dasil003 9y ago
        Command-K
onion2k 9y ago
And heaven forbid somebody typed "Good morning, @channel" (which happened 20 times per morning per timezone), because then you'd get the dreaded Red Exclamation Mark in the tab. That isn't a problem with Slack. That's a problem with the way people are using Slack. If the only workable fix is to use a different tool you have a far bigger problem at your company. I can't fathom how anybody would have been able to work if they had gone as far as allowing notifications to be turned on and make noises at them every time Slack thought something Important Enough To Interrupt You had happened. All the notifications and noises can be switched off, and the @channel and @here notifications can be ignored on a per channel basis.
- jasonkester 9y ago
  All the notifications and noises can be switched off, and the @channel and @here notifications can be ignored on a per channel basis. Sounds like a feature that was added in the last 18 months since I last used it. At the time, your options were "every notification about everything, ever" or "no 'notifications' ever, but we'll still helpfully flash the favicon at you all day". Glad to see there is at least a tiny drip of sanity making its way into the product.
- wpietri 9y ago
  > 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 point. But past a certain size, I've only ever seen Slacks that a) have a problem with @channel, or b) have a carefully developed and enforced culture of controlling use of @channel. I think the sophisticated version of this argument is "only experts should use use complex/difficult/dangerous tools". Which is a reasonable argument when talking about, say, wiring up detonators. But Slack's purpose is to connect everybody in a company. Suggesting that Slack is only for experts is to limit its market to a very small segment.
  - 9y ago
VLM 9y ago
We've left the "social" era and have entered the era of interruptions. All the innovation this decade is in interruptions no longer human-interconnections. My smart watch for example post dates the social era so it has only minimal social features, but its deep in the interruption zone and spams me mercilessly until I block apps and if I block enough apps I may as well have a cheap dumb watch. Another way to look at it is we no longer have 100 people shallowly liking us, we now focus on 100 apps shallowly claiming our attention is vital because we are important and we must be interrupted now. Some of this is probably cultural backlash against automation and bureaucracy and general economic decline. If more people than ever are in fact not useful or important at all, then a communication style focused primarily around telling people they're important, is going to be very popular. Under that analysis Slack is a post-social communications media, and it constantly rewarding you with endless micro doses of "your attention is valuable" is not a bug, its the whole philosophy of its existence as an app. You can see why curmudgeons see Slack as something negative, like the intrusion of participation trophy culture, because thats pretty much what it is. The purpose of Slack is to constantly interrupt you with a narrative that you're important. There are incidental side effects that make it semi-useful. Companies spend a lot of money on "make employees feel special" and Slack is merely a modern example of the genre. This philosophical analysis of Slack is probably extendible past Slack into startups. Don't try to market something as interconnectedness, not in 2017. Try to sell something that symbolically, or whatever, tells people they're important.
- SyneRyder 9y ago
  > My smart watch ... spams me mercilessly until I block apps and if I block enough apps I may as well have a cheap dumb watch. Definitely block the spammy apps. It makes a huge different to the smartwatch experience if it's only buzzing for things that really are urgent. Once you tune the notifications, it's actually calming - not only because you're not being interrupted as often, but also because you're not constantly thinking "is there something that needs my attention". If there is, the watch will let you know.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    To me, that doesn't make much sense; the whole point of a smartwatch seems to be making the reading of notifications more efficient and unobtrusive. If you disable all except the rare urgent ones, what's the point of the smartwatch?

smileysteve 9y ago

Half of my team has audio notifications on and nobody seems to n read the @channel warning.

twobyfour 9y ago

More granular controls really would fix this problem. For instance, per-channel settings to have the channel highlighted in the sidebar when it has new messages, but without badging the tab/dock. That way you could reserve the badges for the channels you really need to monitor closely, but not have to check every single other channel explicitly to see if there are new messages.

mikepurvis 9y ago
Man, that would be amazing. It would be sweet if there was a third party slack notifier that could do that kind of thing. Basically you just run the notifier and quit the main slack app, until the notifier tells you to pull it up. Then you interact with it, and when you're done, quit it again.
dasil003 9y ago
Take a look at the Channel List under Preferences -> Advanced to only show unreads, then combine that with individually muted channels. That's how I have most channels set up so I can passively aware of activity with badges.
- twobyfour 9y ago
  The problem is that instead of having to check every single one of my dozens of muted channels once or twice a day, I'd like them to be highlighted in the sidebar (but not badged!) when unread. Plus it'd be nice to still get notifications of mentions and highlight words in said channels.
  - dasil003 9y ago
    By hiding the ones with unused messages you implicitly tell which ones have new messages because those are the only ones that are visible. It works quite well and enabled me to passively track dozens of channels without being overwhelmed. As to mentions and highlight words, I don't think there's a solution for that for muted channels. When I developed this technique I would have liked targetted mentions, but not @here or @channel, which, at the time was indistinguishable. However Slack added a per-channel option to Ignore notifications for @channel & @here, which means I might try the above technique without muting the channel. Play around with it, you might find the settings can be combined in an optimal way once you understand how they all interact.
    - twobyfour 9y ago
      But then if you want to start a conversation in a channel with no unreads, you have to go digging for it.
      - dasil003 9y ago
        Command-K

onion2k 9y ago

And heaven forbid somebody typed "Good morning, @channel" (which happened 20 times per morning per timezone), because then you'd get the dreaded Red Exclamation Mark in the tab. That isn't a problem with Slack. That's a problem with the way people are using Slack. If the only workable fix is to use a different tool you have a far bigger problem at your company. I can't fathom how anybody would have been able to work if they had gone as far as allowing notifications to be turned on and make noises at them every time Slack thought something Important Enough To Interrupt You had happened. All the notifications and noises can be switched off, and the @channel and @here notifications can be ignored on a per channel basis.

jasonkester 9y ago
All the notifications and noises can be switched off, and the @channel and @here notifications can be ignored on a per channel basis. Sounds like a feature that was added in the last 18 months since I last used it. At the time, your options were "every notification about everything, ever" or "no 'notifications' ever, but we'll still helpfully flash the favicon at you all day". Glad to see there is at least a tiny drip of sanity making its way into the product.
wpietri 9y ago
> 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 point. But past a certain size, I've only ever seen Slacks that a) have a problem with @channel, or b) have a carefully developed and enforced culture of controlling use of @channel. I think the sophisticated version of this argument is "only experts should use use complex/difficult/dangerous tools". Which is a reasonable argument when talking about, say, wiring up detonators. But Slack's purpose is to connect everybody in a company. Suggesting that Slack is only for experts is to limit its market to a very small segment.
- 9y ago

VLM 9y ago

We've left the "social" era and have entered the era of interruptions. All the innovation this decade is in interruptions no longer human-interconnections. My smart watch for example post dates the social era so it has only minimal social features, but its deep in the interruption zone and spams me mercilessly until I block apps and if I block enough apps I may as well have a cheap dumb watch. Another way to look at it is we no longer have 100 people shallowly liking us, we now focus on 100 apps shallowly claiming our attention is vital because we are important and we must be interrupted now. Some of this is probably cultural backlash against automation and bureaucracy and general economic decline. If more people than ever are in fact not useful or important at all, then a communication style focused primarily around telling people they're important, is going to be very popular. Under that analysis Slack is a post-social communications media, and it constantly rewarding you with endless micro doses of "your attention is valuable" is not a bug, its the whole philosophy of its existence as an app. You can see why curmudgeons see Slack as something negative, like the intrusion of participation trophy culture, because thats pretty much what it is. The purpose of Slack is to constantly interrupt you with a narrative that you're important. There are incidental side effects that make it semi-useful. Companies spend a lot of money on "make employees feel special" and Slack is merely a modern example of the genre. This philosophical analysis of Slack is probably extendible past Slack into startups. Don't try to market something as interconnectedness, not in 2017. Try to sell something that symbolically, or whatever, tells people they're important.

SyneRyder 9y ago
> My smart watch ... spams me mercilessly until I block apps and if I block enough apps I may as well have a cheap dumb watch. Definitely block the spammy apps. It makes a huge different to the smartwatch experience if it's only buzzing for things that really are urgent. Once you tune the notifications, it's actually calming - not only because you're not being interrupted as often, but also because you're not constantly thinking "is there something that needs my attention". If there is, the watch will let you know.
- icebraining 9y ago
  To me, that doesn't make much sense; the whole point of a smartwatch seems to be making the reading of notifications more efficient and unobtrusive. If you disable all except the rare urgent ones, what's the point of the smartwatch?