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Just went through Startup School that uses Mattermost, which seems to be a Slack clone (not sure since I never used Slack). It didn't seem to work well. Since

by bambax 9y ago

Just went through Startup School that uses Mattermost, which seems to be a Slack clone (not sure since I never used Slack). It didn't seem to work well. Since all members of all groups were from all over the world and rarely shared a timezone, no conversation could really take place in real time. And since there are no threads or topics or anything, it's almost impossible to go back to something that was said a while ago. I think a subreddit would have worked much better.

kawfey 9y ago
My company is looking at using Mattermost, but I have the same qualms, since it honestly won't be much better (if not worse) than using our standard enterprise Lync/Skype for IM. We have an internal reddit-like forum with a "like" model (no dislike/downvote) but it isn't utilized to make work happen. Email is still the way to go...which to my understanding, that's essentially exactly what doist has recreated.
flanbiscuit 9y ago
> I think a subreddit would have worked much better. I'm so used to the reddit and hacker news style that I'd also prefer this as well. This Twist App looks too much like another email inbox[1] to me and that puts me off it. Maybe they could offer ways of changing the UI. [1] https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*zI94S5XizoB4WickRL_PlQ.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*zI94S5XizoB4WickR...
it33 9y ago
Hi @bambax, Mattermost team here, Appreciate your feedback. The Mattermost instance at Startup School does offer threads, if you either click the "Reply" arrow when you hover over a message or go to the "[...]" menu and select "Reply". If it wasn't easy to discover, that's 100% our fault and we'll see what we can to do make it more prominent in the tutorial and in other ways. Definitely agree threads are crucial to go back to topics in early discussions. We've had them since 2015 and for people using them, they become kind of indispensable. Maybe give it a try? Would love to hear your thoughts in the Mattermost feedback channel.
- bambax 9y ago
  Hi, thanks for reaching out. Maybe I misspoke. Maybe I meant "tree view" and not "thread". I was aware of the reply feature, and yes, if you read a reply and you click on the original title, you get to see all messages attached to this original message, in a window to the right, that you can navigate (more or less). But AFAIK you can't reply to a reply (if you do, it's a reply to the original message); it's probably a feature (back in the days, the Joel on Software forums worked like that, and Joel Spolsky was actively defending this option in various posts). But it makes it difficult or impossible to actively monitor different threads or topics. Threads are not collapsible. The UI actively favors the more recent messages, you have to actually click on "load more messages" to see earlier messages (and if you change channels and come back, the earlier messages are gone, you have to click again to see them). Anyway, I don't mean to be negative on the product which is very well polished and works perfectly; it's just that the choices that it makes seem ill suited for a very international and asynchronous crowd.

by bambax 9y ago

kawfey 9y ago

My company is looking at using Mattermost, but I have the same qualms, since it honestly won't be much better (if not worse) than using our standard enterprise Lync/Skype for IM. We have an internal reddit-like forum with a "like" model (no dislike/downvote) but it isn't utilized to make work happen. Email is still the way to go...which to my understanding, that's essentially exactly what doist has recreated.

flanbiscuit 9y ago

> I think a subreddit would have worked much better. I'm so used to the reddit and hacker news style that I'd also prefer this as well. This Twist App looks too much like another email inbox[1] to me and that puts me off it. Maybe they could offer ways of changing the UI. [1] https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*zI94S5XizoB4WickRL_PlQ.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*zI94S5XizoB4WickR...

it33 9y ago

Hi @bambax, Mattermost team here, Appreciate your feedback. The Mattermost instance at Startup School does offer threads, if you either click the "Reply" arrow when you hover over a message or go to the "[...]" menu and select "Reply". If it wasn't easy to discover, that's 100% our fault and we'll see what we can to do make it more prominent in the tutorial and in other ways. Definitely agree threads are crucial to go back to topics in early discussions. We've had them since 2015 and for people using them, they become kind of indispensable. Maybe give it a try? Would love to hear your thoughts in the Mattermost feedback channel.

bambax 9y ago
Hi, thanks for reaching out. Maybe I misspoke. Maybe I meant "tree view" and not "thread". I was aware of the reply feature, and yes, if you read a reply and you click on the original title, you get to see all messages attached to this original message, in a window to the right, that you can navigate (more or less). But AFAIK you can't reply to a reply (if you do, it's a reply to the original message); it's probably a feature (back in the days, the Joel on Software forums worked like that, and Joel Spolsky was actively defending this option in various posts). But it makes it difficult or impossible to actively monitor different threads or topics. Threads are not collapsible. The UI actively favors the more recent messages, you have to actually click on "load more messages" to see earlier messages (and if you change channels and come back, the earlier messages are gone, you have to click again to see them). Anyway, I don't mean to be negative on the product which is very well polished and works perfectly; it's just that the choices that it makes seem ill suited for a very international and asynchronous crowd.