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This makes me curious, is group chat ever a win? Specifically the Slack variety where everyone or almost everyone is logged in and therefore any post by any per

This makes me curious, is group chat ever a win? Specifically the Slack variety where everyone or almost everyone is logged in and therefore any post by any person has the possibility of distracting everyone. It seems like something more like personally messaging would solve the immediacy problem. Open a PM (Slack, FB Messenger, Hangouts), add the people you want to include in the discussion, start the conversation. Only those people are notified, if more needed to be added they can be added. That would seem like it would prevent more of the constant distraction part.

theshrike79 9y ago
You only do that when you want EXACTLY those people to hear it - akin to booking a conference room to discuss something with a certain closed group. Talking on a channel is more like talking aloud in a team room with one or two people, the other people are allowed to overhear and join if they have some input. Or they can put on their headphones or tell the noisy people to get a room or shut up. With a team chat system you can just disable the notifications when you don't want to be disturbed and read the backlog afterwards (if you're so inclined). No need to tell anyone specifically to stfu. You can also be invited to the discussion with an @mention and you can immediately read the previous comments and join in without anyone having to spend 5-10 minutes re-explaining everything to you.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  > Talking on a channel is more like talking aloud in a team room with one or two people That's annoying enough on the real world. When an application not only makes it the default, but makes sure you are placed in a bunched of noisy rooms at the same time, it's bad. There's no reason for "room" notifications to be enabled by default on any application.
benji-york 9y ago
For a distributed team, group chat can fulfill important culture-building and team cohesion functions.
chrisan 9y ago
First of all, we are a 100% remote team and everything important is captured in a ticket for us. Tickets are the "one true source" of goals and resolutions. Chat/email/phone are ancillary and all treated the same: they are a method to have a conversation. Any conversation must be summarized into a ticket if you want it actionable. We use Hipchat, so I can't speak for slack, but notifications are only sent out if someone "requests" a notification like @all or @here (those not AFK) or @personName for an individual notification Each team has their own room as well as a global company room and a social "hangout" room. If you want to catch up on things you are welcome to chime in later or add info to the room/ticket but you are not required if you aren't a stakeholder. I am never distracted unless someone needs to distract me for an immediate need.

theshrike79 9y ago

You only do that when you want EXACTLY those people to hear it - akin to booking a conference room to discuss something with a certain closed group. Talking on a channel is more like talking aloud in a team room with one or two people, the other people are allowed to overhear and join if they have some input. Or they can put on their headphones or tell the noisy people to get a room or shut up. With a team chat system you can just disable the notifications when you don't want to be disturbed and read the backlog afterwards (if you're so inclined). No need to tell anyone specifically to stfu. You can also be invited to the discussion with an @mention and you can immediately read the previous comments and join in without anyone having to spend 5-10 minutes re-explaining everything to you.

marcosdumay 9y ago
> Talking on a channel is more like talking aloud in a team room with one or two people That's annoying enough on the real world. When an application not only makes it the default, but makes sure you are placed in a bunched of noisy rooms at the same time, it's bad. There's no reason for "room" notifications to be enabled by default on any application.

benji-york 9y ago

For a distributed team, group chat can fulfill important culture-building and team cohesion functions.

chrisan 9y ago

First of all, we are a 100% remote team and everything important is captured in a ticket for us. Tickets are the "one true source" of goals and resolutions. Chat/email/phone are ancillary and all treated the same: they are a method to have a conversation. Any conversation must be summarized into a ticket if you want it actionable. We use Hipchat, so I can't speak for slack, but notifications are only sent out if someone "requests" a notification like @all or @here (those not AFK) or @personName for an individual notification Each team has their own room as well as a global company room and a social "hangout" room. If you want to catch up on things you are welcome to chime in later or add info to the room/ticket but you are not required if you aren't a stakeholder. I am never distracted unless someone needs to distract me for an immediate need.