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I think it's a common misunderstanding that we must read everything in Slack. You don't have to. If something's important it will come up again, or if it's dire

I think it's a common misunderstanding that we must read everything in Slack. You don't have to. If something's important it will come up again, or if it's directly relevant to you then someone will tag you. When someone asks about a Slack conversation you didn't see, just say you missed it. It's a better norm than being expected to stay up to the minute on every word uttered by every employee.

dingaling 8y ago
> If something's important it will come up again So why use it at all? That's rapidly becoming my thought on this Slack mess. If it's important they'll call me or send an email. Just like in 2015. > just say you missed it Technology is supposed to make data manageable. If it doesn't then it's a failure. I've deleted the Slack app from my phone. It has progressed through the stages of Usenet in a few years. Now the signal is unrecoverable in the noise. It has failed.
- g3rv4 8y ago
  why use it at all? you may not be the one who chooses what tool your team uses for communication.
- strken 8y ago
  I don't think any technology makes data manageable in the sense that you want it to. Summarising information is still relegated to humans, and filtering noisy sources of information is on you. For instance, your company might have a hundred slack channels and private conversations. You could be interested in five (channels specific to projects you're on, things you're interested in, or non-critical alerts), not interested in ninety (other projects, functional groups you don't care about, other groups' lunch plans), and actively disinterested in another five (#random, #politics-that-make-me-angry, #synergy, #build-system-spam).
- briandear 8y ago
  The problem is your team, not the platform. Use channels, be disciplined about what goes on in the channels. Use threads for side conversations. Use private messages when needed.
jrockway 8y ago
Indeed. As far as I can tell, the premise of Slack is that it's like email, except instead of saying "I'll do this tomorrow" and starring the message in your inbox, you just either handle it right now, or completely forget about it and it's lost to the Depths Of Time until someone else remembers again. Switching from email to Slack is basically a test of whether or not an organization actually has some task tracking in place. If not, then Slack's claimed 41% reduction in email volume becomes a 41% reduction in customer volume. "Less work for me!"
- macspoofing 8y ago
  >Indeed. As far as I can tell, the premise of Slack is that it's like email I never understood that. It's not like email. It's corporate IRC.
  - phlakaton 8y ago
    If you've been at a company where email was treated as corporate IRC, Slack is quite refreshing. :-)
macspoofing 8y ago
>I think it's a common misunderstanding that we must read everything in Slack. You don't have to. For sure, but the UX around unread messages triggers my OCD.
- jfroma 8y ago
  I have the same problem but you can always use the combination of cmd+shift+esc to mark everything as read.

dingaling 8y ago

> If something's important it will come up again So why use it at all? That's rapidly becoming my thought on this Slack mess. If it's important they'll call me or send an email. Just like in 2015. > just say you missed it Technology is supposed to make data manageable. If it doesn't then it's a failure. I've deleted the Slack app from my phone. It has progressed through the stages of Usenet in a few years. Now the signal is unrecoverable in the noise. It has failed.

g3rv4 8y ago
why use it at all? you may not be the one who chooses what tool your team uses for communication.
strken 8y ago
I don't think any technology makes data manageable in the sense that you want it to. Summarising information is still relegated to humans, and filtering noisy sources of information is on you. For instance, your company might have a hundred slack channels and private conversations. You could be interested in five (channels specific to projects you're on, things you're interested in, or non-critical alerts), not interested in ninety (other projects, functional groups you don't care about, other groups' lunch plans), and actively disinterested in another five (#random, #politics-that-make-me-angry, #synergy, #build-system-spam).
briandear 8y ago
The problem is your team, not the platform. Use channels, be disciplined about what goes on in the channels. Use threads for side conversations. Use private messages when needed.

jrockway 8y ago

Indeed. As far as I can tell, the premise of Slack is that it's like email, except instead of saying "I'll do this tomorrow" and starring the message in your inbox, you just either handle it right now, or completely forget about it and it's lost to the Depths Of Time until someone else remembers again. Switching from email to Slack is basically a test of whether or not an organization actually has some task tracking in place. If not, then Slack's claimed 41% reduction in email volume becomes a 41% reduction in customer volume. "Less work for me!"

macspoofing 8y ago
>Indeed. As far as I can tell, the premise of Slack is that it's like email I never understood that. It's not like email. It's corporate IRC.
- phlakaton 8y ago
  If you've been at a company where email was treated as corporate IRC, Slack is quite refreshing. :-)

macspoofing 8y ago

>I think it's a common misunderstanding that we must read everything in Slack. You don't have to. For sure, but the UX around unread messages triggers my OCD.

jfroma 8y ago
I have the same problem but you can always use the combination of cmd+shift+esc to mark everything as read.