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> This is the same reason Slack's popularity has skyrocketed. Because of the lack of history <snip> Slack's business model [1] is storing all history and charg

by kardos 7y ago

> This is the same reason Slack's popularity has skyrocketed. Because of the lack of history <snip> Slack's business model [1] is storing all history and charging for access for it. Nothing transient about that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)#Business_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)#Business_mode...

tinalumfoil 7y ago
Is it common to want to keep all that history? My understanding was it's best practice to delete chats after a certain period to limit the surface area of any potential legal discovery.
- daxelrod 7y ago
  Ah, but Slack doesn't delete the history either unless you pay them: https://slack.com/help/articles/203457187-Customize-message-and-file-retention-policies https://slack.com/help/articles/203457187-Customize-message-... On the free tier it's still there, on their servers.
- selectodude 7y ago
  For a lot of industries, deleting internal communication is illegal. For any publicly traded company in the US, all internal communication needs to be archived for five years.
  - quanticle 7y ago
    And it's equally emphasized, at many of those organizations, that all communication older than 5 years is deleted. Nobody wants to be burned by an ill-considered statement made in a decade-old IM conversation.
  - rsanek 7y ago
    Do you have a source for this? I couldn't find anything regarding the 5 year time frame. I did find [0] which references a few different retention periods, especially at 7 years. [0] https://www.intradyn.com/email-retention-laws/ https://www.intradyn.com/email-retention-laws/
    - bradly 7y ago
      It's part of SOX. It actually requires the data be unencrypted, immutable, and available offline. Most corporations (large and small) do not follow this for email, messaging, wikis and many other services.
bradly 7y ago
You are correct that there is history, but my point is that I don't believe the existence of long lived chat history (storing all messages longer than 3-6 months) will be a blocker for a company to switch to a better chat platform. Chat should not be looked at as a durable store of critical, long term information. Slack is trying to create a vendor lock-in that doesn't exist.

by kardos 7y ago

tinalumfoil 7y ago

Is it common to want to keep all that history? My understanding was it's best practice to delete chats after a certain period to limit the surface area of any potential legal discovery.

daxelrod 7y ago
Ah, but Slack doesn't delete the history either unless you pay them: https://slack.com/help/articles/203457187-Customize-message-and-file-retention-policies https://slack.com/help/articles/203457187-Customize-message-... On the free tier it's still there, on their servers.
selectodude 7y ago
For a lot of industries, deleting internal communication is illegal. For any publicly traded company in the US, all internal communication needs to be archived for five years.
- quanticle 7y ago
  And it's equally emphasized, at many of those organizations, that all communication older than 5 years is deleted. Nobody wants to be burned by an ill-considered statement made in a decade-old IM conversation.
- rsanek 7y ago
  Do you have a source for this? I couldn't find anything regarding the 5 year time frame. I did find [0] which references a few different retention periods, especially at 7 years. [0] https://www.intradyn.com/email-retention-laws/ https://www.intradyn.com/email-retention-laws/
  - bradly 7y ago
    It's part of SOX. It actually requires the data be unencrypted, immutable, and available offline. Most corporations (large and small) do not follow this for email, messaging, wikis and many other services.

bradly 7y ago

You are correct that there is history, but my point is that I don't believe the existence of long lived chat history (storing all messages longer than 3-6 months) will be a blocker for a company to switch to a better chat platform. Chat should not be looked at as a durable store of critical, long term information. Slack is trying to create a vendor lock-in that doesn't exist.