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When I joined the Elm community I thought it was weird they use a Slack for real time discussion and not a Discord. When I asked why I found out that Discord's

When I joined the Elm community I thought it was weird they use a Slack for real time discussion and not a Discord. When I asked why I found out that Discord's features are most certainly not a superset of Slack's. * Slack threads are an amazing feature and frequently used on the Elm slack. One discussion or one person's question can become a thread and then the channel won't be continuously pinged by the ongoing discussion, plus multiple discussions can happen in tandem. I remember when Slack added this feature lots of people including me were a bit disdainful. It feels like an awfully hard new UI pattern to get used to after so many years of single-threaded conversation on e.g. IRC. But now I would strongly oppose moving to Discord only because of this issue. * Slack also has a different model for channels on a server. There are probably caveats to these statements, but roughly speaking the default assumption on Slack is you don't belong to any channels in a server but can join what you want or what is configured for you, and on Discord the assumption is that you belong to everything and sometimes a Discord server will configure it so certain things are hidden. For a big organization like a programming language or a company the Slack model is preferable.

steveklabnik 5y ago
Funny enough, I hate Slack threads. Discord has added a reply feature already that better captures the IRC feeling, and rumor is real threads are coming, we'll see :) (If you like threads, be sure to check out Zulip.)
- TheFlyingFish 5y ago
  Threading in group IM's seems to be one of the more polarizing UX discussions that I've come across. A while back I was reading some of the discussions the Matrix people were having about implementing a threading model, where it became clear that there were three very distinct ideas of "good threading" floating around: 1. Infinitely-nestable threading, a la Reddit and HN (and probably other sites first, but those are the ones I've used it the most) 2. Single-level nested threading, a la Slack (and maybe Facebook? I forget how much nesting they allow) 3. Discord/IRC-style replies (like you mentioned) where the responding message just quotes the original, possibly with a slight UI indication to make it easier to parse. I guess you could argue that Zulip-style threading is a fourth option, but IMO that's closer to a bulletin board than a group IM, because you can't have a message that isn't in a thread, so almost no discussion happens at the top level of a given channel. What's interesting to me is that the split between who prefers which style of threading is pretty close to even. I suspect, although I'm not sure, that it comes down to two things: the size of the groups in which you normally participate, and how closely-knit they are. A small, closely-knit group would likely prefer Discord/IRC-style threading, because sub-discussions are more likely to be of interest to those not participating, and the added noise isn't too big of a deal if the group is small. A larger, but still closely-knit group would probably prefer Slack-style threading, because even though sub-discussions might still be interesting to more than the immediate participants, but a single message space starts to become unusable with more than a couple of sub-discussions going on. A large and loosely-knit group is is likely to prefer Reddit/HN style discussions (and in fact those are two examples of large and loosely-knit communities) because a sub-discussion is less likely to be of interest to a significant portion of the main discussion's participants. Maybe, at least. It would be interesting to do a poll and see how those factors correlate.
zelphirkalt 5y ago
> Slack threads are an amazing feature Wait, are we thinking about the same very limited concept of one additional layer down? It feels like they must have intentionally developed it badly, so that you cannot create a thread to reply to a message that is inside a thread. While Discord does not have threads, I would not at all call the Slack solution amazing. It's actually quite a poor solution and an artificial limitation. We also don't even need to get started on performance. The comparison Slack vs Discord in terms of performance is like comparing 2 completely different things. Switch a channel in Slack? Merely takes a few seconds :D > For a big organization like a programming language or a company the Slack model is preferable. And yet communities decide otherwise (examples: Pharo community, general progamming community servers and probably many more). Slack does not handle Markdown well at all, while in Discord it almost always does what you expect, including escaping of special characters and highlighting code blocks properly, which is a must have for programming languages. Basically I would never choose Slack over Discord, because of how crappy they implemented these things. It really shows no attention to the details. In almost any programming language, one can find a markdown parser, that works better than what Slack cobbled together. Now those are very basic things to get right in any messenger like application, but it is indicative, how bad these things work in Slack.
- savanaly 5y ago
  A thread going down a single layer makes total sense to me. Not the engineer in me, maybe, but the human. The human who is well trained to, in a large gathering like a party or an office, pull one or two people aside to have a semi-private conversation. Others will drift in or out as they like, but would you usually join one of those mini-conversations then pull one of the participants aside for an even mini-er conversation within that small group? No and I don't ever feel the need in slack either... If you and someone realize that you want to talk about something just move to PMs or make another thread at the top level and ping the person.
bitexploder 5y ago
Slack provides all sorts of feature for businesses that Discord does not. Integrations, APIs, plug-ins, workflows, etc. at a high level they seem similar but I have investigated replacing Slack a number of times and can never find anything that checks all the boxes and makes it easy to do business with. Slack also has critical mass now where many of our customers work with us on Slack. Good luck getting Discord on corporate desktops :)
Dylan16807 5y ago
> For a big organization Dealing with the difference in default channel permissions requires an extra minute or two of work. Adding user-controlled joins means grabbing a bot and spending a few more minutes. For a big organization it's absolutely negligible.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  For a big organization, this now means two more audit sessions with IT security, which means about 5-7 hours of meetings spent with them, only for them to then decide that the bot does not adhere to the obscure, 1990s-era document ITSEC-37893/378B section A.epsilon subsection D7 ("Auditability of automatic functionality by certified public accountants") which was written by some legalese zombie who last saw a computer in the 1960s and which reasonable people agree is not something that's relevant to the use-case - but ITSecurity won't budge and has veto powers. Large organizations are far more likely to buy a solution that works for 80% of the use-cases out of the box, and then live with not fulfilling the other 20% by training their users around it (and constantly complain about the users) - especially if that means you can move accountability to the supplier in the contract. WHICH 80% of functionality is important is decided by what you best can sell to top management. The sweet spot for quick decisions and technological adaptions are SMBs up to about 500 employees.

steveklabnik 5y ago

Funny enough, I hate Slack threads. Discord has added a reply feature already that better captures the IRC feeling, and rumor is real threads are coming, we'll see :) (If you like threads, be sure to check out Zulip.)

TheFlyingFish 5y ago
Threading in group IM's seems to be one of the more polarizing UX discussions that I've come across. A while back I was reading some of the discussions the Matrix people were having about implementing a threading model, where it became clear that there were three very distinct ideas of "good threading" floating around: 1. Infinitely-nestable threading, a la Reddit and HN (and probably other sites first, but those are the ones I've used it the most) 2. Single-level nested threading, a la Slack (and maybe Facebook? I forget how much nesting they allow) 3. Discord/IRC-style replies (like you mentioned) where the responding message just quotes the original, possibly with a slight UI indication to make it easier to parse. I guess you could argue that Zulip-style threading is a fourth option, but IMO that's closer to a bulletin board than a group IM, because you can't have a message that isn't in a thread, so almost no discussion happens at the top level of a given channel. What's interesting to me is that the split between who prefers which style of threading is pretty close to even. I suspect, although I'm not sure, that it comes down to two things: the size of the groups in which you normally participate, and how closely-knit they are. A small, closely-knit group would likely prefer Discord/IRC-style threading, because sub-discussions are more likely to be of interest to those not participating, and the added noise isn't too big of a deal if the group is small. A larger, but still closely-knit group would probably prefer Slack-style threading, because even though sub-discussions might still be interesting to more than the immediate participants, but a single message space starts to become unusable with more than a couple of sub-discussions going on. A large and loosely-knit group is is likely to prefer Reddit/HN style discussions (and in fact those are two examples of large and loosely-knit communities) because a sub-discussion is less likely to be of interest to a significant portion of the main discussion's participants. Maybe, at least. It would be interesting to do a poll and see how those factors correlate.

zelphirkalt 5y ago

> Slack threads are an amazing feature Wait, are we thinking about the same very limited concept of one additional layer down? It feels like they must have intentionally developed it badly, so that you cannot create a thread to reply to a message that is inside a thread. While Discord does not have threads, I would not at all call the Slack solution amazing. It's actually quite a poor solution and an artificial limitation. We also don't even need to get started on performance. The comparison Slack vs Discord in terms of performance is like comparing 2 completely different things. Switch a channel in Slack? Merely takes a few seconds :D > For a big organization like a programming language or a company the Slack model is preferable. And yet communities decide otherwise (examples: Pharo community, general progamming community servers and probably many more). Slack does not handle Markdown well at all, while in Discord it almost always does what you expect, including escaping of special characters and highlighting code blocks properly, which is a must have for programming languages. Basically I would never choose Slack over Discord, because of how crappy they implemented these things. It really shows no attention to the details. In almost any programming language, one can find a markdown parser, that works better than what Slack cobbled together. Now those are very basic things to get right in any messenger like application, but it is indicative, how bad these things work in Slack.

savanaly 5y ago
A thread going down a single layer makes total sense to me. Not the engineer in me, maybe, but the human. The human who is well trained to, in a large gathering like a party or an office, pull one or two people aside to have a semi-private conversation. Others will drift in or out as they like, but would you usually join one of those mini-conversations then pull one of the participants aside for an even mini-er conversation within that small group? No and I don't ever feel the need in slack either... If you and someone realize that you want to talk about something just move to PMs or make another thread at the top level and ping the person.

bitexploder 5y ago

Slack provides all sorts of feature for businesses that Discord does not. Integrations, APIs, plug-ins, workflows, etc. at a high level they seem similar but I have investigated replacing Slack a number of times and can never find anything that checks all the boxes and makes it easy to do business with. Slack also has critical mass now where many of our customers work with us on Slack. Good luck getting Discord on corporate desktops :)

Dylan16807 5y ago

> For a big organization Dealing with the difference in default channel permissions requires an extra minute or two of work. Adding user-controlled joins means grabbing a bot and spending a few more minutes. For a big organization it's absolutely negligible.

DocTomoe 5y ago
For a big organization, this now means two more audit sessions with IT security, which means about 5-7 hours of meetings spent with them, only for them to then decide that the bot does not adhere to the obscure, 1990s-era document ITSEC-37893/378B section A.epsilon subsection D7 ("Auditability of automatic functionality by certified public accountants") which was written by some legalese zombie who last saw a computer in the 1960s and which reasonable people agree is not something that's relevant to the use-case - but ITSecurity won't budge and has veto powers. Large organizations are far more likely to buy a solution that works for 80% of the use-cases out of the box, and then live with not fulfilling the other 20% by training their users around it (and constantly complain about the users) - especially if that means you can move accountability to the supplier in the contract. WHICH 80% of functionality is important is decided by what you best can sell to top management. The sweet spot for quick decisions and technological adaptions are SMBs up to about 500 employees.