6 ms·

What I'd prefer is the Twist-style threads (Zulip may also have them), where every room/channel must contain only topics/threads, and those topics have a title/

What I'd prefer is the Twist-style threads (Zulip may also have them), where every room/channel must contain only topics/threads, and those topics have a title/description, and any messages in them are 1-level (no nested threading). It looks like this: #office [room/channel] * Lunch [thread/topic] - Anyone wants to grab lunch today? [message] - Sure, I'll join! [message] - Me too! [message] * Printer doesn't work [thread/topic] - Anyone else having trouble with the printer? [message] - I fixed it an hour ago actually, try again [message] - Thanks, it works! [message] - (thread closed) #marketing [room/channel] * Website Update 2022 [thread/topic] - (posting images) [message] - Here is the new draft, let me know what you think! [message] - Looks good, but there are some spelling mistakes… [message] - Nice work! [message] - Adwords Campaign [thread/topic] - Here is a new adwords campaign structure. Let me know what you think! [message] - How about splitting by geografy and demographics? [message] - … [message] - … [message] - Alright, new campaign is live, thanks everyone! [message] - (thread closed) We recently switched from Slack to Twist because they have this structure. Although Twist is worse in probably every dimension except for this, this structure is still so much better that we're overall happy with the move. I wish Element/Matrix would support this. I suggested this during their RFC process, but unfortunately didn't capture enough attention. Perhaps it'll be added later.

Arathorn 4y ago
The hope is to add it later. The first cut is plain Slack-style threads, but we have MSCs for zulip/twist style threads like https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/2836 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/283... which will get built out as soon as we can. Fun fact: the design for Element’s current threading is from a former Twist designer; make of that what you will :)
- feanaro 4y ago
  I'm not sure an entirely separate mechanism is needed to achieve Zulip-style threading, though? Seems like the current thread design could easily be adapted to support named threads. Does Zulip support nested threads?
- culi 4y ago
  Does Element have discord-style replies? This is the biggest feature missing in slack for me. Being able to quickly reply to a particular message that might be 2-3 messages behind goes a really long way in being able to maintain multiple flows of a conversation
  - Arathorn 4y ago
    Yes, it does, and has done for about 3-4 years.
MrJohz 4y ago
This is pretty much the classic forum system, isn't it? A bunch of sections (sometimes nested), inside which you can post threads, and reply linearly to those threads.
- nkozyra 4y ago
  Nesting was around pretty early on, but yeah. I think what all of these platforms are discovering is that we figured out some pretty intuitive patterns early on and are on a constant loop of wanting to do something different before eventually realizing this and reverting. There's a hybrid wherein you keep references to a branch in a thread but you still display a flat discussion. If you choose to follow the branch you can but otherwise all discussion sits on one level. I like this way more than default nesting, which can be impossible to follow.
  - heyoni 4y ago
    Which slack does already.
    - nkozyra 4y ago
      Slack buries threads at the surface level. This is helpful in some situations but can lead to a lot of confusion
    - culi 4y ago
      This is one of slack's weak-points imo. Discord allows you to reply to a particular message when making a post. In Slack you make a "thread" but then click "also post in channel". This can cause a lot of confusion if all you're trying to do is use it as a reply because most people will start replying to the thread, not realizing you were trying to keep the conversation as part of the regular channel flow
loloquwowndueo 4y ago
Why is Twist “worse in probably every dimension”? (Asking honestly, I’d like to know where you find it inferior to slack, which I have used in the past, while I haven’t looked at Twist in depth)
replygirl 4y ago
you can enforce this in slack with a toggle
- design-material 4y ago
  What's the option called for that toggle?
- NeckBeardPrince 4y ago
  That's not available on all plans.
  - replygirl 4y ago
    ok, here’s a free app that replicates it https://slack.com/apps/A022BL4HJLD-onlythreads https://slack.com/apps/A022BL4HJLD-onlythreads
- jdright 4y ago
  Care to explain how or point to some documentation please?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
derefr 4y ago
Does Twist support a "braided" view of threads, i.e. where you can see all messages in all threads in a channel ordered chronologically, with some clear visual indicator of which thread each message is from? (Sort of as if people are talking directly in the channel, but where every message has a threaded "provenance"; and where you can collapse/mute threads you don't care about, causing those messages to no longer show up in the braided view for you.) This is kind of what you get from Slack's threads — if everyone always uses the "also share to channel" option in the thread, and if everyone also make sure to otherwise never post directly to the channel. Which is impossible to enforce, of course. I feel like, without such a braided view, it'd be very hard to follow several threads at once, if you were e.g. helping multiple people in a "support" channel, with each conversation being a thread. Once you navigated into a thread, you wouldn't be able to see activity in sibling threads until you navigated out. You'd know that something happened, but you wouldn't be able to glance at the content to tell if it's more urgent than your current conversation. (You could rely on app toast notifications, but you might miss these if you glance away for a moment.)
media-trivial 4y ago
Google Chat (part of Google Workspace) has this. At work we use Slack though :/ (would like to try Chat instead).
- benhurmarcel 4y ago
  My company uses Google Chat, which indeed has rooms with mandatory threads. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who just post their new topics in whatever last existing thread is visible. We’ve been using it for years now and asking people to create their own thread still happens several times a day. Most people just don’t get it. I guess this is why Google Chat is now pushing thread-less rooms, and is rolling out on-the-fly threads like Slack.

Arathorn 4y ago

The hope is to add it later. The first cut is plain Slack-style threads, but we have MSCs for zulip/twist style threads like https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/2836 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/283... which will get built out as soon as we can. Fun fact: the design for Element’s current threading is from a former Twist designer; make of that what you will :)

feanaro 4y ago
I'm not sure an entirely separate mechanism is needed to achieve Zulip-style threading, though? Seems like the current thread design could easily be adapted to support named threads. Does Zulip support nested threads?
culi 4y ago
Does Element have discord-style replies? This is the biggest feature missing in slack for me. Being able to quickly reply to a particular message that might be 2-3 messages behind goes a really long way in being able to maintain multiple flows of a conversation
- Arathorn 4y ago
  Yes, it does, and has done for about 3-4 years.

MrJohz 4y ago

This is pretty much the classic forum system, isn't it? A bunch of sections (sometimes nested), inside which you can post threads, and reply linearly to those threads.

nkozyra 4y ago
Nesting was around pretty early on, but yeah. I think what all of these platforms are discovering is that we figured out some pretty intuitive patterns early on and are on a constant loop of wanting to do something different before eventually realizing this and reverting. There's a hybrid wherein you keep references to a branch in a thread but you still display a flat discussion. If you choose to follow the branch you can but otherwise all discussion sits on one level. I like this way more than default nesting, which can be impossible to follow.
- heyoni 4y ago
  Which slack does already.
  - nkozyra 4y ago
    Slack buries threads at the surface level. This is helpful in some situations but can lead to a lot of confusion
  - culi 4y ago
    This is one of slack's weak-points imo. Discord allows you to reply to a particular message when making a post. In Slack you make a "thread" but then click "also post in channel". This can cause a lot of confusion if all you're trying to do is use it as a reply because most people will start replying to the thread, not realizing you were trying to keep the conversation as part of the regular channel flow

loloquwowndueo 4y ago

Why is Twist “worse in probably every dimension”? (Asking honestly, I’d like to know where you find it inferior to slack, which I have used in the past, while I haven’t looked at Twist in depth)

replygirl 4y ago

you can enforce this in slack with a toggle

design-material 4y ago
What's the option called for that toggle?
NeckBeardPrince 4y ago
That's not available on all plans.
- replygirl 4y ago
  ok, here’s a free app that replicates it https://slack.com/apps/A022BL4HJLD-onlythreads https://slack.com/apps/A022BL4HJLD-onlythreads
jdright 4y ago
Care to explain how or point to some documentation please?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

derefr 4y ago

Does Twist support a "braided" view of threads, i.e. where you can see all messages in all threads in a channel ordered chronologically, with some clear visual indicator of which thread each message is from? (Sort of as if people are talking directly in the channel, but where every message has a threaded "provenance"; and where you can collapse/mute threads you don't care about, causing those messages to no longer show up in the braided view for you.) This is kind of what you get from Slack's threads — if everyone always uses the "also share to channel" option in the thread, and if everyone also make sure to otherwise never post directly to the channel. Which is impossible to enforce, of course. I feel like, without such a braided view, it'd be very hard to follow several threads at once, if you were e.g. helping multiple people in a "support" channel, with each conversation being a thread. Once you navigated into a thread, you wouldn't be able to see activity in sibling threads until you navigated out. You'd know that something happened, but you wouldn't be able to glance at the content to tell if it's more urgent than your current conversation. (You could rely on app toast notifications, but you might miss these if you glance away for a moment.)

media-trivial 4y ago

Google Chat (part of Google Workspace) has this. At work we use Slack though :/ (would like to try Chat instead).

benhurmarcel 4y ago
My company uses Google Chat, which indeed has rooms with mandatory threads. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who just post their new topics in whatever last existing thread is visible. We’ve been using it for years now and asking people to create their own thread still happens several times a day. Most people just don’t get it. I guess this is why Google Chat is now pushing thread-less rooms, and is rolling out on-the-fly threads like Slack.