6 ms·

We adopted Slack and I hate it but use daily. What I find so frustrating with Slack is that it's 1. Super terrible at threading. Threads are clearly discoura

We adopted Slack and I hate it but use daily. What I find so frustrating with Slack is that it's 1. Super terrible at threading. Threads are clearly discouraged and don't nest. This appears to be by design, but even Usenet handled threading better. 2. Slack is an information wastebasket - at least in my experience it's really hard to find information once there's a significant traffic in a deployment. 3. Too Much Notification! I have to mute channels that has a high rate of addressing the channel. However there's no denying that it's popular. Seems like every place I go is using Slack. At least slack allows me to edit my typos.

pjmlp 4y ago
I used to hate Slack, then I got involved with some projects that require Teams,....
- LilBytes 4y ago
  I'm fairly certain this feeling is ubiquitous across anyone and everyone who's had to transition from Slack to Teams.
- diarrhea 4y ago
  It's baffling the degree to which Teams doesn't work on a purely technical basis, before UI and UX even come into play. Half an hour ago I accepted an invitation to join a Team. Logged into MS in the browser, checked remember me, and then... a naked JSON response. It had a field "result", value "Success". Good! What now? Nothing else happened. I firmly believe Teams is only usable if you're a Microsoft shop (don't even think about Firefox and friends) and is managed by a central IT (I somehow have two MS accounts under the same [work] email and no idea which is which). Don't get me started on being on Teams as an external employee. Things like Slack just work much more and are much less surprising in their behaviour.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Microsoft shops are one of our customer bases, and that doesn't make me like Teams any better. I cannot understand how the Teams team does their product management.
mattwad 4y ago
We moved to Discord and I really miss the threads in Slack. (for example threads can last one week max). They definitely could be a lot worse.
icelancer 4y ago
All communication tools are bad. It's about what you will tolerate. And Slack is pretty decent there.
onion2k 4y ago
Slack is a tool, and like all tools it can be used badly. You work at a company that uses it badly. - No one should be using Slack for deep, branching conversations that require nested threads. Those would be lost and hard to refer back to in any system. Learn to separate and focus on things better. - Slack is not a documentation system or a knowledge base, and shouldn't be treated like one. Pull salient points out of Slack chats and into a better place for holding information you'll go back to. I genuinely believe that Slack's crappy search tool is a feature. It discourages using Slack history as documentation. - No one should be using channel wide messaging to the point where people are annoyed enough to mute notifications. Those people should be regulating what they broadcast, and use email instead when things need to be seen by lots of people. Slack is a great tool for short form conversations, checkins, and automated notifications. But that's all. Using it for something that it's not fit for won't work, but that's not Slack's fault.
- gorgoiler 4y ago
  Slack-the-company’s mission was for Slack to be a searchable knowledge base.
  - onion2k 4y ago
    Company mission statements are marketing, not actual missions. If you want to see the mission of the company look at what it actually does rather than what it says it aims to do.
    - gorgoiler 4y ago
      Did you notice we are saying the same thing?: Slack’s mission was to be a knowledge base but, to date, they have failed to execute. It’s not because mission statements are marketing bullshit that distract outsiders from an alternate nefarious goal. It’s simpler than that: your mission is where you want to go, but in many cases a business just can’t complete that mission.
- michaelt 4y ago
  > You work at a company that uses it badly [...] Learn to separate and focus on things better. Maybe, but it's not within my power to change the behaviour of dozens or hundreds of other people, none of whom report to me. So if I join a company where Slack is a shitty experience, I'm going to have a shitty experience with it - even if the company is "holding it wrong"

pjmlp 4y ago

I used to hate Slack, then I got involved with some projects that require Teams,....

LilBytes 4y ago
I'm fairly certain this feeling is ubiquitous across anyone and everyone who's had to transition from Slack to Teams.
diarrhea 4y ago
It's baffling the degree to which Teams doesn't work on a purely technical basis, before UI and UX even come into play. Half an hour ago I accepted an invitation to join a Team. Logged into MS in the browser, checked remember me, and then... a naked JSON response. It had a field "result", value "Success". Good! What now? Nothing else happened. I firmly believe Teams is only usable if you're a Microsoft shop (don't even think about Firefox and friends) and is managed by a central IT (I somehow have two MS accounts under the same [work] email and no idea which is which). Don't get me started on being on Teams as an external employee. Things like Slack just work much more and are much less surprising in their behaviour.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Microsoft shops are one of our customer bases, and that doesn't make me like Teams any better. I cannot understand how the Teams team does their product management.

mattwad 4y ago

We moved to Discord and I really miss the threads in Slack. (for example threads can last one week max). They definitely could be a lot worse.

icelancer 4y ago

All communication tools are bad. It's about what you will tolerate. And Slack is pretty decent there.

onion2k 4y ago

Slack is a tool, and like all tools it can be used badly. You work at a company that uses it badly. - No one should be using Slack for deep, branching conversations that require nested threads. Those would be lost and hard to refer back to in any system. Learn to separate and focus on things better. - Slack is not a documentation system or a knowledge base, and shouldn't be treated like one. Pull salient points out of Slack chats and into a better place for holding information you'll go back to. I genuinely believe that Slack's crappy search tool is a feature. It discourages using Slack history as documentation. - No one should be using channel wide messaging to the point where people are annoyed enough to mute notifications. Those people should be regulating what they broadcast, and use email instead when things need to be seen by lots of people. Slack is a great tool for short form conversations, checkins, and automated notifications. But that's all. Using it for something that it's not fit for won't work, but that's not Slack's fault.

gorgoiler 4y ago
Slack-the-company’s mission was for Slack to be a searchable knowledge base.
- onion2k 4y ago
  Company mission statements are marketing, not actual missions. If you want to see the mission of the company look at what it actually does rather than what it says it aims to do.
  - gorgoiler 4y ago
    Did you notice we are saying the same thing?: Slack’s mission was to be a knowledge base but, to date, they have failed to execute. It’s not because mission statements are marketing bullshit that distract outsiders from an alternate nefarious goal. It’s simpler than that: your mission is where you want to go, but in many cases a business just can’t complete that mission.
michaelt 4y ago
> You work at a company that uses it badly [...] Learn to separate and focus on things better. Maybe, but it's not within my power to change the behaviour of dozens or hundreds of other people, none of whom report to me. So if I join a company where Slack is a shitty experience, I'm going to have a shitty experience with it - even if the company is "holding it wrong"