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Just publish an open and fully documented API so folks can build their own clients (or use those written by folks they share UX opinions with) and these constan

Just publish an open and fully documented API so folks can build their own clients (or use those written by folks they share UX opinions with) and these constant redesigns that will inevitably break folks' muscle memories and piss people off won't be necessary, come on, Slack! Anyway, can't wait to have to re-learn a bunch of stuff for Glossy IRC yet again...

Minor49er 3y ago
Unfortunately, IRC does not allow a lot of modern features that we take for granted, such as seeing a channel's history upon joining, roles, reacts, or message editing. Last I checked, the latest IRC spec doesn't support most of these either. It might be worth working on something open and new
- klardotsh 3y ago
  I'm strongly of the opinion these days that channel scrollback history is an anti-feature. Anything that depends on Slack Search to be found, is in formation that should be captured in "hard documentation" - markdown docs in a git repo, Notion,even Google Docs or whatever. Roles do "somewhat" exist in IRC, in the sense that you can have ops and admins, but I suppose it's not quite as fully-fledged as something like Discord's roles. Reacts and editing indeed don't exist. Reacts are something I've pondered what an IRCv3 extension for might look like - maybe I should poke at that some day in prototype form. Message edits, well. Sure, you don't have them. You can send a follow up "s/foo/bar" kind of text, and some clients will even understand that as an edit of your last message, but of course it's not perfect. Anyway. I'd be fully happy if Slack disappeared tomorrow and we all went back to IRC, but I realize that I'm both technical, and someone who grew up on IRC. It wouldn't be perfect for everyone. But damn do I wish that reality could exist.
  - Minor49er 3y ago
    Isn't hard capture the same as scrollback history?
  - adrianmsmith 3y ago
    > I'm strongly of the opinion these days that channel scrollback history is an anti-feature. Anything that depends on Slack Search to be found, is in formation that should be captured in "hard documentation" - markdown docs in a git repo, Notion,even Google Docs or whatever. I am of the same opinion, but Slack's original advertising focused on how Slack could become a repository for information (rather than information being distributed over emails, Confluence, docs, Git, etc.)
    - spott 3y ago
      > rather than information being distributed over emails, Confluence, docs, Git, etc. Now information is distributed over slack, emails, confluence, docs, git, etc…
  - dsr_ 3y ago
    I've said this before: At $company, we used an IRC server. Only the IT department used it. Then we ran an ejabberd XMPP server. Some of the front end devs used it on occasion. Now we run a Zulip server, and everybody uses it all the time. Killer features: - full function web client. No point in using the electron app. Mobile clients are usable, a little nicer than mobile view of the web client. - self hosted, meets our security policy. - channels and topics. - markdown - fast - images. I thought this would add nothing, but it turns out that there are lots of non-cute-animal uses. - each client can turn emojis off
    - klardotsh 3y ago
      Zulip is great - I used to work there, even. If I could ever convince $dayjob to move over, I'd be fine with that over IRC, sure!
- conor- 3y ago
  > It might be worth working on something open and new Matrix is extremely mature and supports all of the things you mentioned and more such as bridging to IRC servers. I frequently see people complaining about IRC and features it doesn't lack or warts in the protocol from age, but those same groups never mention Matrix as a viable alternative. Do you know why that is?
paxys 3y ago
You mean like the one at https://api.slack.com/apis https://api.slack.com/apis? You can build your own client today if you want.
- davkan 3y ago
  Sadly third party apps need to be approved by a slack workspace administrator. I wanted to use wee-slack[0], but neither my work nor any of the community slacks I’m a member of, e.g. kubernetes, had any third party clients enabled at all. I figured the likelihood of an admin enabling it at my request was zero so I didn’t bother asking. [0]https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack
  - paxys 3y ago
    That's how it should work. Slack offers APIs, and the administrator of each instance controls the level of access you get to them. Remember that the data in Slack doesn't belong to you, but rather is the property of your employer.
    - davkan 3y ago
      Oh i totally agree! It’s just unfortunate that it means a tui slack is not a possibility, even for slacks that are fully public. My company also does not restrict slack on unmanaged devices so its not like they’re mitigating data exfiltration meaningfully. But, even with such a lax policy, officially sanctioning a third party app has implications.
    - klardotsh 3y ago
      Then Slack doesn't have an "open" API as I described, at least not one that's a first-class citizen alongside their Electron app (or the app-dot-slack-dot-com equivalent). I can either use my own client, or I can't, for the purposes of addressing my "I'm tired of dealing with whatever UX Slack's designers mandate I have" complaint. I used to use wee-slack, then I worked places that wouldn't allow its installation, and then suddenly I kinda wished work cultures would just move back to emails, mailing lists, and some light ephemeral thing for IM (quite possibly IRC). Because at least then, user experience doesn't have to be dictated by someone who has absolutely no idea how you want to or like to work.

Minor49er 3y ago

Unfortunately, IRC does not allow a lot of modern features that we take for granted, such as seeing a channel's history upon joining, roles, reacts, or message editing. Last I checked, the latest IRC spec doesn't support most of these either. It might be worth working on something open and new

klardotsh 3y ago
I'm strongly of the opinion these days that channel scrollback history is an anti-feature. Anything that depends on Slack Search to be found, is in formation that should be captured in "hard documentation" - markdown docs in a git repo, Notion,even Google Docs or whatever. Roles do "somewhat" exist in IRC, in the sense that you can have ops and admins, but I suppose it's not quite as fully-fledged as something like Discord's roles. Reacts and editing indeed don't exist. Reacts are something I've pondered what an IRCv3 extension for might look like - maybe I should poke at that some day in prototype form. Message edits, well. Sure, you don't have them. You can send a follow up "s/foo/bar" kind of text, and some clients will even understand that as an edit of your last message, but of course it's not perfect. Anyway. I'd be fully happy if Slack disappeared tomorrow and we all went back to IRC, but I realize that I'm both technical, and someone who grew up on IRC. It wouldn't be perfect for everyone. But damn do I wish that reality could exist.
- Minor49er 3y ago
  Isn't hard capture the same as scrollback history?
- adrianmsmith 3y ago
  > I'm strongly of the opinion these days that channel scrollback history is an anti-feature. Anything that depends on Slack Search to be found, is in formation that should be captured in "hard documentation" - markdown docs in a git repo, Notion,even Google Docs or whatever. I am of the same opinion, but Slack's original advertising focused on how Slack could become a repository for information (rather than information being distributed over emails, Confluence, docs, Git, etc.)
  - spott 3y ago
    > rather than information being distributed over emails, Confluence, docs, Git, etc. Now information is distributed over slack, emails, confluence, docs, git, etc…
- dsr_ 3y ago
  I've said this before: At $company, we used an IRC server. Only the IT department used it. Then we ran an ejabberd XMPP server. Some of the front end devs used it on occasion. Now we run a Zulip server, and everybody uses it all the time. Killer features: - full function web client. No point in using the electron app. Mobile clients are usable, a little nicer than mobile view of the web client. - self hosted, meets our security policy. - channels and topics. - markdown - fast - images. I thought this would add nothing, but it turns out that there are lots of non-cute-animal uses. - each client can turn emojis off
  - klardotsh 3y ago
    Zulip is great - I used to work there, even. If I could ever convince $dayjob to move over, I'd be fine with that over IRC, sure!
conor- 3y ago
> It might be worth working on something open and new Matrix is extremely mature and supports all of the things you mentioned and more such as bridging to IRC servers. I frequently see people complaining about IRC and features it doesn't lack or warts in the protocol from age, but those same groups never mention Matrix as a viable alternative. Do you know why that is?

paxys 3y ago

You mean like the one at https://api.slack.com/apis https://api.slack.com/apis? You can build your own client today if you want.

davkan 3y ago
Sadly third party apps need to be approved by a slack workspace administrator. I wanted to use wee-slack[0], but neither my work nor any of the community slacks I’m a member of, e.g. kubernetes, had any third party clients enabled at all. I figured the likelihood of an admin enabling it at my request was zero so I didn’t bother asking. [0]https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack
- paxys 3y ago
  That's how it should work. Slack offers APIs, and the administrator of each instance controls the level of access you get to them. Remember that the data in Slack doesn't belong to you, but rather is the property of your employer.
  - davkan 3y ago
    Oh i totally agree! It’s just unfortunate that it means a tui slack is not a possibility, even for slacks that are fully public. My company also does not restrict slack on unmanaged devices so its not like they’re mitigating data exfiltration meaningfully. But, even with such a lax policy, officially sanctioning a third party app has implications.
  - klardotsh 3y ago
    Then Slack doesn't have an "open" API as I described, at least not one that's a first-class citizen alongside their Electron app (or the app-dot-slack-dot-com equivalent). I can either use my own client, or I can't, for the purposes of addressing my "I'm tired of dealing with whatever UX Slack's designers mandate I have" complaint. I used to use wee-slack, then I worked places that wouldn't allow its installation, and then suddenly I kinda wished work cultures would just move back to emails, mailing lists, and some light ephemeral thing for IM (quite possibly IRC). Because at least then, user experience doesn't have to be dictated by someone who has absolutely no idea how you want to or like to work.