Why is the use of slack threads discouraged? It se...
# squarelibrariest
Tim Kye
08/01/2023, 7:40 PMWhy is the use of slack threads discouraged? It seems like everyone is ignoring that anyway
plus1 1
e
Emre
08/01/2023, 7:41 PMIf anything it should be encouraged mandated. Threads keep discussions together, so they don’t overlap and you can skip the whole thing if it does not interest you.
💯 3
t
trevjones
08/01/2023, 7:48 PMsomething about information silo and shitty search behavior iirc. not sure if still true. I think it is a jake-ism
➕ 2
j
jw
08/02/2023, 1:07 AMThis is a chat room, not a forum or support group. Slack is such an awful tool for communities like this. Truly the worst of a chat room and a proper threaded system (like Zulip or even full on Discourse) combined.
jw
08/02/2023, 1:08 AMAn interesting thread that's offscreen is visible to no one except those involved. People are not scrolling up to find "active" threads. How would you even know? Mentally keeping track of reply counts of all 62,361 threads in this channel's entire history of existence?
jw
08/02/2023, 1:09 AMI agree threads should be mandated, on a platform which actually honors threads as a first-class citizen and not this bolt-on bullshit Slack peddles. They added threads in the laziest way possible and it's a complete shit show.
jw
08/02/2023, 1:11 AMBy mandating threads you actually remove the utility of threads because it's impossible to thread within a thread. We're forced to do things like quote reply to ask follow-up questions to something higher-up because I have no way to actually responding directly to something that isn't extremely recent within a thread.
t
trevjones
08/02/2023, 1:14 AMSuddenly reddit comment trees make sense 😂
👌 1
j
jw
08/02/2023, 1:16 AMIf my window was like 14px shorter I would never have even seen this thread. Are people talking in threads higher up? Who knows! Slack does absolutely nothing to draw attention to active threads vs. inactive ones and instead gives us whatever this all is.
😄 1
👍 2
jw
08/02/2023, 1:18 AMThreads in a channel should be able to be disabled. Replies to older messages would then work like clicking the "post reply to channel" box only.
However, if they are enabled, then creating a new thread should be harder than simply typing into the chat box (like a "create new conversation topic" button and then a popup message box and a "create" button). Those should then be sorted by activity like a forum. And whether you're subscribed to each conversation or not should be visually indicated.
t
Tim Kye
08/02/2023, 2:04 AMI’d argue this channel very much is for support.
plus one 1
j
jw
08/02/2023, 2:06 AMWell then we should shut it down because Slack is a dogshit support product
jw
08/02/2023, 2:06 AMGetting help and being provided support are not the same thing
t
Tim Kye
08/02/2023, 2:07 AMThat’s a strange hair to try splitting. I think there are levels to support, of which getting help is one.
plus one 1
Tim Kye
08/02/2023, 2:08 AMBut if you don’t want me to provide support here I can respect that. It is your channel
j
jw
08/02/2023, 2:08 AMIf I wanted to provide support I would use a tool that was built to actually facilitate that. Not a chat product with trash threads.
jw
08/02/2023, 2:10 AMWe provide quite a lot of support on GitHub issues, GitHub discussions, and StackOverflow. These places facilitate asynchronous communication and knowledge sharing, they provide statuses as to the resolution, they are searchable and in a well-known locations associated with the projects.
☝️ 1
jw
08/02/2023, 2:11 AMThis place is a random assortment of people answering a few questions or responding to feedback on whims.
jw
08/02/2023, 2:13 AMIt is a fundamentally a chat room with tiny information silos. If two people want to have a chat in a thread that's four pages scrolled offscreen and come to the wrong conclusions about a problem, the motivations behind something, or the path going forward with a project then they are free to. Chances are no one will see it and correct them. Or maybe thousands will see it in search because Slack search can't rank things because every message has the same weight.
t
Tim Kye
08/02/2023, 2:14 AMI’ve clearly hit a sore spot, and I’m sorry. Message received.
j
jw
08/02/2023, 2:20 AMIt's not a sore spot at all, really, unless you're a Slack PM.
You asked a question about something on which I have a strong and fairly-well informed opinion on. I am not basing this on a whim, but experience and empirical evidence based on this room and other rooms in this and other Slacks.
Other channels thread everything and you get really high-quality questions with high-quality answers with high-value participants with active discussion lost in a sea of low-value questions with low-value answers that have been asked 50 times in that room over the last year. This room becoming like the #compose channel would be very sad and a failure. It wastes the resource that is access to all of these people that works on the projects that this room covers.
👆 3
e
Emre
08/02/2023, 2:20 AMLots of good points, but disabling threading only makes it worse. It means I won’t use this channel except to solve my own problems because it’s too noisy. I will feel less motivated to give back.
I am working on a product that will fix all of these problems, if all goes well.
j
jw
08/02/2023, 2:23 AMIt doesn't really make it worse, because it forces you to split the channel when its scope gets too large. Or to simply use a better tool.
jw
08/02/2023, 2:23 AMThere's many decades of IRC which have proved this model to work reasonably well
e
Emre
08/02/2023, 2:23 AMWhat is this better tool I can use now; stackoverflow?
Emre
08/02/2023, 2:23 AMIRC was a bad product, which is why it died.
j
jw
08/02/2023, 2:24 AMI think you've missed my point
e
Emre
08/02/2023, 2:25 AMThe problem is not the scope of the channel; it’s that everything is bleeding into everything else. It is noisy. And that repels people who value their time. The kind of people you’d want in a knowledge community.
Someone not interested in the threading debate would be totally wasting their time reading this one. They probably want to know about Square libraries, not this meta discussion. But it would be in their face if we did not use threading.
j
jw
08/02/2023, 2:27 AMPlease stop editing your posts
e
Emre
08/02/2023, 2:28 AMWhy???
j
jw
08/02/2023, 2:28 AMBecause I'm not going to read them 8 times to diff what was added
e
Emre
08/02/2023, 2:28 AMYou’re not the only person who’s going to read them.
Emre
08/02/2023, 2:28 AMI am not optimizing for you.
j
jw
08/02/2023, 2:29 AMYou are not optimizing the person who is present in the chat?
e
Emre
08/02/2023, 2:29 AMIf I wanted to have a chat with you, I would send you a private message. This is a public discussion.
Emre
08/02/2023, 2:30 AMI think you are confused about what this product is.
j
jw
08/02/2023, 2:30 AMYou are entitled to your opinion. Bye!
c
Colton Idle
08/03/2023, 9:29 PMi will add that i do like how this room is more like a chat/irc. miss those days
m
Marcin Wisniowski
08/07/2023, 3:37 PMWhile I agree with the problems Jake mentions, I do find the “get notified about new replies” context menu option on messages very useful. I browse lots of channels on this Slack and when someone posts an interesting question I can “subscribe” to it and get notified if someone replies. Without threads I would be unable to subscribe to a conversation.
👍 1
17 Views