The Slack Platform Roadmap | Hacker News Reader

The Slack Platform Roadmap

medium.com

44 pointsALee16 comments

No away message support? Is Slack allergic to this for some reason? I cannot fathom why this basic functionality hasn't been added yet without requiring awkward contortions of adding custom fields to your profile.

You can change your Last Name to "<LastName> (<status>)". Lots of people at my Org do this.

When is the away status insufficient?

For purely remote scenarios, it is an important indication of whether you will be back soon or if you are afk for an extended period of time. Without it you are left broadcasting your status ("going afk for an hour to run an errand, etc") on channels, or having to hack up your profile each time and assume that other users will know where to look to determine when you will be back.

Just about every messaging system has support for this: ICQ, MSN Messenger, Jabber, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and now Google Hangouts, HipChat, etc. Even with IRC there are cheap ways to simulate it. It's really hard to get used to not having it after making good use of it for almost 2 decades.

I think the "2 decades" thing is relevant here. Most of the products you mention were created before people were almost always physically in contact with an internet-enabled device.

I never used any of those much, but starting using Slack when I joined a company where it was ubiquitous. I never saw anybody care about declaring an away message. People at any point could be busy and might not answer, but they were rarely "away". The culture was just to assume that people were available, and if not that they'd reply when they could.

100% agreed.

I work for a slack competitor that has away messages, and I'm jealous of Slack's willingness to ignore the old interface patterns and implement the simplest solution possible that makes the most sense for larger group users, new users, ignoring the expectations of the smaller group of users, old-time users.

A throwaway account can be used to sway bias just as using "just about every messaging system does X". Neither of them are good arguments.

Question is, why the anonymity?

>Even with IRC there are cheap ways to simulate it.

IRC has it built-in: the AWAY message.

To set:

    AWAY :I've gone to the dentist

To clear:

    AWAY

I wish they'd put a bit more effort in making it faster (outside the US/EU) (and feel more native)

The actual roadmap is here:

https://trello.com/b/ZnTQyumQ/slack-platform-roadmap

There is not much here. Real roadmaps look bit more complex than this. This seems like a roadmap created for hiring purposes.

I don't see anything about fixing screen hero. This sucks for those of us in multiple professional organizations.

I don't think they have any plans to fix it, they're just going to integrate some of its technology into the new Calls feature in Slack that's been available for a while now.

I actually prefer Slack's Calls than any other group calling services out there now.

I really enjoyed this presentation about platforms and power over their lifetime: http://www.lostgarden.com/2011/03/gdc-2011-game-of-platform-...

In the framework of this presentation, slack is currently in the 'Engage' phase of the platform. They're all about openness and building something great.

But code is law, and eventually their APIs will be used for something they dislike. Building on a platform is always going to be like snatching pennies from in front of a steamroller.

That is the most abstract and confusing roadmap I've ever seen... Two improvements before rocket.chat eats your lunch...

1 - Give devs the option to extend the UI via fly-in panels (like rocket.chat does)

2 - Update API to support comms with 1

So, why can't I view the roadmap?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com