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Comment by hackandtrip | Hacker News Reader

To me, it is incredible that Slack is used WITHOUT threads. There is no way that information and discussions can be effective without a threaded conversation - it would just be pure cause otherwise.

Also, I find feature-specific channels to be such a pleasure. It's easy to have everyone focused on the same topic in a given channel, without any confusion or missing information between different channels or private messages.

Moreover, I have also considered Slack to be asynchronous - meetings are necessary for sync work, but I find Slack to be working perfectly if no one expects that you reply within minutes, but within a few days (if you are not actively working on a project - in that case a lot of times is just easier to schedule very fast meetings during no-focus times)

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> To me, it is incredible that Slack is used WITHOUT threads.

The first time information you need is sent in a thread that started a week ago and that you're not already on, you'll get why folks don't like Slack threads. They're an anti-feature, IMO.

If Slack offered a way to show all messages whether or not they're in a thread, as they come in, I'd be down. I wouldn't like 'em but at least I could work around their fundamental flaws.

> If Slack offered a way to show all messages whether or not they're in a thread, as they come in, I'd be down.

This is how Zulip works. It's extremely effective.

I second this. Zulip works extremely well at my workplace.

Well, that's because threads are just first citizen in Zulip, even more than in Slack!

Basically, a thread is visible at a first glance from the UI, while that's not true in Slack. Also, you can kinda replicate Zulip structure by just using channels with naming conventions, so you have: - generic channels, e.g. for status update for many stakeholders - specific channels for each feature - threads in each channel where you discuss a single point

And it's such a simple option to add, too - as far as I can tell, each message in a thread is just a message in the channel, just with a "threadId" attached to it. The client's the one that hides it and makes a mess of the experience.

But what it really needs is elevating threads to something like a temporary "sub-channel". Show them on the side-bar just like channels so you don't lose messsages CONSTANTLY if you're in more than 1 active thread at a time.

I understand and agree on this, BUT I feel like we are not at the point where Slack could decide autonomously which threads deserve their own channel.

Usually, in our workspace, it's the person leading the discussion that at some points decide to redirect the talk somewhere else

I just dream of the day when Slack has "all threads with unread messages" show up in the side bar - somewhere. Let it be an option you can turn on/off, if need be. But right now I feel like I have to obsessively scroll down the threads list and look for things that are new.

Maybe it's a company size thing, as mentioned elsewhere in this discussion. At my size company (<10 people), every thread I'm watching - I pretty much need to see all of the new messages.

Isn't this what the slack search bar is for? I was sceptical of using it at first but I often find what I'm looking for by typing in one or two key words and restricting the search to certain channels that likely have the information.

Search can help address this issue if you know that people were discussing something you're interested in. However, it's possible (and in my experience likely) for an important topic to come up in a thread and not make its way back to the channel. In that case you may not know that it's something you need to search for.

The threading is a mess, especially if you are using the web UI.

What are "no-focus times"?

Some companies these days have so many interruptions (often in the form of Zoom meetings) that you need to dedicate "focus time" to get any actual work done.

Thanks, I thought that this person might have been describing something other than that because they said "no-focus" as opposed to "focus", and also because they made mention of scheduling meetings during "no-focus times".

I was wondering whether maybe "no-focus time" might have been something even wackier, like time in which it's explicitly encouraged to interrupt everyone as much as possible, which I know sounds silly, but you never know these days...

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