this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
21 points (56.6% liked)

Technology

59107 readers
3584 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The article's title covers everything. Slack simply serves as a form of social media for the office that reduces employee productivity.

all 32 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

No it isn't.

EDIT:

OK to explaind on this just a bit. Slack is a Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge. That's all it is. If all you do is talk shit on there, it's going to be a repository of shit talking and that's not slacks fault.

Personally, slack has saved me a countless amount of time at work. Having a technical problem? Search slack, someone probably asked about it and there's a solution for that. If there's no answer, asking in the right channel will usually get it answered pretty quickly.

Especially as a remote company, slack or a tool like it is pretty indispensable for working with my team. And yes, we talk a lot of shit on there and those conversations happen in shit talking channels which means they don't clutter the productive channels but I can still bond with my team a bit.

I guess like any tool, it's about how you use it. In this case though I don't think you can blame the tool even though slack is definitely not perfect. It's definitely far from Facebook, I honestly think you'd win some kind of record with that stretch.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Tell ‘em Aurenkin!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

If all you do is talk shit on there, it's going to be a repository of shit talking and that's not slacks fault.

perfect. yeah I love slack. people can post their FB shit in #random but the team chat is a great way to get and find answers.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've worked at companies where we had great communication policies around slack. Slack rooms were for the room topic, not for conversations.

There was an off topic room where people could be social and shit talk.

But basically due to our moderation rules, we really encourage people to keep channels on topic. Which made it more useful, less noisy. So it's a social network and so far is social people use it. But the structure on top of it is determined by the company policy and the culture

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You're really stretching the meaning of "social network" there. May as well say the postal system is a social network.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

its used by people socially, so yes, i think the post office counts as a social network... literally

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Newspapers had those things where you could chat by sending in mail and having a nickname and shit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would never talk shit about anything at work on a medium that keeps a permanent record. Do people really have that hard a time staying professional?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course it's not wise to talk shit on a company platform, but Slack is hardcore about privacy.

I'm our Slack admin. I cannot see a DM I wasn't invited to. I cannot even see private channel names that I'm not invited to.

The only way Slack will divulge private posts, or posts in private channels, is if the account owner contacts support and makes a case for why they need to see anything private.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The danger in my mind isn’t someone without access, it’s someone with access taking screenshots and using them against you. That’s why I don’t say anything remotely shitty unless it’s on unrecorded audio.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 year ago (2 children)

✅paywall ✅clickbait title

I'm sure the article makes many salient points.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Slack simply serves as a form of social media for the office that reduces employee productivity.

JFC, I have not seen such a worse take in many years. The Slack redesign was annoying and I wished Slack would stop making the UI worse each update, but it's still the lifeblood of our communication chain.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My team communicates through gifs and emoji only

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

As long as they speak the language I don't foresee a los on productivity

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

If you say so. We use it for work really heavily and it's 99% productive.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

None of that is new to Slack. They could've written an article to make a decent critique of the questionable UI changes Slack introduced, but instead they targeted features that were already there for years, like reactions and huddle.

The new interface just wastes space and hides the notification count of unfocused workspaces. I just wish Slack would start making interface changes like these optional.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I agree that the "new" slack(disabling the cross channel thread sidebar) is a big deprecation in functionality. But calling it the "New Facebook" is hilariously absurd

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Every app just copies other apps until they don't do the thing they were originally "for".

& then what's left is an app that does "everything" very poorly.

& this is our whole reality now.

How do we escape?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is this article paywalled ?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I liked slack when i had it. Microsoft and zoom have been eating some of their market share.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

This is the stupidest thing I’ve read in weeks. And to be clear, I have read a lot of monumentally stupid nonsense in the last few weeks.

I’d say more, but @Aurenkin nailed it, so I will defer to their comment.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Stupid headline is stupid.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

the collapse of big tech is going to be an interesting watch. seems like every day they're getting more callous, greedy, overstepping any reasonable bounds...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I remember suggesting using slack to one of my superiors and they're like, "What's Slack?"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'd my work removed slack I am legitimately unsure how I'd communicate with my team at all. During meetings only, in tickets and in github reviews. Nice and clinical. Nah, I'll keep slack ty

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

2023 SEPTEMBER 14 TECHNOLOGY
Slack Is Basically Facebook Now

Slack’s redesign suggests that keeping up with Slack is the only work worth doing.

By Ian Bogost

image...Illustration of an office worker with an emoji-selection interface covering his head Illustration by Jared Bartman / The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

“Oh,” I slacked my Atlantic colleagues earlier this week, beneath a screenshot of a pop-up note that Slack, the group-chat software we use, had presented to me moments earlier. “A fresh, more focused Slack,” it promised, or threatened. On my screen, the program’s interface was suddenly a Grimace-purple color. I sensed doom in this software update.

Slowly, over the days that followed, complaints about the new Slack started trickling into our chats. “folks I cannot handle this new version of slack and will be taking the rest of the month off,” one Atlantic staffer said. “I am reverting to sending physical memos on personal letterhead,” posted another. “all my slacks are: I hate the new slack,” slacked Adrienne LaFrance, the magazine’s executive editor. (Later on, she messaged me separately to see if I would write about Slack’s terrible new format.)

Ian Bogost is a contributing writer at The Atlantic.