Yeah, you definitely are, especially for larger companies. Just from one example: you can tell when a specific issue requires attention based on how many comments the thread has.
So let's say I wake up in the AM and there's a thread that says "how do I use the API for companyservice.example-api.com" and the thread has 50 comments.
Let's say it's a service I support. First, I know there's an issue because a customer required attention to begin with. This is then confirmed by the fact that the thread has 50 comments in it so there are probably documentation and usability issues with this service.
The company I work for and the services I am responsible for deals with internal customers and we use these two absurdly simple metrics to optimize support regularly.
When we first started with certain services that my team is responsible for, we used Slack metrics A LOT. As in, we had spreadsheets with this data and we'd go over them every week. Nowadays, our services are almost 100% self-service and we rarely, if ever, get pinged on Slack for those services because the documentation is optimized and the usability has been specifically designed so that our engineers don't get in the way of our customer's needs.
I would say they help to scope a part of a discussion that clarifies some detail or maybe when giving a link elsewhere, without derailing the mainline of the discussion.
It's useful when people arrive in the discussion at different times and you don't want to necessarily let the whole channel to be notified about your specific remark, and don't want to write a private message either -- one reason being it would lose the context.
In our project we have multiple channels that have actively 3-5 persons and work at different times. The things we chat about are lightweight changes or news, or maybe someone has a quick clarifying question about implementation detail. Something that wouldn't be posted in an issue for one reason or other.
FWIW, I was also a threads nay-sayer but I've since seen the light
Remember the irc support channels where conversations and problem/solution dialogs were constantly muxed with other conversations / dialogs?
Imagine each question being a root message, and all of the dialog / suggestions / answers being in a thread.
Also makes it super convenient for search.
In addition to that I find that beyond a certain channel / DM count it's a lot easier to follow up on things with threads
Give it a shot, try to get your whole team on board. You can always revert back to not using them later :)
Wow really? I'm genuinely surprised. I couldn't imagine using Slack without threads, how do you keep discussions on track for certain topics? At any given time I have 30-40 threads going, which means I can easily track conversations. Without threads I'm just endlessly scrolling, or trying to find something, or god forbid relying on Slack's utterly broken search.
If everyone is bought-in on using them, they can be a really nice way to keep single topics in one place rather than having interleaved conversations in a single channel. If people don't use it 100% of the time, though, it's honestly worse because now you're not always sure where to read/continue a conversation.
rexreed|5 years ago
lovehashbrowns|5 years ago
So let's say I wake up in the AM and there's a thread that says "how do I use the API for companyservice.example-api.com" and the thread has 50 comments.
Let's say it's a service I support. First, I know there's an issue because a customer required attention to begin with. This is then confirmed by the fact that the thread has 50 comments in it so there are probably documentation and usability issues with this service.
The company I work for and the services I am responsible for deals with internal customers and we use these two absurdly simple metrics to optimize support regularly.
When we first started with certain services that my team is responsible for, we used Slack metrics A LOT. As in, we had spreadsheets with this data and we'd go over them every week. Nowadays, our services are almost 100% self-service and we rarely, if ever, get pinged on Slack for those services because the documentation is optimized and the usability has been specifically designed so that our engineers don't get in the way of our customer's needs.
mushishi|5 years ago
It's useful when people arrive in the discussion at different times and you don't want to necessarily let the whole channel to be notified about your specific remark, and don't want to write a private message either -- one reason being it would lose the context.
In our project we have multiple channels that have actively 3-5 persons and work at different times. The things we chat about are lightweight changes or news, or maybe someone has a quick clarifying question about implementation detail. Something that wouldn't be posted in an issue for one reason or other.
arwineap|5 years ago
Remember the irc support channels where conversations and problem/solution dialogs were constantly muxed with other conversations / dialogs?
Imagine each question being a root message, and all of the dialog / suggestions / answers being in a thread. Also makes it super convenient for search.
In addition to that I find that beyond a certain channel / DM count it's a lot easier to follow up on things with threads
Give it a shot, try to get your whole team on board. You can always revert back to not using them later :)
ryanSrich|5 years ago
strifey|5 years ago
fphilipe|5 years ago
ajpalkovic|5 years ago
postalrat|5 years ago