Slack is just the worst – and I've used a BBS and 14.4k modem
Posted by Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 289 comments
Here’s some honest feedback from someone who's been sitting behind a computer screen since lotus123, Wodperfect, and Qbasic.
First of all, pick a direction and stick with it. You’re in a chat and you scroll down for recent items. You try to find a DM in an an endless sea of software integration driven messages so you go to “recent DMs” and naturally start to scroll down —but no, you scroll up to get to new messages here.
Then you find one you think you figured out which one you may looking for but now you have to scroll down once again to see the more recent message, and painfully slowly.
Waiting for the slugish app to reload every message along the way that you mistakenly scrolled the first time, but now in the 'right' direction to get back to where you started. Can you just hit Control+End? Or click that arrow and expect it go to the end? Of course not. You keep on scrolling as it loads one page at a time to get there because you’re up against "Lazy loader” – the result of what is more accurately called lazy development.
Why all of this? Becasue you can't find what you're looking for in the first place.
It would be nice to be able be rid of some of these 'robot' chats coming up from one of 3,000 absolutely useless software integrations . Who needs to get messages from Excel? or a screen capture app? It's integration just for the sake of integration – with zero value added by likely 2,500 of them.
Its all just NOISE.
Useless noise that now takes up a footprint on my pc of over a gigabyte on day one to support all while burning through CPU cycles and my electrical bill with patch upon patch of poorly thought out system overhead to support apps I don't now, and never plan to use.
IMO, its not even worth trying to fix. Its fundamentally broken and built using a worst-practice approach to application development.
Time to rethink and start over.
Humbly yours
jacksbox@reddit
You could always try Teams for a little while, if you want something to make you really appreciate Slack.
rm-minus-r@reddit
I've been stuck using Teams at two different employers now and I hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.
Is Slack perfect? No. But it is overall way better than the dumpster fire that is Teams.
RMS-Tom@reddit
Maybe I'm just weird, but I don't hate Teams. Like don't get me wrong, plenty of gripes with it, but it kinda just works as a messaging and video calling app
Compte002@reddit
I've resign two weeks after joining a company because of Teams. It made me hate my life.
rm-minus-r@reddit
If there's a crown for the greatest hatred of Teams, you should have it hah.
What was your most hated part of it?
adisor19@reddit
💯 agreeing with you here.
blissed_off@reddit
I’d rather have teams. At least it’s got share point in the back end for some far better things to do than a glorified AOL instant messenger like slack.
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
I you have the choice try telegram. I discovered it offers a lot more than I thought it did but its so CLEAN if you just use it to chat - like a breath of fresh air.
Pardon the redaction ....
blissed_off@reddit
Why tf would I use an app used to buy drugs and hookers? 😂
NeuroLiquidity@reddit
Because you're buying drugs and hookers.
The right tool for the job, I guess.
blissed_off@reddit
Yeah i answered my own question. Brb downloading telegram for “business purposes.”
raip@reddit
Maybe it's just your font - but I'm not a huge fan of what I see so far. It also doesn't seem great for organizations so far from what I can tell as you need to know who you need to message before you can message them (as in, they need to be in your contacts).
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
That's a very true point I hadnt considered. I just can't hate how busy and cluttered and saturated with apps Slack is. There's got to be a better way. I'm not sure if Matrix is the kind of engine that could give you that visibiltiy but I was planning to look into that to have more control.
sellyme@reddit
It's a large part their font, that's the ugliest screenshot of Telegram I've ever seen.
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
LOL I've thougth the same thing before - I dont know why I like that font so much - but Theres something about it that lightens the mood in a way .... MV Boli.
Jalharad@reddit
Well you need to pay for an account to get unlisted from the public director. If you are listed in the directory you can expect 1-3 random messages a week that are scams of some sort
machstem@reddit
You're also exposing your network and personal information of your users and environment.
We have the entire TG network blocked off as much as we do discord and other less trusted platforms
Jalharad@reddit
explain more please, how is it exposing your network and who is it being exposed to?
machstem@reddit
If you hold any PII information, if you are using your device on your secured network, then you're potentially exposing your data to an environment you can't document control.
If you hard-line your iOS/Android with policies and lock them down to your SSO, then you're ensuring they can't just copy files over to some insecure CDN.
It's also listed as one of the software solutions to avoid using due to RU interference, similar to how we also completely block all the various CN domains and IP ranges.
Currently speaking, there are risks involved in using or allowing anything but your own curated channels, so unless you can lock down TG from a systems level, it becomes an inherent security risk to your environment
Teknikal_Domain@reddit
Ah yes, the furry communication network.
Telegram.
AccessIndependent795@reddit
Putin get outa here..
Aethernath@reddit
Sure, a bloatware of russian intelligence is much better at facilitating chat than others.
It’s ok for essentially broadcasting and large chatgroups, but at the cost of blyatware and moscow’s interests getting your data
SearchingDeepSpace@reddit
Counterpoint - Unfucking the hundreds of random spun up "Sharepoint Backends" from people starting their own "Teams Teams" before proper administration. Ask me how I know.
JavyCosta@reddit
I know this pain.
dustojnikhummer@reddit
Amen to that. We now can't take it away from them otherwise 90% of the company would come screaming.
And then they come to me to give people permission to their Teams channel and when I ask them "Which one, you got 5 channels, three of which have a Sharepoint site attached"
Matt_NZ@reddit
I'm glad I had the foresight to see that future shitstorm and locked it down just as Teams was launching and while everyone was still using SfB
Marathon2021@reddit
One thing that I despise about Teams compared to Slack, is the mobile notifications. Simply put, in Teams I get "subscribed" to a bunch of work-related channels/groups ... and someone can "@all" or "@channel" or whatever ... and I get a mobile notification on my phone. And some of these channels I have to be in for work are various "support" channels for various in-house apps. So when some user doesn't know what they're doing, they just jump in and "@all" everyone.
There is no way to turn this off.
So frustrating. In Slack, I could really customize notifications per channel.
I've literally had to turn off mobile device notifications for Teams entirely because of this, and have told my boss that if he really needs to get in touch with me ... to simply text me.
SaltDeception@reddit
You disable this in Settings > Notifications > Notify me on mobile for: Custom
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
Oh man so many categories of notifications... But where's the one that says "If wake up early and cancel the sreensaver by moving my mouse so can read some personal emails or watch a show before I start my day, please don't signal to all my contacts in the system-tray minimized app that I've come online!?
I ask because thats exactly what MS did to Skype at some point over the last few years. Their answer was 'signout before you leave'. And if you step away and forget? Your walking around your desk like your pc has tripwires around it. Microsoft is notorious about taking peoples' privacy away from them. I left the ecosystem when they shut down skype, it was my first real opportunity to do it and I ran.
SaltDeception@reddit
You don’t have to sign out with Teams. If you set your status to away or appear offline, it won’t show you as green again until you manually change it.
rm-rfroot@reddit
I have had my status turn green randomly multiple times, I have the lenght set for years in advance to a non green state, yet every few weeks it seems to just go "fuck you im reverting green".
yer_muther@reddit
Yep. Good old MS knowing what you need best and not giving you a choice.
whythehellnote@reddit
Management and Enterprise IT love teams as it gives them the top-down control they crave
Developers love slack as it gives them the bottom-up barely organised control they thrive on
Tale as old as time. Eventually Slack enshittens itself with enteprise features and creative types move to something else, while IT whines about Shadow IT and middle management has no idea what goes on.
machstem@reddit
I have all notifications off for Team.
Not sure why you wouldn't..
jbourne71@reddit
I have definitely turned off @all notifications. I think it’s you.
ResisterImpedant@reddit
Teams is like if a group of geniuses at user interface got together and intentionally made the worst possible communication tool.
I dislike slack, but compared to teams it's a gift straight from the gods.
PrincipleExciting457@reddit
I’m quick to judge MS products, but thinking slack is better than teams is a crazy take.
Creshal@reddit
Teams can't even keep track of what messages go in what channel, I have to switch channels 5-6 times to see the proper ones.
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
Here here! Its so cluttered with needless app integrations that I can't see who's actually messaging me. And looking for prior message is a nightmare - at least its' been that way for me over the few months I've used it so far. When I'm chatting with colleagues It feels like I'm standing in a loud croweded elevator.
grygrx@reddit
Shockingly prefer Teams at this point. Hated it when it came out, much improvement over time.
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
Any feature in particular? Does it feel more like skype or slack when you're under the hood? One problem is that I just expect MS to slowly screw it up tho. I mean come on, over 35+ years and they still can't make an OS that can properly sort files alphabetically, or copy files from one drive to another without pausing for breaks along the way . MS can be maddening!
grygrx@reddit
My feelings revolve more around management and integration into existing M$ architecture as opposed to using it if that makes a difference. Slack is a better chat interface.
iliekplastic@reddit
Yeah the Teams + Sharepoint + Office + Azure combo starts to get really nice when woven together from what I've been seeing (but have no personal experience with currently).
Wynter_born@reddit
Slack is a better chat app, Teams is better collab app.
Miserygut@reddit
Stockholm syndrome probably.
ExcitingTabletop@reddit
Teams sucks in general, but it's better than most similar stuff like Slack. I haven't found any good software in that space, only least terrible.
Zoom weirdly was probably the best, but solely because we had really nice all-in-one video conf units that users no shit actually really loved using.
Most people only need or want to use the basic features of text chats, sending pictures/files and video/voice calls.
iliekplastic@reddit
We really like Zoom for chat, teleconferencing, and voip, personally. The main thing it lacks over Teams is the Teams + Sharepoint Online integration stuff.
ExcitingTabletop@reddit
Ayep. The Teams in Teams (blah) can be handy. It's useful for task boards for specific projects. I'm sure zoom has it now but the Teams version works fine
adisor19@reddit
No way, even in the current broken state, I’d still take slack over teams any day.
grygrx@reddit
I'm not even sure what you are talking about. It's been largely stable and functional in our for years. 'new' Teams is better than 'old' Teams by a large margin.
themisfit610@reddit
My most missed feature from slack was message reminders. This kind of exists in teams but only in regular channels. Most of ours are private so messages just get missed all the time. Teams is just so slow and crappy, and the notifications are such a disaster and not synchronized across clients. You’ll get notified 2-3 times in the same client and then when you look at your phone you will have a ton of badges on the app and then you open it only to have it refresh and realize you saw those notifications on desktop already and the badges disappear. So infuriating!
slack was like greased lightning. Such miss.
scriptmonkey420@reddit
Having used both. They are both piles of web browser shit shoved into a desktop app.
jacksbox@reddit
I think everyone can agree with that!
MagicWishMonkey@reddit
Half my org uses Google chat and it’s godawful, even worse than teams
sunrrrise@reddit
I am for Teams over Slack anytime.
jlharper@reddit
Teams is a better enterprise solution for chat and channels. The integration into the 365 suite makes it the obvious winner. Slack is “discord” for professionals.
lilelliot@reddit
Context:
I ran a dial-up BBS in the late 80s. I used Jabber at work (with various clients) in the early 00s. I moved that company to Google Workspace in 2008 and used Hangouts/Chat/Meet/GTalk at work until 2023. I've used Teams the past three years. I've used Slack for various personal reasons for the past five years.
Of all these, Teams is the best product. There are obvious features it has -- 1) transport call between devices with a single click/tap, 2) automatically creates a file storage location with each team chat or call, 3) very easy and obvious integration with content stores, and 4) probably more I can't think of right now -- that Meet + Chat can only dream of.
Speaking of Meet + Chat, big props to Meet for being by far the easiest videoconferencing product to use. Also for things like automated PIP when you click between browser tabs while in a call. But while Chat is "fine", the groups features are woefully lacking and extremely confusing. It's like they saw Slack and tried to copy parts of it, but did so without ever actually using Slack.
And Slack is by far the worst of all three of these. It's the "WeChat" of chat apps for business, in that the product team has thrown the entire kitchen sink into it but without ever asking the UX team for advice. The only thing worse than Slack for real-time chat is Discord... but Discord's noise canceling for voice is beyond everything else and useful even if just for that.
TU4AR@reddit
Teams is 100x better than slack and honestly, it's kinda crazy people don't think so.
thabc@reddit
You make a compelling argument.
TU4AR@reddit
Thank you, you should read my documentation on it
harley247@reddit
Been there and it made me appreciate Teams even more
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
But they murdered skype so thoroughly in its last year... I hate the idea of having to migrate away from another failed microsoft venture (that's where I come from)... I've since made Telegram my own for personal needs but can't get around slack for work - and i cant' stand it.
ScannerBrightly@reddit
Skype was just stuffed into a Teams bodysuit.
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
But it used to be so different...before MS bought it, it was fantastic. In the days of being owned by ebay it was soaring with features and usability.
Jalharad@reddit
I use both slack AND teams at work. It's horrid.
Inquisitor_ForHire@reddit
I use teams and have zero problems with it. My only complaints are around the difficulty of finding a specific document, but that's mostly because people put them everywhere - in teams, in OneDrive, in Sharepoint, etc. But Teams search always finds whatever I'm looking for.
sunnyswtr@reddit
We have almost nothing integrated or enabled in Teams aside from security, dlp and retention features. Its a mile better than the average slack or discord implementation.
machstem@reddit
I'd rather use Team, 100x more than any other platform that has tried I'd.
When it works? Teams is a fantastic experience
Your ~~SLA~~ , what SLA.?
rdesktop7@reddit
"Who needs to get messages from Excel? or a screen capture app? It's integration just for the sake of integration"
yes, agreed.
I wish that webIRC would just go back to being IRC again.
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
Thanks! Oh man, do I miss mIRC !!! Or even give me back ICQ !!
Kodiak01@reddit
My 7 digit ICQ number used to match my home phone number as well.
OptimalCynic@reddit
Back in the day my ICQ number, student ID number, and bank account login number all overlapped like:
vawlk@reddit
i preferred pIRCh myself.
mkosmo@reddit
ICQ is now a chinese thing, so you don't want it anymore.
Shnorkylutyun@reddit
I thought it was Russian, and got shutdown recently? Why Chinese?
Kodiak01@reddit
ICQ was shut down permanently on 6/26/24.
mkosmo@reddit
Oops, you're right - It was russian.
Wrong commies.
ryfromoz@reddit
uh oh😂
CyberMonkey1976@reddit
Please, no trout
neighborofbrak@reddit
/kline cybermonkey1976!@ 3600 FEAR THE TROUT
Angelworks42@reddit
I work at a uni and we still have an IRC server - we use Slack now.
My biggest complaint about IRC was it didn't save state. If you closed the client or it crashed boom all your messages were gone. Otherwise it was pretty nice - even in this day and age.
Fazaman@reddit
Hexchat (and probably chat it was based on. Both on Linux) saves logs and reloads them when to start it up again, so nothing's lost if it exits or you log out or what have you.
superdelegates@reddit
Use a bouncer with [HE]Xchat and you never lose anything. Also hides your real IP behind the bouncer’s IP address which you can run on a tiny VPS for under $20/yr.
BatemansChainsaw@reddit
znc ftw!
BatemansChainsaw@reddit
I'm in the minority here but I view this as a feature, not a bug. It's like walking out of a room filled with people. Of course you're not going to hear what happened while you were away - and that's the way I like it.
blissadmin@reddit
I always ran IRC from a shell with ==screen== because of this.
obviousboy@reddit
I just had a serious flashback to 2000, my desktop running Slackware, window maker, aterm, and BitchX (running within screen of course)
degoba@reddit
And we all ran bitchx because it had the word bitch in it but irssi was the superior client.
pppjurac@reddit
screen is one of those small but very very useful programs; it is in my first debian apt install line together with mc , pigz, htop, bmon, mtr
thirsty_zymurgist@reddit
I agree with you in sentiment but replace screen with tmux and add git and vim, all the rest of the programs I install are the same.
doubletwist@reddit
I STILL run IRC (irssi) from my home machine running GNU Screen, same as I have for the past 20 years or so.
GuyOnTheInterweb@reddit
and it's still the same people in the same IRC rooms!
Exploding_Testicles@reddit
Depending on the client, you could have each channel you were in logging.
rdesktop7@reddit
Slack did add a few nice things over what it replaced.
They just kind of went too far.
scootscoot@reddit
I feel like all chat apps evolve to IRC or get replaced with a like-IRC app. I liked slack back in 2018 when it wasn't much more than IRC.
Kodiak01@reddit
Just go back to using mIRC, it's still in active development with the latest release out just 2 months ago.
fengshui@reddit
Have some restraint then, and don't install the integrations, despite Slack and the Integration vendors pushing them. KISS.
MairusuPawa@reddit
https://ircv3.net/
Discommodian@reddit
Best app experience I have ever had was with Telegram.
what_dat_ninja@reddit
Slack is the best current business chat platform, this has strong 'old man yelling at clouds" energy
PaintDrinkingPete@reddit
...and yet I agreed with pretty much every point made and found them relatable.
blissed_off@reddit
Says who? It’s nothing special.
what_dat_ninja@reddit
What's better? Users love it.
blissed_off@reddit
It’s not. They’re both terrible in different ways. Slack is nothing more than AIM for businesses, while teams is a polished front end for sharepoint, which has far more use than a chat program.
robreddity@reddit
I've been at this 35 years and I've used SharePoint like twice in my life.
Do they even still call it SharePoint?
lilelliot@reddit
Use of SharePoint depends almost entirely on corporate culture. My wife works for a major pharma and they rely heavily on SharePoint for almost everything, and I'm impressed at how well they do it. Clearly they provide good training and also have strong oversight.
I've worked for MS shops that used SharePoint but where it was a complete free-for-all and a complete disaster of content lack-of-controls. I worked for another one recently where they used SharePoint and everything was well-organized and great until an exec was hired a couple years ago who just sent files via email and never stored them in the appropriate repos, so everything got out of sync. And let me tell you, file version control is still M365's biggest weakness (imho).
cdmurphy83@reddit
I've never worked at a company that's been able to successfully adopt SharePoint long-term.
I know some organizations make it work with careful planning. But man, every time I've seen it implemented, after a few months it devolves into a complete mess and people stop using it because they can't find anything.
It's either that or the employees refuse to use it from the start because they have other tools that are more familiar and easier to use.
lilelliot@reddit
My wife works in pharma and it's the one place I've seen it be successful, due to the confluence of two critical factors:
I don't see how it could work as well in any other situation, but it does seem to in this case.
realged13@reddit
Sharepoint blows. Threads in Slack are so much better than the disorganized mess Teams are.
Slack plus Confluence is chefs kiss to me.
blissed_off@reddit
Confluence can eat a bag of dicks.
benderunit9000@reddit
Not even Disney uses slack.
what_dat_ninja@reddit
Sorry, why does that matter?
benderunit9000@reddit
Big tech company. And you can't see why that matters. Are you lost?
the_throwaway_store@reddit
Holy fuck you're so dumb
what_dat_ninja@reddit
Every company makes different tech stack decisions...one enterprise choosing Teams isn't evidence that Slack is bad. I've been at companies running Teams, Slack, and GChat. Slack has been both the best to run as an admin and the most popular along users.
I'm not lost. You have no idea what you're talking about if you think that one company's tech is the end all be all. If Disney uses Workday, Salesforce, or Tableau does that mean every single company should follow their lead?
Fuck off.
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
Appreciate the feedback. If you are at all like me and you just want a chat app to be a chat app, telegram all the way. I wish I could convince more people to try it who think it's just a tool for secrecy.
segagamer@reddit
Wow, really? Are you a sysadmin? This isn't something a sysadmin would (or should) say.
what_dat_ninja@reddit
Is telegram auditable? Does it support SSO and provisioning? I can't imagine it meets all the requirements of a business app.
GrenMcBren@reddit
No, not at all. It's "business" features are literally just having the ability to show your business' hours and set up chatbots for automatic replies. Not even remotely suitable for business use. https://telegram.org/blog/telegram-business
what_dat_ninja@reddit
Yeah that's a joke then, OP is a clown if they're shitting on Slack but advocating for Telegram in an enterprise environment.
benderunit9000@reddit
Going to disagree there. It's terrible
green_biri@reddit
Agreed, OP should try dealing with Teams for half a day.
trapped_outta_town2@reddit
Choosing between teams and slack is like choosing between giant douche and a turd sandwich. They're both garbage, but its what everyone uses so you have no choice.
Realistically I'd be fine with either, there is nothing seriously wrong with either of them.
mitharas@reddit
A voice of moderation? Get out of here, we want to rant about stuff and hype other stuff!
bateau_du_gateau@reddit
All of this is true but I still would rather Slack than Teams
ibwebb86@reddit
Yeah we just made the switch to teams from slack. I hate it and miss slack!!
tankerkiller125real@reddit
We had a team briefly switch from teams to slack, they wanted teams back because they missed all of their SharePoint integrations and what not.
To each their own.
ibwebb86@reddit
Yeah we’ve had slack for years and it’s what I’m used to. New boss came in and was like WTF we spending money on slack for when we already have teams with what we pay to microsoft. Honestly I’d rather go back to jabber!
Ace417@reddit
Jabber sucks. No chat and call persistence is unreal not to have
Nolzi@reddit
Afaik Microsoft tried to buy Discord but it fell through
Individual-Level9308@reddit
Discord would be stupid not to. I'm sure they are cooking something up.
dark_gear@reddit
Looked into Discord to replace Slack a few weeks ago and the 2 main reasons people don't is, first, Slack has a higher file size limit for transfers; second, too many people just associate Discord with sweaty gamer bros to use it for work.
Ironically, Discord offers better chat but the collaborative desktop sharing of Slack is the true killer feature.
If someone could combine those 2 features in one app they'd have a success on their hands.
SoylentVerdigris@reddit
I legitimately pitched Discord when my work was looking to replace our old chat app (Openfire/spark...)
It actually got some headway but none of the people in charge would approve it on looks alone.
Bladelink@reddit
Unfortunately, discord doesn't look enough like an old, slow, boring man who's disappointed with how his life turned out.
Individual-Level9308@reddit
I'm just saying it would be stupid of Discord to not try and fork their product into a version to serve business customers. Not that it was ready to roll out.
dark_gear@reddit
Fully agree with the sentiment. Discord feels much more polished, both on the free and paid tiers, while also costing about half the price of Slack.
Going for a full-enterprise solution sounds like a great growth idea and an amazing product.
IHaveTeaForDinner@reddit
I have nothing to add other than I hate sharepoint as much, if not more than I hate teams.
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
You're prob spot on about that !
P_Villain@reddit
As a Google Chat user now who used to be a Teams admin and slack user I...feel this deeply. Teams is just too much.
gillyguthrie@reddit
What is so bad about Teams?
thirsty_zymurgist@reddit
Which version? Kidding but only kinda. I like teams and live in it daily, if it was up to me we would probably still use it, but only because we are MS centric.
P_Villain@reddit
Don't get me wrong it's not horrible but I want a chat client to be as simple, reliable, lightweight, and easy to navigate as possible. Teams is the opposite of that as it tries to be the 'Everything' App and for me that's where it falls down.
And this is from a guy who designed how an MSP should set up and sell Teams phone system to client orgs years ago. I think for organizations who are heavily leveraged in MS 365 world, Teams as the go to Comms solutions does makes sense in a lot of cases. I just wish they really dumbed it down and made it simpler and easier and better performing.
HDClown@reddit
Teams isn't trying to just be a chat app though, even though that's obviously a big part of it. Microsoft's goal with Teams is for businesses to live in it all day to do all kinds of business things, from voice/video/chat to general content collaboration to being a centralized interface to other Microsoft 365 services. More like a hub than trying to perfect any one specific use case.
hutacars@reddit
And that’s horrible and they should not do that.
_twrecks_@reddit
Threading is missing m
duffcalifornia@reddit
Thankfully, this is about to get rolled out to everybody
NUTTA_BUSTAH@reddit
Threads exist in channels only, but not in chats. Would be welcome to be universal, even across all objects.
milesteg420@reddit
Yeah. I don't get this either. Most of the time Teams has been great for me.
2BfromNieRAutomata@reddit
i miss slack so much.
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
Can it really be as bad as slack tho? do people there also have random software / apps sending them messages all day long? I get so desensitised that I don't even reply to people often. How many times can I turn my head to see that another useless plugin connection has been requested/made or is actually messaging me!? My head hurts from it all.
ukulele87@reddit
Thats not slack's fault... your actual complaint is about 3rd party integration and thats all on you.
dminus@reddit
sandpaper is also way more comfortable to rub on your face than a cheese grater
aes_gcm@reddit
Fun fact, you know the flying fellbeasts that the Nazgul ride in Return of the King? In the movie, the sound effect for whoosh of a fellbeast’s tail during flight was created by tying a cheese grader to some string and twirling it over one’s head. Complete insanity, but I guess it works well.
CRush1682@reddit
Lol, I love this analogy.
robreddity@reddit
Not even sure it's all true. I can't relate to any of those observations. Maybe don't install useless plugins and bots?
AreJay__@reddit
My org killed slack and introduced Viva Engage. Someone send me a Reddit cares message.
Deepspacecow12@reddit
What even is the point of that product lol?
DenverCoder_Nine@reddit
It's Facebook, except for only your org. Think of what happens when Microsoft says "Imagine how cool it would be for your company to have it's own social media platform!"
It's also dogshit.
GuyOnTheInterweb@reddit
Oh my.. this is worse than their previous attempt, Delve or something! The Viva stream is filled only with posts from the IT department's Microsoft subscription fanboys.
dustojnikhummer@reddit
I thought Yammer was Microsoft's corporate Facebook?
dynalisia2@reddit
It’s just a rebadged Yammer with a new interface.
dustojnikhummer@reddit
Wait, wasn't Yammer that?
HappyVlane@reddit
Yeah. Rebranded.
dustojnikhummer@reddit
Oh I thought its a new service and it's just a rebrand of Yammer, lol
whythehellnote@reddit
Didn't microsoft push yammer for a while? Flashbacks to awful products that a certain level of manglement loved and went nowhere slowly.
Perhaps it will come back again, this time with AI generating posts, and AI consuming the posts, and middle management feeling they've done something productive for a few months.
cor315@reddit
We have one department that loves it. I don't get it.
Deepspacecow12@reddit
It sounds horrendous ngl
steelegbr@reddit
What used to be Yammer? You’ve unlocked some old memories, including one where I was tasked with writing a bot to relay CEO posts onto the platform. Though that doesn’t mean anyone actually read them. 🤣
TheBestHawksFan@reddit
Wow that is really wacky. They really intend to replace Slack with Viva Engage? They don't do remotely similar things!
magnj@reddit
Do they even do the same thing?
AreJay__@reddit
They do not, it’s like Facebook vs IRC
praetorfenix@reddit
Look at the youngin here with that blazing fast 14.4 modem. I remember when 1200 was the bog standard and it would never get faster than that.
Redhawks83@reddit
My first modem was 300 baud. I could read the text faster than it popped up on the screen. And I thought it was AMAZING!
robconsults@reddit
yeah well i had a 300 baud modem that plugged into my joystick port and used ROTARY pulses to dial... (in fact i still have it :D )
medicinaltequilla@reddit
there was no joystick on an ASR-33
PlsChgMe@reddit
Dial string ATDT<4567890> for DTMF and ATDP<4567890> for Pulse dialing
IAmTheM4ilm4n@reddit
You haven't lived unless your 300 baud modem was hooked to an Aderson Jacobsen AJ630 terminal -
The only cool thing about that setup was the tube the thermal paper came on could be used as a blowgun to shoot pushpins.
robreddity@reddit
Stand up acoustic coupler elite!
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
I love that ... expectations sure have changed !
TXWayne@reddit
You ain’t lived till you communicate using a 50 baud TTY!
stedun@reddit
I’ve used 300 baud. Pain is real. Also, I’m old.
Regular-Nebula6386@reddit
Another youngling here My first time connecting to a network was using BITNET at my university on an IBM 360. Using it I felt like I was part of war games.
johnnyorange@reddit
I remember when modems could do bell 202
F I’m old.
whetu@reddit
Luxury! We had RFC1149 before it had an official name. Sometimes we even had to eat the pigeons!
vic-traill@reddit
300 bps acoustic couples, back when bps and baud were the same number. No GD fancy modulation schemes for me, kids!
/s
domagoj2016@reddit
You had ma at lotus123.
Remember Google Wave, mail/chat hybrid with plugins and mini apps, and federation protocol, so you could host your own and still be part of everything. It was killed before it could spread.
Bodycount9@reddit
14.4k? Dude you haven't lived until you bought an external 2400 baud modem for over $200 new. Then replaced it with a 9600 baud modem thinking you were going lightning speed.
Legend of the Red Dragon and Trade Wars will live forever.
fwambo42@reddit
I see your 9600 baud modem and raise you a 300 baud acoustic
Sengfeng@reddit
Answer/Originate switch with an on/off button. Had some of the best 300 baud modems Radio Shack offered!
jaymef@reddit
I use slack along with ~40 coworkers 8-10 hours a day for the past 8 years or so and I love it. There are some pain points here and there but for the most part it works very well for us.
One thing I dislike is how they are constantly tweaking the UI and moving things around
Sengfeng@reddit
They learned from the best: Microsoft.
Sengfeng@reddit
Slack flashbacks from previous job...
Just because you CAN integrate something with Slack doesn't mean you should.
Someone updates a project - Slack message directly to you. Slack message in the project channel. Email message for both saying someone posted something... and fuggit, there's a daily meeting for the PM to re-read the Slack updates to you.
So much efficiency. /s
segagamer@reddit
Let's not forget telling all of our users with a banner that says "I'm not paying for Slack AI, submit a request to your admin by clicking here!"
secretraisinman@reddit
E N G A G E M E N T
growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell
831_@reddit
I once saw a blog post for them describing their architecture and it made everything clear to me: They had a typical gigantic web of clustered Java microservices. This is a fantastic architecture to facilitate adding new features by too many teams, but generally makes for a slow and clunky chat system. Their stack is optimized for quickly adding bloat.
I worked on some big chat systems and can tell you the magic sauce for most of the ones that work well is the Erlang virtual machine. Many big chat systems use Ejabberd or MongooseIM, two open source XMPP servers that are difficult to work on for the uninitiated, but battle tested over two decades. Those things work, and those things scale. The Erlang VM is slow, but it does wonders for soft-real-time message passing.
Meanwhile, Slack is completely failing basic things lime figuring which device is the active one and synchronizing them. Sometimes, it can take up to 5-10 minutes for a message in my phone to appear in my laptop!
scratchduffer@reddit
Just here to say I OP'd a BBS on a 2.4k.
vawlk@reddit
14.4k? Fancy
My first modem was 75bps. Yes, 75bps, or 0.075k.
:)
flunky_the_majestic@reddit
I just wish it would put DMs into Activity. When I am bouncing between message-related tasks, I can't remember if it was a DM or a channel. So I have to scroll through Activity - rule that out, then go to DMs to search for the message. DMs ARE ACTIVITY!!
ChampOfTheUniverse@reddit
Not even going to read your rant because I know for a fact that Teams is way worse.
hosalabad@reddit
Is slack the one with the little knock knock knock notification sound? Because whatever has that is the goddamn worst.
bythepowerofboobs@reddit
As someone who grew up in the BBS era (and ran a 16-line BBS out of my house), I take offense to you using BBS's as a benchmark for bad things. It was the golden age of computing and coming together with your community in my opinion.
smc0881@reddit
My job they used Teams for everything and it drove me nuts. Since I have some decision making, I got everyone to use Mattermost instead. It's similar to Slack, but I love it.
Dushenka@reddit
Same here, we coupled it with BigBlueButton for that sweet open source video conferencing and it works like a charm.
Molasses_Major@reddit
Yep, we self-host Mattermost with zero headaches and little cost.
TechnicalPyro@reddit
and internal control over the data
Patq911@reddit
I still don't know the difference between slack and discord.
adisor19@reddit
A shame Hipchat died an early death..
Lost_Balloon_@reddit
Slack has always been garbage. Super trendy garbage.
adisor19@reddit
And yet still better than Teams.
Bostonjunk@reddit
Doesn't sound too dissimilar to my complaints about Discord - not the slowness, but the mess and not being able to find anything. The replacement of forums with Discord has been an enormous downgrade every time it's happened.
Tb1969@reddit
I manage the direction of Slack deployment. I do not add anything at all with bots or other integrations. The devs keep adding features that we’ll never use and I just try to turn it off visually. It still has things that overly complicate the experience for my users.
What they need is a lite version of the client for those who just want to send simple messages in the company and maybe a screenshot. That’s it.
TarzUg@reddit
Just try Zulip. Threads based on topics. Great.
DehydratedButTired@reddit
They took all the wrong lessons from teams and then punch you in the face with it until you hate slack.
JohnnyricoMC@reddit
Slack the worst? Nonono, try Teams.
whythehellnote@reddit
Slack isn't great from a responsiveness but is easy enough to integrate with.
Teams however is worse in every single way, other than video calls (it's fine for use as zoom). Typical microsoft using their monopoly in enterprise to force out competitors with embrace/extend/extinguish.
Narrow_Victory1262@reddit
just try teams for a week and you will love slack.
Teal-Fox@reddit
Someone who'll soon be going the way of Lotus123 if they keep allowing their blood to boil over the current chat app 😝
boli99@reddit
SynapticStatic@reddit
I also feel this way about a lot of "monitoring" packages. Mostly hot garbage until someone manually goes in and tweaks every single alert so I don't get constant notifications about BS that doesn't even matter.
doalwa@reddit
Pretty much the same with Teams. I’ve been using instant messaging apps since the late 90s…tools like AIM, ICQ and MSN Messenger had one job and did it well. Nowadays we’re dealing with behemoths like Slack and Teams whose aim it seems to be to eclipse the underlying operating system when it comes to features and yet can’t do the single thing their meant to provide well: Act as a f’ing instant messaging app 🤣 What was that Chinese proverb: May you live in interesting times?!?! Fuck off…bring me back to the 90s, man 😩
cubedd@reddit
So just don't use the integrations? A slack workspace with just DMs and channels is still the best option out there for business, and is a hell of a lot better than teams. If the organization relies on a thousand slack integrations that seems like an org issue rather than a product issue
0w1Knight@reddit
If I tried to tell my org that we're not using the integrations I'd likely be fired for obstructionism, regardless of the fact that most of them do practically nothing. Tech-adjacent end users love the idea of an integration.
There really should just be a way to mute the slack bot. Its insane that they don't let you mute it.
ludlology@reddit
Teams is better than Slack if you use other MS stuff, otherwise Slack is better than every other option
Also I don’t know what a messaging service has to do with a modem that was fast 30+ years ago
OtherUse1685@reddit
I don't really get Slack criticism, isn't most of the stuff people complain about can be easily fixed?
The thread feature in Slack is better than everything else I've used so far.
Too many integrations, maybe remove them?
Too many channels to follow? Use Unread feature, it's damn good. Use Cmd + K to find channel/chat, it will jump to the oldest message you haven't read.
Their workflow is really good to quickly build something for your non tech teams. Slack app works well, looks nice too.
I can't find a better alternative, really.
BlueHatBrit@reddit
I agree with you on the workflow side of things. I have a very specific setup that hides basically everything, pins some specific channels and DMs, and then it's CMD + K for everything else.
Integrations are hard to curtail after the fact though. People don't appreciate you disabling things they find useful, even if it's annoying to some others.
A previous workplace had standards around channel names and how they were used. This made life a lot easier, you'd only be subscribed to a few alert channels with integrations. The rest would be exclusively discussion based with maybe a few reminders or an internal blog feed and nothing else. This made navigation really easy, you always knew what kind of channel it was via the prefix, and finding where to go with something was also dead easy.
wordsarelouder@reddit
Agreed, I have my main channels pinned on the left and anything else I use unreads or just go to those channels when I need them... and I have an org that literally has thousands of channels. But I group them and then hide anything that is non-read and only show the channels when there is a new message in them.
Martin8412@reddit
I use other Microsoft stuff, and I’d still rather use Slack.
Slack is hot garbage. Teams is worse.
ludlology@reddit
I actually like Teams a lot. It was pretty rough at first, but I can't really say I've had a significant problem with it in the past five years. Slack is better for just chat, but Teams is better for everything else IMO.
The one thing I'd change about Teams if I could is custom emotes!
spin81@reddit
If some CPU cycles from Slack adding to your electrical bill are a cause for concern, I suggest you have bigger things to worry about than Slack's UI.
CravenLuc@reddit
While slack has a lot of weaknesses for sure, what you describe seems like a company problem.
Why are all these integrations flooding anything? They should give quick "now" uses, not something to ever search through. The same goes for messages. Once it is read and more than 24h old it is dead.
Need information to persist? Write it in documentation, tickets, working documents etc.
Whatever the integrations are auto posting should also exist in some logfiles, overview, etc.
Slack is a chat tool. Not documentation, not logfiles or anything permanent.
I appreciate every chattool nowadays with auto deleting messages. If information needs to persist, it needs to be done with intent in a space where it will be useful, searchable and backed up
cdmurphy83@reddit
If that's the intended use I would just use a different tool or the free version. Slack is extremely powerful and to underutilize it would be a complete waste of money and its capabilities. I'm guessing OP is paying for it though since free has limits on total integrations.
Dolapevich@reddit
Slack is the platform in the sense that you can disable tons of crap of it, as an admin or user. Go an create your own free account and see that in its vanilla configuration kind of does what it is expected.
Has anyone deployed
flock
in prod and used it for a while?DGex@reddit
Damm. Lotus before R2🤣 shudders remembering domino servers.
chefboyarjabroni@reddit
Slack is just Discord for businesses, wayyy better than Teams. Although I do like the idea of scrapping it and setting up an internal IRC server.
spermcell@reddit
Discord is way way way way way better for the workspace in my opinion. It should've dominated it long time ago
Wild_Swimmingpool@reddit
Ha this is what I tell my techs to tell new hires a lot of times. Not a lot of them have ever used Slack but like 90% of them have used Discord.
50YearsofFailure@reddit
I've been in charge of the team that handles integrations before. Anytime I got asked for a new integration to be set up, I asked for a tangible benefit of it before I even opened a KB. A lot of times people just thought "oh that's a nice idea, we should do that" without thinking it through.
When I had taken over the team, there was a lot of noise from my predecessor just saying yes; when I shut a lot of it off nobody complained and a number of people thanked me. Less is more, imo. We have enough distractions today.
IWorkForTheEnemyAMA@reddit
Slack is an acronym for “Searchable Log of All Conversations and Knowledge”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)#:~:text=%22Searchable%20Log%20of%20All%20Conversation%20and%20Knowledge%22
totmacher12000@reddit
Yeah I'm not a fan. There is to much going on it just turns into a mess.
Other-Illustrator531@reddit
Any platform is gonna suck if the implementation sucks.
AntiProtonBoy@reddit
The worst part of Slack? It takes up ~700 MB of memory for what, sending and receiving TEXT? Let that sink in. Electron apps are cancer.
Cosmonaut_K@reddit
XMPP has been sitting around all these years. A near perfect protocol that is rarely used by big tech because it would let people choose their own messenger app.
im_shallownpedantic@reddit
did any of you come from the simplicity of Hipchat?
Annh1234@reddit
I feel old, started with lotus123, Wodperfect and Qbasic and commodore 64...
OverlordWaffles@reddit
Odd that you made the same spelling mistake in the same order as OP in your comment lol
Annh1234@reddit
I copy pasted the list lol WordPerfect QBasic, Lotus 123, Norton commander and all that old stuff.
You know, reddit on phone from the crapper standards lol
Hot_Possibility_7481@reddit (OP)
HA now i just noticed that - my bad !
PedanticDilettante@reddit
The worst part? Discord and Teams copies these bad UI practices because of Slack's market leader position.
Sasataf12@reddit
This is more of a "I don't know how apps work" rather than a "Slack is bad" rant.
Having recent messages at the bottom makes sense because that's how English is read - top to bottom (is there any language that doesn't follow this?). And this is standard for other chat apps, like Teams, WhatsApp and FB Messenger.
No, you naturally start to scroll down. Once again, recent conversations at the top is standard for other chat apps, like Teams, WhatsApp and FB Messenger. Recent messages appear at the bottom.
No, but you can press `End`. Or Ctrl+J to jump to the most recent unread message.
No, that's because Slack (or any app) caching every single message with the expectation that you'll one day read it is stupid.
Then use the search bar and filter the results.
Then why don't you? That's not a problem with Slack...that's a problem with how you're managing it.
If you're complaining about an app taking up 1+ GB of diskspace, you've got bigger issues.
itspie@reddit
I've been around while...for pure text chat/channels IRC doesn't get better. That doesn't however fill today's media of images , documents, links and text. Teams sucks from an admin perspective. You need Teams, Teams Channels, OneDrive, and EXO for compliance...Srsly?
Janus67@reddit
Slack works fine for DMs and channel messages. slackbot customization is fine and easy for making shortcuts. Adding RSS feeds to post to certain channels is easy as well.
I've never used it in a way that had a million integrations (we have teams for that, and most of them suck or at least are inconsistent in that platform).
Both Teams and Slack are fine but neither are stupendous and the bloat that users/IT/developers add to the systems just make it worse.
robreddity@reddit
Why do you have all those integrations and bots? Not Slack's fault, talk to your admin.
New messages are at the bottom of channel, not the top.
Slack's search is the most effective search in any collaboration tool I've ever used. In fact Slack is the most effective collaboration tool I've ever used.
CONFIGdotSYS@reddit
I see WordPerfect, I upvote!
StellarJayZ@reddit
So, you like it?
phatbrasil@reddit
Look, I know where you are coming from but pets be real BBS wasnt that great, amazing at the time sure but still.
Personally, I think peak written communication was IRC and ICQ but then again it might have something to do with my proclivity to slap people around with a large trout
And I agree zoom is pretty shit.
Peter_Duncan@reddit
300 baud man. 300 baud.
dark_frog@reddit
What i wouldn't give for fidonet
rdeker@reddit
Totally underrated comment.
PlsChgMe@reddit
I had to look up Slack. It looks overimagined and sounds like it's underbuilt.
SkiingAway@reddit
Meh.
That's on IT for bad management of the solution, IMO. That 3000 different integrations exist doesn't mean you have to.....integrate them, and certainly doesn't mean you have to integrate things in ways that annoy everyone uselessly.
There's typically some sort of usecase for plenty of these things - that again, doesn't mean that 99% of places should integrate them just for fun or just because one person thought it was a good idea once.
Does that annoy me from the perspective of someone who admires efficient programs and clean, elegant code? Sure.
Do I feel it matters at all from a work perspective? No. Realistically speaking my machine is fast enough that this never impacts me in any way.
Anyway, it does the core function tolerably well which is for the most part all I really care about.
Simple enough DMs and both public + private channels.
It's straightforward enough that non-IT users can mostly figure it out without a ton of handholding.
The search works tolerably.
It can handle basic attachments so we don't have to jump out to something else to exchange a file.
bws7037@reddit
Come back to me when you've used 300 baud. A $600 phone bill in the early 80's was the equivalent of almost $1,900 today. Until that day, I never saw my father's face turn that shade of purple before coming at me with a can of whoop ass.
PlsChgMe@reddit
I bet. I started at 1200 baud, and I used xmodem, then zmodem, it took IIRC about 15 minutes to download 1 meg, in 1024k chunks.
deadbob@reddit
OOH look at Mr Fancy with his 14.4v V32BIS modem. Back in my day we had 300 baud acoustic couplers and we liked it! #oldmanyellsatclouds
Fallingdamage@reddit
Your Salesforce overlords disapprove of your observations.
approvedbyinspector5@reddit
Couldn't agree more, and I miss my Hayes Smartmodem 2400.
BrainWaveCC@reddit
A. There's a search button, and it works.
B. It's much better than Teams, IMO
C. Scrolling is the least efficient way to find things in any of these messaging apps.
I guess you're just venting, so "carry on."
brophylicious@reddit
Indeed. From their site:
I used the Slack search function all the time when I was at my last job.
IDontWantToArgueOK@reddit
Im one of the ones who uses all those integrations as a bridge for Zapier automations. Sorry.
AmokinKS@reddit
What about rocket.chat?
Mrhiddenlotus@reddit
wow an app your company filled with bloat doesn't work well. Crazy.
machstem@reddit
Fellow 9600baud rate on a DX386 here...
I was in a vendor call today and they invited me to work with their team through back channels.
"Yknow, I've never used Slack, I have always been told to avoid it. Do you have Teams?"
I never thought I'd ever offer to work with a Microsoft product over another, but I do appreciate Teams when it DOES work, especially when working on projects with external entities
grouchy-woodcock@reddit
Clearly you've never been forced to use Remedy... I would rather use FrontPage 1.0!
BoredTechyGuy@reddit
Some days I want to go back to a BBS. Simple, effective, and to the point.
The-Purple-Church@reddit
I miss BBSs. They were fun.
I still have my Hayes 9600. I also have the very first Apple modem 100/300 baud.
Kiowascout@reddit
ISCA BBS FTW mid 90's
Proximity_alrt@reddit
THANK YOU.
Ansible32@reddit
Why are you scrolling? I use ctrl-k to jump through new messages/jump to channels, I very rarely scroll. ctrl-g to search for things too. Slack definitely sucks but I actually do prefer it to most other messaging apps. Not quite as good as Discord, but they are mostly the same thing and both have their quirks.
I do wish I could block apps, or selectively block them. Mostly that's a problem with the apps themselves though.
t_whales@reddit
Slack is trash. I must be the only sysadmin not running into issues with teams. What are the usual issues you all run into?
Smoking-Posing@reddit
I hate how I go to click or highlight something and their context menu overlays pop up and cover the very thing im trying to access. Drives me crazy.
And yes, searching for old messages/info is the pits, as is trying to get back to whichever window I was at before running the search h. I always end up just using the home button.
Lastly, I really wish they'd stop pushing older convos out/away. Damn near every time I go to message a person directly, the old message string we had is gone from view (and no, I don't want to Favorite each and every single convo just to prevent that issue. I don't message many people directly so honestly no idea why they get removed)
Bill_Guarnere@reddit
During the last 3 years I was forced by my previous company to use Slack, and you know what? I completely agree.
I think you get one very important point: notifications.
Nowadays people think that everything should send a notification, if it's not Slack is some stup1d Telegram bot or whatever...
But at the end of the day we all know it's totally useless, because there are so many notifications that after 5 minutes everyone start to ignore them and they quicky became totally useless.
I noticed this noise concept also into monitoring.
In the last 3 years I had also to use Zabbix as monitoring service, we had 30 or 40 hosts, and you know what? We had thousands and thousands of items and triggers, all spawned automatically by some useless auto discover procedure.
Now I got back to my previous company:
We're more efficient, our architecture is stronger and more resilient, everything is well documented, much much much less noise.
vic-traill@reddit
Visicalc, Multimate and GW-Basic
Hah!
/s
makeitasadwarfer@reddit
OP you’re the sysadmin, why haven’t you fixed and improved this?
There’s enormous amounts of granular controls to manage notifications and behaviour.
I call PEBCAK.
Mindestiny@reddit
"integration for the sake of integration" sums up about 99% of slack.
They add little to no value, and encourage people to use the tool in ways its not designed.
Slack is such garbage
orion3311@reddit
You had me at Qbasic
landob@reddit
(shrug) I haven't had a problem with it. Tried teams an absolutely hated it.
QuesoMeHungry@reddit
It’s insane how heavy these chat apps are now. Lots of product managers with nothing else to do.
Brilliant-Bat7063@reddit
Smells like boomer in here
TheDawiWhisperer@reddit
IRC for hipsters
dminus@reddit
I kind of miss when everyone used xmpp ;(