{"id":3706,"date":"2025-06-08T16:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T22:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/?p=3706"},"modified":"2025-06-08T16:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T22:11:09","slug":"why-public-slack-chats-are-better-than-direct-messages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/archives\/3706","title":{"rendered":"Why Public Slack Chats are Better than Direct Messages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This is a repost of a blog post I wrote about six years and two jobs ago about Slack communication. You can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.culturefoundry.com\/cultivate\/digital-agency-life\/why-public-slack-chats-are-better-than-direct-messages\/\">see the original here<\/a>; this is reposted with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Do you even Slack, dude?<\/p>\n<p>We use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.culturefoundry.com\/cultivate\/digital-agency-life\/why-public-slack-chats-are-better-than-direct-messages\/cultivate\/digital-agency-life\/culture-foundry-tips-for-using-slack\">Slack<\/a>, and use it extensively. As a remote team, it\u2019s a crucial part of our workflow. I\u2019ve noticed that I sometimes use direct messages when I should be asking a question in a public channel. Upon examination, direct messages have the following attributes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Less intrusive. I sometimes worry about an excessive amount of chatter bothering other team members.<\/li>\n<li>Protect my ego. When I ask a question it is admitting that I don\u2019t know the answer. As a \u201cdirector of engineering\u201d it can be humbling to admit ignorance. But of course I don\u2019t know everything! It\u2019s just my ego talking. However, it still stings a bit sometimes to ask publicly\u2013it\u2019s easier to just side chat.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, the benefits of posting in a public channel are many. A message in a public channel is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Viewable. This means that others can chime in (as opposed to just the person I DMed). And that others can learn in the present as they read my question and the answers.<\/li>\n<li>Linkable. This means that if I want to reference the conversation (in a PR, trello card or elsewhere), I can. Of course, I should extract info into documentation (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.culturefoundry.com\/cultivate\/digital-agency-life\/why-public-slack-chats-are-better-than-direct-messages\/cultivate\/technology\/give-future-you-the-gift-of-documentation\">future me will thank past me<\/a>) but for context around a decision, a link to a slack chat can be very helpful.<\/li>\n<li>Searchable. This means that others in the future who are searching for this information can find it. Yes, slack\u2019s search leaves something to be desired, but if the conversation is private, that\u2019s a guarantee that no one else will be able to search and find it.<\/li>\n<li>Vulnerable. I want everyone to feel comfortable asking questions. That leads to better outcomes for clients and for team members. How can I expect that behavior of others if I don\u2019t do it myself?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So my rule of thumb going forward is if I can imagine someone else asking this question, I\u2019ll take it to a channel. If I\u2019m answering a question, I\u2019m going to apply the same test.<\/p>\n<p>To address my worry about intrusiveness, I\u2019ve started to use threads (which I kinda hate, but kinda love). I of course will continue to use DMs or DM groups for private information. However, if a group convo might be more useful if it is viewable, linkable or searchable, I\u2019m going to create a channel\u2013those are free, and easy to archive.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a repost of a blog post I wrote about six years and two jobs ago about Slack communication. You can see the original here; this is reposted with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,4,37,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-startup","category-technology","category-tips","category-useful-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3707,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3706\/revisions\/3707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mooreds.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}