[HN Gopher] Discord Launches Threads
___________________________________________________________________
Discord Launches Threads
Author : dchengy
Score : 274 points
Date : 2021-07-27 15:35 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.discord.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.discord.com)
| ferdowsi wrote:
| Is there really no better design for "aside" conversations than
| this? People lean on Slack threads too much, leading to a
| confused flow of conversation that makes it extremely difficult
| to piece together how the discussion was ended or resolved.
| mhitza wrote:
| I think we need to scrap the concept of a channel, and
| everything should be a thread instead.
|
| You can categorize/tag threads (why not automatically based on
| groups of users) and they can show up as a feed similar on
| HN/SO/Reddit, but in a sidebar so you can easily swap between
| them.
|
| If you're imagining how that would look, no need to look
| further than an email client. The advantage of it being threads
| with tags/categories is that it makes it easy to move one
| thread from one category/tag to another (for example moving the
| conversation from DEV to SRE) without loosing context/history.
|
| Then there's no aside conversation, because everything is an
| aside.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Zulip is the only decent implementations of threaded chat I
| could find, although it's solution to "aside" conversations is
| that all conversations are "aside" (or none are), since you are
| using channels. It does wonders for discoverability though
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I feel like threads are a solution to having an enormous
| continuous channel. Zulip solves this by not having an
| enormous continous channel. I think it makes sense to have
| topic-oriented discussion threads, and then have discussion
| _within_ those threads all in the same continuous stream.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| I love having threads on Slack, but I absolutely hate that it
| always open in the right corner, instead of showing in the
| center. I always have to drag the border all the way to the
| left so it's not just a small column on the side
| onei wrote:
| I genuinely hadn't realised you could resize threads to be
| wider and found it really annoying how narrow they were. I
| don't think I'd noticed any visual cues you could resize them
| either (assuming the cues exist).
| aerovistae wrote:
| Wait how?!?!? This always bothers me but I can't drag the
| border!! Edit: OMG YOU CAN DRAG THE BORDER I WAS JUST DOING
| IT WRONG SOMEHOW
| Fishkins wrote:
| I agree. The Slack thread UX is not ideal, but the flow of
| conversation is _so_ much better than it was pre-threads. I
| always end up closing the side bar and navigating to the
| thread in the "Threads" view. They should make it easier to
| maximize a thread.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| At least this UX of Discord's makes it easy to do that: the
| article points out that opening the thread from the list
| below a channel will open it in the main chat view instead
| of the sidebar. At least from the article it does seem that
| Discord was paying attention to flaws in Slack's UX.
| kace91 wrote:
| I'm always surprised by how practically every single opinion
| regarding personal communication is the opposite in hacker news
| to the mainstream opinion of my "real life" circles.
|
| Use of social networks, slack, emojis, messaging apps, sync vs
| async communication...
|
| Its not a criticism of any kind, mind you, it's just very
| surprising to me.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| I would be a bit slower on the hasty generalizations. I'm
| here on hacker news and I love using threads and am happy
| they're coming to Discord there's also multiple comments
| below this saying the same thing.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| The lack of threads is something that made me not use
| Discord before (before they had the replies).
|
| There was simply no way to know who someone is replying to,
| or part of which of the multiple conversations in the
| channel is that message a part of
| jedberg wrote:
| That's because it was designed to be a real time chat.
| When you're having a group conversation, there are no
| threads. You just keep track in your head what the topics
| are and who said them and then figure out how the next
| sentence applies.
|
| Discord was modeled after this interaction (and IRC,
| which was modeled after this interaction).
| derefr wrote:
| When you're having a large-group "stream of conversation"
| in meatspace (in the lobby of convention hall, say),
| subgroups within the conversation will break off
| temporarily to form smaller "huddles" that step slightly
| away from the group, focusing on one-another rather than
| the group, to have a temporary "sidebar" conversation.
|
| Content from a "sidebar" conversation is usually taken
| far enough away from the larger group that it's not
| bothersome/interrupting the topic of the larger group;
| but--unlike a whispered aside--these temporary sidebar
| conversations are still _public_ conversations, and they
| leak enough signal to the larger group that if someone in
| the larger group _focused_ on the sidebar conversation,
| they could pick up the general topic of what 's being
| discussed, and choose to join the sidebar discussion
| themselves.
|
| Hey, that's threads!
| wvenable wrote:
| None of the Discord servers/channels I'm involved in are
| that active so that sort of real time chat aspect is much
| less significant.
|
| I agree with that you're saying but it's also not the
| only way one interacts with Discord. I might only visit a
| server once a week and try and catch up on the messages
| posted in that time.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| That might be the initial model, but it's not the current
| model. People use Discord for far more than real time
| chat. It's effectively replaced forums for many
| communities. While real time chat is still important,
| it's not the only use case.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| In IRL chat you have physical modifiers to indicate
| threading though (volume, posture, gaze).
|
| Seems like threading but with a UI option to collapse to
| a flat presentation suits both sides?
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Nah, lots of us here love threads. Threads was one of the
| reasons our large private friends-only Slack server didn't
| move to Discord. This has reignited that conversation, as we
| like Discord more for certain things, and threads were one of
| the things holding us back.
|
| The difference is we just aren't really saying anything.
| elondaits wrote:
| I have some issues with Slack threads but use them a lot,
| appreciate them, and so far haven't seen a better solution
| (even in this thread).
|
| HN always presents a lot of reactionary positions to
| anything.
| rolleiflex wrote:
| The only other type of thread design I know of is Reddit-style
| threads in a chat app. The negative of that is that the threads
| cannot be directly incorporated into chat itself after creation
| because they become things of their own, just like Reddit
| threads, but the positive is massive: threads are entities of
| their own and they can be infinitely nested and referred to
| indefinitely into the future.
|
| An example of this design is Aether. (Disclosure: I work on
| this, aether.app) If you have issues with Slack-style threads
| or curious about alternative solutions to this issue, it might
| be worth checking out.
| css wrote:
| Of all the chat apps I have used, Mattermost's implementation
| of threads/replies [0] has felt the most natural. That said,
| all implementations I've tried leave something to be desired.
|
| [0]: https://docs.mattermost.com/messaging/organizing-
| conversatio...
| renewiltord wrote:
| That looks identical to Slack's implementation to my eyes. If
| you don't mind sharing, what did you like better?
| css wrote:
| Slack threads don't (or at least, didn't; it's been a
| couple years) show in the main message feed, they show when
| you expand the thread into the sidebar. In the feed, it
| shows the original message with an "n replies" text below
| it.
|
| In Mattermost, new replies show as normal messages in your
| feed with a bit of context for what they're replying to,
| and clicking on the context expands the full thread in a
| sidebar.
|
| I find the Mattermost implementation more ergonomic because
| you can read replies without expanding the whole thread
| every time, and stale threads will get bumped by new
| messages.
| qudat wrote:
| Slack has the option to "reply in main channel" as well
| as have it show up in the thread. This allows people to
| surface something important in the thread that should
| also be in the parent channel.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Ah interesting. I believe Slack does the former thing
| (displays as k replies) but not the latter. Thanks.
| jjjgcddf wrote:
| You might not have noticed but your link goes to the new
| design (in beta) of collapsed threads which are much more
| similar to Slack's and I think this has caused some
| confusion in this thread
|
| It's worth noting that the design you prefer isn't being
| deprecated; Slack-style threads are being added as a user
| display option.
| css wrote:
| Oops, yeah. Looks like there are not really any docs for
| the existing (better) system:
| https://docs.mattermost.com/messaging/sending-receiving-
| mess...
| jks wrote:
| I have liked Zulip's threads (they call them "topics") best:
| https://zulip.com/help/about-streams-and-topics
| nerdponx wrote:
| I always found Zulip _too_ thread-focused. I think the
| Slack implementation is a nice balance.
| maccam94 wrote:
| In Zulip you can make a "general" topic thread, and then
| move messages to a new topic when you feel like it's
| warranted. The normal stream (channel) view shows all
| threads simultaneously. There's also a view of all
| streams combined. The UI would be more confusing if Zulip
| had to display un-threaded messages, because then you
| wouldn't have a way to view only un-threaded messages
| without threads being interspersed. If you use the
| "general" topic method you can just focus on that.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| I kind of feel similar. I already thought that the Replies
| feature was a better compromise for a chat room than Slack's
| threads (which I hated because so much conversation would just
| "disappear" from channels only to find out it was still
| happening in a thread from days or weeks before), but I'm also
| in several Discords that migrated _from_ Slack and I know how
| many of my friends have been complaining that they missed Slack
| style threads for whatever reason.
|
| I'm going to give this a shot a bit: an in depth reading of
| this blog post has given me some appreciation that Discord is
| trying to keep it better than Slack's. They have moderation
| mentioned front and center, so that feels good to me that they
| kept it strongly in mind. I also like that they will be visible
| in the channel list as "sub-channels" and that they will auto-
| archive with a time limit (defaulting to 24 hours to start).
| Those two things do try to address things I disliked about
| Slack's implementation, so I'm hopeful to give it a shot.
|
| Maybe my remaining criticism here is I think I'd prefer the
| default time limit to be something smaller and related more
| directly to activity. Maybe something like "after an hour or
| maybe two hours of silence" to keep them to "active
| conversation sidebars" only. I also don't like that currently
| changing the time limit is a Level 2 Boost server feature if I
| wanted to explore options on smaller servers I
| control/moderate. On smaller servers your main option is just
| to turn them off entirely. (Though I sort of understand that it
| is a Level 2 Boost because from their perspective servers are
| going to _want_ to increase the time limit as a perk. I wonder
| if they could make it free to _decrease_ it, if it 's not a
| "perk".)
| dorchadas wrote:
| > They have moderation mentioned front and center, so that
| feels good to me that they kept it strongly in mind.
|
| What's annoying about this is it was sprung, default on, with
| no warning. I'm a mod (not the owner) of a server that got
| them, and we _weren 't_ given the permissions to disable them
| from @everyone, only the admin can do that at first. And he's
| not currently been on because of time zone differences. Which
| means it's just an easy open vector for someone to come in an
| raid and just cause chaos. They should've had it off by
| default, at least for a few days to let server owners
| experiment and play around with it.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| They've given that choice to servers that are labeled
| "Community Servers" at least (giving them until mid-August
| before it is forced on by default) which will help some of
| the largest servers, but yes they maybe should have given
| that a wider option to the medium/smaller servers too.
| dorchadas wrote:
| Yep, we're a small server (~2700) that just randomly had
| it turned on. We've currently got about 10, just from
| random members thinking to test if they can create them.
| 10 that we can't delete. Thankfully nobody has tried to
| abuse it by naming any anything offensive, or mass
| creating them yet. Hopefully they won't before the admin
| gets back on when he wakes up.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| 2700 users? I'd classify that as more than a "small" or a
| "medium" server myself. That's definitely in the range
| where setting it as a "Community Server" could be
| beneficial for a lot of other reasons.
| seany wrote:
| This makes me sad. Threads suck in chat.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Why?
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Remind me the difference between Slack and Discord at this point?
| "Default theme" is the big one that comes to mind
|
| It's fine, not every product needs to be super original I guess,
| but it's gotten to the point where choosing one over the other is
| barely even a statement about your identity anymore. Although I
| guess most people do both: Slack for work, Discord for friends.
| It's boring when those two experiences are so similar, tho
| lovegoblin wrote:
| > it's gotten to the point where choosing one over the other is
| barely even a statement about your identity anymore
|
| Why on earth would I want it to be?
| void_mint wrote:
| Threads are a universal mistake. I wish I could turn them off of
| every chat service I've used that implements them.
| bmurphy1976 wrote:
| When will one of these chat services finally allow me to open a
| thread in a new tab? Sure it won't solve every problem but I'd
| sure find it more useful than the mess we have now.
| [deleted]
| wffurr wrote:
| This looks non-terrible, unlike Slack threads or the abominations
| that are MS Teams and Google Chat. The thread is moved out of the
| main conversation view and gets its own entry nested under the
| channel.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Off topic but here's another feature that really shouldn't take 2
| years to implement - only showing "In game" status on some
| servers, vs the current all-or-nothing approach.
|
| https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/3600483...
| cjsawyer wrote:
| I'd gladly share that info with my gaming friends, but on not
| on professional/work servers
| VRay wrote:
| It wouldn't be a problem, except that Discord takes over your
| fucking computer and doesn't let you sign into different
| accounts via private browser windows when you have the client
| running
|
| Another problem with Discord is that its anti-spam measures
| are making it harder and harder to create an anonymous
| account
|
| There's no point in having an anonymous Discord account if
| you have to use the same account for everything in your life.
| (Reddit and Facebook have the same problem as well)
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Same with having multiple accounts, not everyone wants to use
| their "main" account for all servers.
| remram wrote:
| Running two instances of Discord is not too complicated (at
| least on Linux) and might work well to separate your
| professional and gaming accounts. You only have to be careful
| of invite links, which will open in the first Discord you run.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Be aware that Discord treats this as a fraud indicator - the
| reason Ripcord does not support Discord multi-account is that
| it puts you at higher risk for a ban
| dan_pixelflow wrote:
| Threads are great, and I've been working with them in testing for
| a few months now. One issue is that many major API libraries
| (such as discord.py) don't support them in a stable version yet.
| I'm not going to enable Threads fully in my 300k+ member server
| until our custom moderation bot supports them. This isn't
| Discord's fault really though, I know library devs have had a lot
| of heads up too, it just takes time. Apart from that, Threads are
| great and I use them for so many things, from temporary but long
| threads for specific members to join for staff training, to busy
| threads for events like streams. They've been built with
| community in mind, and feedback from moderators has been gathered
| every step of the way. If only more companies developed features
| while in touch with the people they'd affect...
| musicale wrote:
| Everything old is new again.
|
| Discord seems to have executed fairly well so far overall. And
| its client apps don't seem quite as awful as Electron apps
| usually are. I wish that Teams did chat channels as well as
| Discord does. Actually I wish that Teams would just be less
| clunky and buggy overall.
| mdoms wrote:
| Slack threads are, without a doubt, the worst UI I can imagine
| for this feature. This Discord implementation looks only slightly
| less bad. Threads are not necessary for this product category -
| we have channels for that.
| zbrozek wrote:
| Sadness. I use Google Chat at work and I absolutely hate threads
| there. Maybe the Discord implementation is better, but I'm not
| holding my breath.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| I may be mixing up my chat apps, but isn't Google Chat 100%
| threads? I know one of the things under MS Teams is like that
| too and don't like it either.
|
| I like the idea of having temporary side conversations with a
| time limit. There should never be an "eternal" thread, just
| things that come and go.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| > isn't Google Chat 100% threads?
|
| It has both now, but each room is either 100% threads or no
| threads.
| renewiltord wrote:
| With Slack huddles and Discord threads, we are approaching
| convergence of these two apps, haha. Well, I like the direction
| so you won't find me mad.
| Shadonototro wrote:
| they should have sold to microsoft
|
| they are out of ideas, it's becoming a bloated product (it was
| already tbh)
|
| forums+IRC here we go agane
|
| IRC #1 for me, i sometimes use discord, but i don't it's not
| always open anymore
| agumonkey wrote:
| yeah discord is comfy but bloated and I rarely miss it..
| something is heavier in the social feel it creates (I keep
| saying that people are ban-happy on discord, discord makes tiny
| realms, not freeform convo chans like on IRC)
| LegitShady wrote:
| Forums were 1000x better. You could actually browse most forums
| without logging in, and they were search indexable. I feel like
| there is a lot of information locked behind unsearchable
| discord that I will never see. If trying to build a community
| everything that goes to discord that could have been a forum
| post is tying your community to some company that makes
| messaging software instead of your own forum.
| rkda wrote:
| Still not available on our Discord server. I wish they took a
| page from Flowdock's threads but this looks more like Slack
| threads.
| dreamyfigment wrote:
| I'm not sure I like the implementation, with threads having a
| "title" and the forced archiving. They feel more complex than
| they should.
| [deleted]
| kevingadd wrote:
| Automatically archiving threads after a short time period seems
| like a good idea, it naturally pushes long form conversations and
| collaborations into flows designed to handle them (private
| channels, e-mail discussions, etc)
| Zealotux wrote:
| This was missing direly for support servers, glad to have this
| now.
| mrnobody_67 wrote:
| I'm glad so many smart people are getting paid $200,000+ per year
| to bring such new and innovative products to the market.
| maddiewang wrote:
| I have a community for founders from Stanford/Harvard/YC on
| discord and almost switched to slack for the threads. Thank god
| for the update!!
|
| https://founderscafe.io
| chasely wrote:
| This is pretty cool! Let me know if you ever expand membership
| to the "public ivies".
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| Fun fact:
|
| They granted create threads to everybody by default but granted
| manage threads to nobody by default.
|
| So we had moderators who could delete channels, delete create and
| modify roles and role permissions, and delete messages as well as
| ban/kick users, but couldn't manage or delete threads.
|
| "public threads" show up in the main channel list to everybody as
| a sub channel, and everybody had permission to create and name
| them what ever they wanted, _but nobody could delete them_ until
| i logged in and gave it to my mods.
|
| Realllllllllly well done roll out discord.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| When did the feature appear for you? It hasn't appeared yet in
| my channel.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| it was randomly handed out to 10% of servers today.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| This happened to me, moderating a server, while our only admin
| was on vacation.
|
| I _was_ able to remove "create thread" permissions from the
| default role, effectively turning threads off. But first I had
| to add a new role to grant myself those permissions. I also had
| to ask people who had created threads to _please delete them_
| because I still can 't.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > But first I had to add a new role to grant myself those
| permissions
|
| Assuming you're an Administrator, it's covered by that.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| They aren't.
|
| Its a common system to only have the server owner and maybe
| 1 or 2 other people with the administrator permission.
|
| I personally run a 5k user discord with only me as the
| admin, and like 90 mods who can do varying levels of
| things.
|
| Why discord didn't make it default to on for people with
| manage_messages i don't understand.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Threads are great for helping you to actively ignore a
| discussion, but discord is a casual discussion app. Threads make
| it harder and weirder for people to chime in halfway through or
| to catch up on what people have been saying. Channels are used to
| group conversation topics that some people might want to ignore.
| I'd rather not have threads
| npunt wrote:
| > discord is a casual discussion app
|
| One way to keep that reputation is to not deploy features that
| enable more professional use cases. Perhaps they want to be
| more than a casual app?
|
| I personally like threads, they are a very minor bump in app
| complexity that can significantly improve context reassembly -
| the primary issue with chat apps.
| movedx wrote:
| > One way to keep that reputation is to not deploy features
| that enable more professional use cases. Perhaps they want to
| be more than a casual app?
|
| They do, hence their recent rebranding that resulted in less
| of a "for gamers" image :)
| kowbell wrote:
| > Threads make it harder and weirder for people to chime in
| halfway through or to catch up on what people have been saying
|
| I'm of the completely opposite opinion.
|
| If I want to contribute to a prior discussion that happened a
| few minutes ago but another one is taking place now, then we
| have two separate conversations in the same linear chat stream.
| With a thread, I can respond to who I want without interrupting
| anyone else. Without threads, you're reading through all the
| messages and trying to figure out which are relevant.
|
| Most of the Discords I'm in are game or mod related, and I'm
| often using their help/questions channels. There's usually only
| one or two of these channels, so if multiple people need help
| at the same time you get scattered conversations and it's
| confusing to follow, especially if you step away for a second.
|
| Direct replies to the messages help but they still exist in
| that linear main chat stream, so there's still a lot of clutter
| that everyone has to navigate through. With threads, you can
| have multiple questions asked simultaneously and each one has
| all their discussion in their respective threads, making it
| very obvious which messages are meant for which question and
| making it easier to navigate.
| kowbell wrote:
| Forgot to mention: at my job, Slack threads have been super
| useful. Three or four people can discuss one topic in an open
| channel (so others can join in and we can search history)
| without spamming notifications against everyone else.
|
| E.g. someone could put a message in #engineering about a bug.
| All the engineers get that notification so anyone who knows
| more details can chip in immediately. They then reply in a
| thread on the original bug message so they can discuss
| without everyone else getting bothered with irrelevant notifs
| AND without locking the conversation into a group DM where
| nobody else can chime in nor can we all easily search for it
| later if it's relevant.
| naavis wrote:
| Exactly, this is how we use it too.
| tdeck wrote:
| > If I want to contribute to a prior discussion that happened
| a few minutes ago but another one is taking place now, then
| we have two separate conversations in the same linear chat
| stream.
|
| This is also a feature that discourages a bunch of side
| conversations. If I've participated in conversations on 5
| different topics that have moved on, it can sometimes be
| tiring to have those old threads reopened with more
| discussions. It's like having 3 text conversations while also
| being out to dinner with friends.
| kowbell wrote:
| > If I've participated in conversations on 5 different
| topics that have moved on, it can sometimes be tiring to
| have those old threads reopened with more discussions.
|
| I reckon that's more due to reopening old conversations
| regardless of whether it's threaded or not. In fact, I feel
| threads make it easier to return to those conversations
| again: your message is there in that side-chats history and
| not in some global history where now people are scrolling
| back-and-forth to remember the prior conversation.
|
| > It's like having 3 text conversations while also being
| out to dinner with friends.
|
| Threads are like 3 text conversations + a vocal
| conversation. Not having threads is like 4 vocal
| conversations all over each other.
| arkitaip wrote:
| Discord is after Slack's market share and offering threads
| makes sense in many contexts where the discussion isn't casual.
| movedx wrote:
| I'm not certain why you're being downvoted, but you're right.
| Their recent rebranding demonstrates this.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Man, I wish Slack would implement Discords "reply" feature
| that automatically quotes the post and @mentions the poster.
| DoctorShenan wrote:
| I think it has it, it's just called something else.
| leppr wrote:
| Yes, the "share message" feature accomplishes roughly the
| same in a less seamless way.
| rockostrich wrote:
| It's less "seamless", but also more flexible. The Discord
| reply feature only works within the same channel while
| you can share slack messages anywhere, including in
| threads by linking. Linking to discord messages works,
| but there's no inline preview.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Man, I wish Discord would let you set it to not @mention by
| default.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| The admin tools available at launch seem quite robust: -
| Enabling/disabling threads on a per-channel basis - Enabling the
| creation of threads only for specified users/roles -
| Administrative locking/unlocking of threads - Automatic archiving
|
| So one could setup a server with a mixture of threaded
| conversation and more IRC-like chat.
| lathiat wrote:
| This looks similar to the Zulip implementation which I sorely
| wish Mattermost had (since we use that at work)
| emilycook wrote:
| I work at Mattermost -- we do have this, it's just still in
| beta right now
| https://docs.mattermost.com/messaging/organizing-conversatio...
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Does Mattermost also have "uncollapsed" threads like
| Flowdock? Personally, I think hiding conversation in a group
| channel is terrible UX. I don't know why people are aping
| Slack's functionality when I hear almost universally that it
| sucks.
| emilycook wrote:
| I'm not that familiar with Flowdeck so I don't know if this
| is what you mean, but "collapsed threads" in Mattermost is
| just a personal view setting that can be turned on/off
| according to your preferences.
| gregwebs wrote:
| Unfortunately looks more like the Slack implementation to me.
| unstatusthequo wrote:
| Cool. Still waiting for proper / modern / real parental controls.
| My 13 y/o nephew wants to chat with his buddies but there's no
| real way to make sure he's not getting weirdos contacting him.
| omgitsabird wrote:
| What would parental controls on Discord look like to you?
|
| The scenario is that you typically join someone else's server
| or provide them with a link to one you are already a part of.
|
| Would you want some client-side assurances that a young user
| doesn't interact with someone who says something you dislike,
| or would you want this on the server-side?
|
| What does the interaction with people who do not have those
| controls look like?
| bool3max wrote:
| There is already a setting which prevents people not on your
| friends list from contacting you, as well as a setting limiting
| who can request to add you as a friend. What more do you need?
| xena wrote:
| I think it's a case of "I don't want this kid to change these
| features unless there is direct parental approval". Sure
| those settings exist, but unless there's some policy way to
| prevent them from being changed it's pointless.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I think traditional parenting is the control you're after -
| worked in our house so far. "Weirdos on the internet will
| send you disturbing images that give you nightmares, try
| and encourage you to do stupid things that will hurt you,
| try and get money of you, or damage our computer; I've set
| it so you can't make friends with them nor receive messages
| - if you want to add anyone, like school friends, that you
| know in real life that's fine, ask me first. If you mess
| with the settings I'll have to uninstall it (block it,
| whatever)."
| yuryk wrote:
| Discord iOS devs. Please fix streaming audio issue! That will
| make mobile streaming a thing
| lwn wrote:
| Oh my thread! I hope this doesn't go Slack.
|
| edit: After my initial response (above) I was thinking I don't
| remember chat systems having 'proper' threads implemented, while
| forum software and commenting systems do have. Why is this?
| NeveHanter wrote:
| In my opinion the best app similar to Slack but organised around
| the thread communication is Twist (https://twistapp.com/).
|
| It's disappointing that it's so hard to convince the companies
| "management" to switch from chaotic Slack communication to
| something better for async and organised communication because
| clients are used to Slack...
|
| The same applies to Discord as it's just the most accessible way,
| everyone uses and it's just largest common denominator regardless
| of the chaos in most of the channels, hope the threads will clear
| some things up when people use them, and not like in the Slack
| where everyone just paste response in the channel instead of the
| threads.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| This seems nice. I'm not a huge Discord user but one thing that
| always bugs me when I'm occasionally using it is when there's 2
| topics of conversation going on at once. It especially happens a
| lot in help threads, where 2 people are needing help at the same
| time and people have to keep replying to the previous message in
| that conversation.
|
| Though at the same time, it seems a bit weird that it's almost
| like a sub-channel? Does that mean in this scenario you'd have a
| whole list of threads down the side underneath the channel for
| every question?
|
| I see people complaining about Slack threads but I personally
| find them perfect for what it needs to do. Creating a short
| thread from a message doesn't seem as big of a deal as what this
| looks to be doing.
| [deleted]
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| I don't know how it's possible, but I cannot wait for the day
| where I don't have to deal with "chats". Telegram, iMessage,
| LinkedIn, emails, discord, this app, that app. I simrace with a
| 60 year old man and no matter how much we try, he cannot wrap his
| head around how to use discord.
| SECProto wrote:
| I don't think that's reasonable and it's very unlikely that
| "chats" are going away. I've been using chat apps since that
| person was in their mid-to-late 30s. Newsgroups were around a
| decade before that. The relatives I have in their 90s know how
| to use Hangouts. Being 60 isn't an excuse in my opinion
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Back about 18y ago there was, er, Trillian (?) and you could
| have all your chats in one UI at least. If I were in charge
| chat apps would have to use federation with an open
| interchange format (RIP XMPP).
|
| I think XMPP and Trillian might still be going but once
| Facebook, Microsoft and Google stopped playing nicely ...
| zucked wrote:
| Oh, man, the good old days of Trillian. Yeah, you could be
| signed into multiple AIM accounts, MSN, ICQ, maybe others
| later on. It was a total game changer.
| serverholic wrote:
| Not a fan. Whenever someone creates a thread in slack I always
| think it'd be better to just keep the normal conversation
| flowing.
| asah wrote:
| am I the only one who just thinks Reddit/Disqus threads are the
| way to go? (collapsable and deep-linkable)
|
| what am I missing?
| chejazi wrote:
| > (collapsable and deep-linkable)
|
| I see other major differences. Discord and other chat-apps
| invite much more real time participation than the other two you
| just mentioned. Also discord you have to be logged in to be
| part of a server, not much casual lurking going on.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Discord blatantly copying HN now. What's next, upvotes?
| neurotrace wrote:
| This makes me so happy. My group of friends migrated to Guilded a
| while ago specifically because threads are so useful. However,
| Guilded is too janky to recommend on it's own merits. I'm so
| stoked to return to Discord
| amelius wrote:
| Next up: Twitter launches long tweets ...
| adrian17 wrote:
| These look like a weird mix of Slack threads (temporary (though
| not enforced in Slack), written in sidebar) and Zulip
| threads/topics (named, available in the channel list), though...
| with downsides compared to both (for example, you can't forward
| messages to original channel like you could on Slack). Feels a
| bit awkward, but time will tell.
|
| My main concern right now is with discoverability and moderation
| - it seems a bit difficult for moderators to see recent activity
| across all threads, unless I missed something.
|
| Other than that, I'm cautiously neutral.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Given they show up in the channel list as "sub-channels",
| discoverability and moderation _should_ be straight forward and
| this blog post devotes an entire section to Moderation tools,
| so I 'm cautiously optimistic on that part at least.
| (Especially in comparisons to Slack's Thread moderation which
| was rough in what little I tried to do of it.)
| jamie_ca wrote:
| The catch is that they only show up in the channel list if
| you've "joined" the thread. They're otherwise just hidden
| behind the button up top (or you need to hit the backscroll).
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Yeah, that seems sub-optimal from how I read it, but I
| guess I missed that part.
| dan_pixelflow wrote:
| As a Discord moderator (discord.gg/wilbur, 310k+) who's used
| Threads for a few months now while testing, there's a specific
| Threads button that lists all open threads - even private ones,
| although behind a toggle - and that works pretty okay. Most
| large servers only use Threads internally within staff teams,
| not in the wider general channels yet, though!
| adrian17 wrote:
| > there's a specific Threads button that lists all open
| threads
|
| I can see there's a Threads button next to the search bar,
| but it appears to be scoped to the channel I'm in; I don't
| see a way to see threads across all channels.
| TheJoeDonger wrote:
| Threads suck!
| vnchr wrote:
| I know this is being downvoted, but I find it genuinely
| interesting how much negative fervor there is towards threads.
| So it's a useful contribution to me!
|
| I use Slack threads everyday. I've only heard of one person in
| our org (or in any org I've been in prior that used slack) who
| had strong opinions about threads.
|
| Thanks for the very genuine opinion. Perhaps I'll start
| refining my own opinions about chat app threads.
| petercooper wrote:
| I've banned threads on our work Slack in conversations I'm
| expected to be involved with because they overwhelm me. Chat
| is already cleanly two dimensional (by channel and time) -
| threads add a whole third dimension to the mix meaning I have
| yet more places to check that I didn't miss something
| important.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| They suck because Slack's implementation of them suck. It's
| basically a feature MVP that hasn't been touched in years.
| Hopefully this Discord feature release will put some fire
| under them.
| giglamesh wrote:
| At my org, any given Slack conversation includes from two to
| six people. With that many participants, and given low volume,
| threads only present an extreme UX annoyance. I have to assume
| that the use case intended for them was high volume channels
| with lots and lots of users.
| binarymax wrote:
| The ideal thread implementation is in Flowdock (which not many
| people have heard of or use), but it's really the best of both
| worlds. Everything is a single stream of messages, and you can
| optionally group things as threads. There is a really nice
| blending of the two. Here's their implementation and you can see
| how well this works in practice.
| http://blog.flowdock.com/2017/08/31/the-1-customer-request-h...
|
| Far far better than other abominations like slack - which hides
| streams of conversation behind a wall, making the UX terrible.
| taeric wrote:
| Newsgroups had fine threads. Same for email, before Google
| basically killed threads.
| pixelmonkey wrote:
| Indeed! So good to find someone else who had this experience.
| We went from Flowdock => Slack on a fully distributed team of
| ~20 engineers, total staff size of ~40. Flowdock threading was
| _night-and-day_ so much better than Slack threading. It was
| such a stark difference, everyone noticed. What 's so maddening
| about this is that I'll bring it up to anyone who will listen,
| and they'll think I'm just nostalgic, or a curmudgeon against
| all new things. But no, Flowdock _simply did threads better_.
| And you had to use both, for awhile, on real teams, to "feel"
| the difference. (Screenshots can't really convey it.) If you
| were on a scaled team using Flowdock before adopting Slack, it
| would have been totally obvious to you.
|
| Tweeted about this here:
|
| https://twitter.com/amontalenti/status/1263317861537402885
|
| Nice to meet a fellow traveller!
|
| And yes, to the point of someone else on this HN thread, the
| closest thing to Flowdock threads on the market today in a
| semi-popular chat product is Zulip "Topics", as described here:
| https://zulip.com/help/about-streams-and-topics -- the
| difference is that Zulip forces threads to be labeled (similar
| to an email subject: line) whereas in Flowdock, all threads
| were anonymous, given a thread-id (permalink) automatically,
| and also automatically color-coded.
| whall6 wrote:
| Agreed. Slack threads are unbearable.
| aerovistae wrote:
| I guess I would have to use Flowdock to understand -- those
| gifs were confusing and unclear to me. I'm not sure what I
| was looking at.
|
| Personally I find slack threads perfectly usable and helpful
| for keeping things organized for the most part. What's the
| issue with them? I found them a revolutionary step forward in
| chat UX to be honest, something that had been missing for 20
| years or more.
| whall6 wrote:
| One thing that I don't like is that I have to click a
| checkbox every time I want to submit a reply to a thread to
| the channel that the thread is in. Not everyone in the
| channel is notified in the same way when additional replies
| are made within a thread within the channel.
| zippergz wrote:
| Which, indeed, is the point. Threads are primarily useful
| in very busy channels with multiple conversations
| happening. The point of a thread is to get the
| conversation out of the main channel so it doesn't
| disrupt other discussions. If you want every message to
| go to the main channel, just post it there, not in a
| thread. IMHO that checkbox shouldn't even exist.
| buzer wrote:
| My experience is from ~2 years ago so things may have
| changed a bit.
|
| Essentially there is a default view which contains all
| messages as usual. Each message also has a symbol next to
| it. If it's grey message bubble, it's a message that is not
| tied to any thread (it can be replied to to start a new
| thread. Previously if no other messages have appeared on
| channel so far, it can be dragged & dropped to another
| thread). If it's colored message bubble, it's the first
| message in the thread. A colored arrow means it's part of
| the thread with that color.
|
| This allows you to mostly just stay in default view with
| all of the channel's messages. As long as people are
| putting the messages in the thread itself, you could
| quickly use the colors to see which thread the message is
| on (color collisions did happen, but they were fairly
| rare). You would need to open the thread only if you needed
| more context or wanted to reply to it, though replying can
| also be done by writing to channel & dragging the message
| to thread.
| sitharus wrote:
| Some people - like myself - prefer to see all the messages
| go past and mentally thread them. It's a skill I learnt
| from many years of irc use. Others prefer to click through
| and not think about thread content until they choose to.
|
| Also I'd rather not grab my mouse to see things.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| > Also I'd rather not grab my mouse to see things.
|
| I have not tried threads yet but I have been assured they
| are fully accessible via the keyboard only.
| da_chicken wrote:
| > _Also I'd rather not grab my mouse to see things._
|
| Use the up and down arrows to navigate to the message you
| want and hit T to switch to the thread side view.
| Similarly, you can do the same to find your own messages
| and use E to edit them.
| mrgordon wrote:
| Signed in just to say YES! You get it. Flowdock is by far the
| best thread implementation ever.
| ametha_dev wrote:
| Hi!
|
| I'm not sure if this is appropriate, but getting conversation
| representation and message sorting right is the largest focus
| of my passion project, Ametha.
|
| It would be amazing if I could have a 15 minute voice call with
| you to hear about your experiences with online communication &
| collaboration?
|
| The offer is obviously open to anyone else here as well, but no
| pressure at all, and apologies if HN is not the right avenue
| for this.
|
| Edit: Feel free to use the email in my profile
| afavour wrote:
| > abominations like slack - which hides streams of conversation
| behind a wall, making the UX terrible.
|
| I'm not usually a defender of Slack but this is one of the
| things I _like_ about Slack threads. Typically in our rooms
| every discussion is a thread and if I'm not concerned with that
| particular discussion there's only ever one message and
| notification I need to dismiss. If I _am_ concerned with it I
| can opt in to reply notifications with two clicks.
| zippergz wrote:
| Yes, this is exactly what threads are for. To get a side
| conversation out of the way.
| I_AM_A_SMURF wrote:
| Same here, if you don't hide the thread then what's the
| point? Some technical discussions in our team board last for
| hundred of messages, without threads it would be really hard
| to follow the channel, especially with multiple discussions
| going at the same time.
| da_chicken wrote:
| I like how Slack hides threads. But I do have a few
| complaints.
|
| I don't like that you can't come back later, select a bunch
| of messages or threads and say "Group into a thread" to clean
| up people not using threads.
|
| Also I kind of hate when it's a week later and someone
| responds to a thread and you get pinged, but can't find where
| you got pinged from without clicking the dynamic group to see
| all thread activity.
|
| Also, it really annoys me that threads open on the right with
| the text entry on the lower right when toast notifications on
| Windows pop up on the lower right, too. Great, now whenever
| someone replies I get a toast popup blocking me from seeing
| what I'm typing. Thanks, guys. Sure, that only happens on one
| monitor, but that's also the same monitor that I want my
| toast notifications and my Slack to be on because it's where
| I'm often looking.
| btown wrote:
| I wish Slack had a notion of Threadmaster(s) on a channel
| who could drag other people's messages into and out of
| threads. Because with people who aren't familiar with Slack
| or aren't committed to threading, you end up with a split
| brain between the conversation in the thread and the
| conversation at the top level. I get that it's hard from a
| permissioning perspective since anyone can create a public
| channel, but this should be a solvable problem.
| neuronexmachina wrote:
| I'm sure this is an atypical use case, but I found the hidden
| threads really useful for creating spoiler threads about TV
| shows/movies/etc. All discussion about the topic can stay
| inside the thread, and folks who want to avoid spoilers can
| simply avoid clicking on the thread.
| orliesaurus wrote:
| +1 Flowdock - was using it back in 2014 and it had the best
| threading experience of all apps!
| remexre wrote:
| Zulip approximately does this too, right?
| Multicomp wrote:
| It does. Zulip calls what Discord and Slack refer to as
| "channels", "streams", and what Discord calls "threads",
| "topics".
|
| Zulip's superior topic UX was why I went with it over Slack &
| Discord. Now Discord has feature-parity there and even more
| with 'private' topics/threads. I have to create a separate
| channel/stream if I want some topics to be private.
|
| So now, since my users love Discord so much, I'm going to be
| fending off requests to move over to Discord, where the
| conversation data is locked in and cannot be self-hosted or
| exported.
|
| Good for Discord, but I admit I'm not looking forward to said
| conversations.
| dakial1 wrote:
| Being a heavy whatsapp user (Brazilian) I use Slack's forward
| function, inside the same conversation window (group or DM) as
| a "reference keeper" to what message I'm replying to, pretty
| much like whatsapp's "reply" feature.
|
| I understand the "also send as direct message/to group" mimics
| this. This, for me, is a good thread implementation for a chat
| tool.
| sli wrote:
| Absolutely loathed this feature in Teams. It made discussions
| impossible to follow for me and I just stopped using Teams
| altogether. Discord and Teams ostensibly cater to different
| crowds, but I just do not see the value prop at all in threaded
| _chat._
|
| Threaded discussions boards feel like the opposite to me, where
| flat threads are nearly incomprehensible (i.e. classic internet
| forums where quoting is the only message hierarchy).
| drannex wrote:
| Really happy for this, threads are a life-saver and a completely
| required tool for conversations. The linear conversation works,
| but then when you have 10+ people all vying to speak to each
| other and you have six different conversations it become a mess
| to keep up with. This is a happy change.
| sneak wrote:
| I offer that if they were "completely required" then Discord
| would not have grown to the size it has until now, not having
| them.
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