[wintercarver]

At my company we have a “thoughtful communication” guide[1] that addresses Slack and other communication tools. The simple rule for Slack is it’s for ephemeral or urgent communication only. All “conversation” material essentially routes through email and it works great. Takes some getting used to but our Slack instance is very, very relaxed. Most employees silence all Slack notifications and are encouraged to do so to (try our best to) preserve focus.

[1] https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/company/thoughtful-communicatio...

[eitland]

> The simple rule for Slack is it’s for ephemeral or urgent communication only. [...] Most employees silence all Slack notifications and are encouraged to do so [...]

How do urgent combine with silencing notifications?

Honest question, it seems I am missing something from the context here.

[wintercarver]

Fair question and good point. Our Slack isn’t absolutely quiet - we do have a channel for coordinating on customer issues (meets our urgent and ephemeral criteria) and it might be that some matters are raised by other processes outside of Slack but Slack itself is a good fit for in-the-moment collaboration. But in short we aren’t absolutists, it’s a mix of a few specific channels for certain contexts, channel-specific muting, and updating one’s Slack status - all under the guidance that Slack immediate responsiveness is not generally expected but more the exception. It sounds like a lot as I write that, but as a broader cultural norm within the company it does (so far!) support itself.

That said, I’ll pass your question on to the team as feedback, we should make the answer more clear.

[R0b0t1]

The default setup for Slack (I think) dings you on any traffic in any channel. This is insane. Dinging on a direct message or a mention in a channel is a lot more reasonable and basically mimics the behavior of IRC.

[selfhoster11]

If it's anything like one of the places I've worked at, it doesn't combine. You're simply expected to be switched on throughout the work day.