[kerblang]

> Default to public channels for better workplace communication

I have tried so hard to get people to do this, but it seems like a lot of my coworkers are honestly scared of "public" channels, and by "public" I mean a channel with only 15 or so people on it. They insist on DM'ing most things, and some just refuse to use chat at all; those will only communicate via email.

[forbiddenvoid]

"Scared of public channels" often means "doesn't have the psychological safety to say something out loud that might end up being perceived negatively or as though they don't know what they're doing."

[gbjw]

Sure -- or people don't want to clog up channels with what they perceive to be minutiae or very context-specific questions requiring some back-and-forth.

[Cthulhu_]

Which is fair, as long as it's concrete, the addressee is actually available and on the clock, and the question can only be answered by that person.

I'm active on a programming language Slack space, what sometimes happens is that people are DMed directly with a generic / open question that dozens of others could also answer.

[watwut]

For which, I am thankful to them. Nothing better then dozens of irrelevant chat messages in larger group chats I am member of that I cant mute, because once in a while there is something important.

[tomp]

You should use threads for that.

[BeFlatXIII]

I mute them anyway because I won’t see the important message among all the chit-chat notifications, so I cut the middleman.

[kedmi]

Couldn't phrase it better.

I know for a fact that anonymity can be used to encourage diversity of thought and honesty on public channels - this is the feedback I get from customers of a service I run (https://AnonymityBot.com).

[manmal]

I personally don’t have a problem with posting in public, but I can imagine that for many people it would remind them of being singled out in a school class.

[gbjw]

Sending a message in a public channel is psychologically akin to walking into a room full of people and just loudly proclaiming/demanding help. I don't think people are simply 'scared' to do it -- they just (rightly) intuit that it's somewhat strange and counterintuitive that it would be the preferred method over talking to an individual and building a rapport / friendship.

[onion2k]

Sending a message in a public channel is psychologically akin to walking into a room full of people and just loudly proclaiming/demanding help.

Only if that room enables people to only hear shouts that include their name, where they can pause hearing shouts, where it's acceptable to ignore shouts if you're busy, and where there's someone recording the shouts in case someone has a similar problem later.

In fact, in almost all the ways that matter it's entirely different to shouting in a room.

[ge96]

Also if you sound dumb it's out there for the public to see.

[onion2k]

It's the job of everyone on the team, especially leads, to reply in ways that make sure everyone knows asking a dumb question is significantly better than being blocked.

I would prefer to answer dumb questions all day long than have people on my team grind to a halt for a day because they're scared of asking for help.

[bhawks]

But they're not blocked and they are asking for help.

They're just doing it via DM instead of in the 'public' chat.

Slack is literally telling folks: 'You are holding it wrong'.

In reality their product isn't that great for q&a or knowledge sharing. Horrible search, bad notification, high noise to low signal.

[verve_rat]

They are blocked when the one person they DM'd ignores the message because they are busy with other stuff.

[watwut]

Then they can ask someone else. Or move to public thread. But quite often, they are not blocked and the person they are asking responds.

And quite often, you get better and faster response when you ask a person instead of forum.

[ge96]

Yeah that is a good point, it's bad when you dump hours into something that could be figured out in a couple of minutes.

[indigodaddy]

I got past worrying about sounding dumb a long time ago. It’s the #1 thing that people need to get over imo

[lnxg33k1]

I was dreaming of a world where slack doesn’t exist and we use only mailing lists ;0