On Group DMs In Slack

I wonder if group DMs in Slack is actually a bit of an poisoned chalice. Too often they’re used to discuss something that really should be a channel. Since they’re not, the topics are all over the place, and people are roped into conversations they have no interest in being in (people “CC”-ing each other in the off-chance that they need to know something).

What Slack should’ve done instead is make it easier for people to create ephemeral channels. This can be different than the long-lived channels in that they only last a short amount of time that only cover a specific interaction. Anyone can create them — the permissions to do so should be the same as creating group DMs — and they should only be “active” while people are chatting in them. They’re ephemeral in interaction only: they’ll still be archived, and you as a user should still be able to recall something that was discussed in them. But if there’s been no activity in like a day or so, they’ll be pushed out of the sidebar.

This would lead to some potentially useful features, such as tentative membership invites. You might be invited to a chat in the assumption that you may have something to add to the topic. But you, as the invitee, get to choose whether to join. You’ll be notified once when the channel is created, but never again until you choose to participate, either by explicitly joining or typing in a message. Only then will you be notified for every message. It’s sort of joining the channel with the assumption that you’ll be “ghosting” them by default.

Yes, I know that this is the idea of private channels, but there’s nothing separating those from long-lived public channels. There’s a certain “weight” involved in creating them, as if you’re staking a claim in how the team communicates. Plus, I’ve worked in places that encourage us not to create such channels. Hence the reason why everyone uses group DMs.

Anyway, some thoughts as I ignore notifications from a group DM I really don’t have anything to add to.