<story><title>Ways scientists use Slack</title><url>http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-use-slack-1.21228</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VMG</author><text>&amp;gt; Do they not bother to learn their tools, and set up simple mail filters?&lt;p&gt;You know the answer. They don&amp;#x27;t, because they have actual work to do.</text></item><item><author>eschaton</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m constantly amazed by professionals who complain about their email inbox. Do they not bother to learn their tools, and set up simple mail filters?&lt;p&gt;Mailing lists are actually one of the best collaboration tools available because:&lt;p&gt;(1) They can be, but don&amp;#x27;t have to be, nearly real-time;&lt;p&gt;(2) The content comes to you, you don&amp;#x27;t have to check it;&lt;p&gt;(3) They allow a full suite of content to be exchanged, if participants are willing to accept the overhead; and&lt;p&gt;(4) They&amp;#x27;re straightforward to build tools atop, including archives, autoresponders, and various kinds of automation.&lt;p&gt;Realtime tools like IRC &amp;amp; Zephyr and their awful browser-based clones like HipChat and Slack can be useful too, but should be treated as supplements, not primary.&lt;p&gt;Web forums aren&amp;#x27;t quite as awful as browser-based chat, but they&amp;#x27;re generally better treated as a front-end to a mailing list for people who don&amp;#x27;t otherwise have access to a good mail client.&lt;p&gt;(Really, all of this would be even better served by NNTP instead of mailing lists, but almost nobody runs organizational NNTP servers and mail clients long ago dropped support for it.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>engi_nerd</author><text>But, I have work to do, too, and I have many rules set up for my inbox. I receive about 300 emails a day from automated processes and another 50 or so from actual people I am collaborating with. Without filtering I would drown in email. So the filtering makes me more effective at getting work done.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ways scientists use Slack</title><url>http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-use-slack-1.21228</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VMG</author><text>&amp;gt; Do they not bother to learn their tools, and set up simple mail filters?&lt;p&gt;You know the answer. They don&amp;#x27;t, because they have actual work to do.</text></item><item><author>eschaton</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m constantly amazed by professionals who complain about their email inbox. Do they not bother to learn their tools, and set up simple mail filters?&lt;p&gt;Mailing lists are actually one of the best collaboration tools available because:&lt;p&gt;(1) They can be, but don&amp;#x27;t have to be, nearly real-time;&lt;p&gt;(2) The content comes to you, you don&amp;#x27;t have to check it;&lt;p&gt;(3) They allow a full suite of content to be exchanged, if participants are willing to accept the overhead; and&lt;p&gt;(4) They&amp;#x27;re straightforward to build tools atop, including archives, autoresponders, and various kinds of automation.&lt;p&gt;Realtime tools like IRC &amp;amp; Zephyr and their awful browser-based clones like HipChat and Slack can be useful too, but should be treated as supplements, not primary.&lt;p&gt;Web forums aren&amp;#x27;t quite as awful as browser-based chat, but they&amp;#x27;re generally better treated as a front-end to a mailing list for people who don&amp;#x27;t otherwise have access to a good mail client.&lt;p&gt;(Really, all of this would be even better served by NNTP instead of mailing lists, but almost nobody runs organizational NNTP servers and mail clients long ago dropped support for it.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>verletx64</author><text>Set it up once, get more value out of your email. It&amp;#x27;s a quick job, it&amp;#x27;s not going to come close to derailing their work.</text></comment>