Mailing lists, just switch to mailing lists with a web archive for internal discussions. You can have a chat with messages which auto-delete every 30 days for quick discussions (we use the talk chat from nextcloud - not great but does what we need).
All of our real discussions are sent to a mailing list with a web archive (like lkml.org, except private). That way we can still reference precise messages easily. It has been working great for us.
This type of contribution is so incredibly both tone deaf and unempathetic, I wonder if you understand even how incredibly selfish the attitude is? Especially in using the word “just”. “Just” do this incredibly complex switch, which is utterly unsuitable to your users and how they work together, and which doesn’t actually solve your problem at hand since the article is about something else.
You give zero thoughts as to how the people affected are actually using the tool, why they would be in need of real time communication rather than delayed clunky messages, or even who the actual audience is.
Even with the absolute best reading of intentions I can give to your comment, I can only imagine you wrote it to make some microsubset of people still using mailing lists feel better about their choice and validated in one of the ever rarer advantages there are to using email as primary communication.
Either that or you don’t actually know what Slack is. But then why comment?
I'm sorry that you read my comment as "tone deaf". It was not my intention.
> This type of contribution is so incredibly both tone deaf and unempathetic, I wonder if you understand even how incredibly selfish the attitude is? Especially in using the word “just”.
I don't see how a comment which proposes a solution to the problem at hand can be "selfish".
I am the owner of a small business myself and am well aware of what switching tools requires. I'm also sorry that you think that modern tools like Slack or Mattermost for that matter improve communication over what email provides; then again that is obviously a matter of opinion.
> “Just” do this incredibly complex switch, which is utterly unsuitable to your users and how they work together, and which doesn’t actually solve your problem at hand since the article is about something else.
The article is about a simple yet painful problem. I am proposing a solution, I don't see how my comment is not pertinent. As for my use of the word "just", simple does not mean easy.
> Even with the absolute best reading of intentions I can give to your comment, I can only imagine you wrote it to make some microsubset of people still using mailing lists feel better about their choice and validated in one of the ever rarer advantages there are to using email as primary communication.
>
> Either that or you don’t actually know what Slack is. But then why comment?
False dichotomy. I truly believe that mailing lists are a great way to collaborate. Especially given the case that data ownership is now even more important to the author of the post.
Slack/Mattermost try to combine real-time chat with asynchronous information exchange. I think that that is not a great way to work, this is close enough to what I think of these solutions to [link to](https://basecamp.com/guides/group-chat-problems). Not only that but your data will always be locked away in their non-standard format.
Moreover, I emailed the author (good thing this "clunky" system exists), and offered help with a potential switch to using email. Thank you nonetheless for taking my comment into consideration. I can only hope it was more useful for other readers than it was for you.
All of our real discussions are sent to a mailing list with a web archive (like lkml.org, except private). That way we can still reference precise messages easily. It has been working great for us.