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Tales Slack?


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#1 Hentzau

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Posted 15 February 2018 - 11:30 PM

So, I can't help but notice that user activity on the Tales is not as frequent as it once was. This is perfectly natural as it's no longer 2005, we are all older now and we have busy adult lives that take up most of our time, leaving us precious little to e.g. talk shit about Josh behind his back during a werewolf game. However, I'm a little concerned that we're nearing a point where conversation is infrequent enough that it's no longer self-sustaining, which would kind of suck because I like talking to you lot and doing it over Twitter or whatever isn't quite the same thing.

Sekrit faced a somewhat similar problem a few years back -- the forum was falling into disuse thanks to a number of factors (bad actors on the forum discouraging others from posting, Steam and Teamspeak supplanting one of the primary reasons for the forum existing etc.), and their solution was to shift everything over to a Slack channel. This removed most of the existing barriers to communication and was generally a tremendous success for revitalising their community, so I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to try the same thing here -- I'm not expecting to turn the clock back by a decade or anything, but it's surprising how much easier Slack makes things if you're prepared to put up with the ephemeral nature of it.

I'm just wondering what other people think of the idea; I've held off raising it for a while because I have a sentimental attachment to this place and if a Tales Slack is as successful as I hope it'd end up killing off the forum. On the other hand people might visit it for two days and then forget it exists, or there just might not be enough of a critical mass of users to sustain interest in that either, but then I guess at least we'd be no worse off than we are now. Who would actually use a Tales Slack?

#2 Strudel the Dancing Pastry

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 09:15 AM

I would! Oh me! yes!

I've been trying to get people in my department to use it for ages because I think it fits perfectly into that gap between needing a full forum structure and just a casual Whatsapp group. I am totally down with TalesSlack
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#3 Schtroumpf

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 09:19 AM

I don't know what Slack is, but would it still allow actual Tales, both old and new?

"The temperature inside this apple pie is over 1000 degrees. If I squeeze it, a jet of molten bramley apple will squirt out. Could go your way; could go mine. Either way, one of us is going down."


#4 Schtroumpf

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 09:24 AM

Also how much is it?

"The temperature inside this apple pie is over 1000 degrees. If I squeeze it, a jet of molten bramley apple will squirt out. Could go your way; could go mine. Either way, one of us is going down."


#5 Strudel the Dancing Pastry

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 09:28 AM

It's free.

And I'm fairly sure there would be no way to import old Tales into it as it's effectively just a modern version or IRC. You could have Tales threads for new tales though, and older conversations can be archived.
Spins and turns, angles and curves. The shape of dreams, half remembered. Slip the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of perfection - a perfect face, perfect lace.
Jentastic: THAT'S RIGHT, I like double entry
<@Strudel> How big's your dongle Kramer?
only about 2 inches :(

#6 Insert Name Here

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 09:29 AM

It's a bit like an IRC server with channels etc. It's free for up to 10k messages stored in history. So it probably wouldn't be ideal for actual Tales, but it has good support for attachments etc. So you could have a discussion channel for each tale and paste new bits in, but you'd want them to be backed up in something like Google docs.
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#7 Janek

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 11:41 AM

I would very much be in favour of giving it a try. The breezy informality of it definitely gives it a different vibe which I think aids conversation.
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#8 Masked Dave

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 01:30 PM

Yeah, totally up for that. We use Slack at work and it's great. I mainly want this place to keep chatting with you guys, so Slack would definitely seem the best option.

The Tales, as much as I love them, have been pretty dead for a long time, apart from the occasional bursts of Team Evil, so just finding a way to archive them would suffice. Maybe something as simple as Google Docs?

The hack yesterday did make me wonder why we actually need our own website in this day and age.
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but it seems that whilst I am Amazing you are Ultimate."- Lu

#9 Masked Dave

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 01:33 PM

Actually, fuck it, lets give this a go.

I've set up thetales.slack.com

You can join via this link: https://join.slack.c...Njk3ZjU2YzJlMDk


"It's amazing how deep we had to drill to find our key difference,
but it seems that whilst I am Amazing you are Ultimate."- Lu

#10 Masked Dave

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 01:47 PM

So as we don't all use the same emails, the only way to join the group is via the link above.

I've created channels in line with all the most commonly used threads, but its easy for anyone to add new ones for if we wanted to created a spoiler thread for a new film or something.

Unlike a forum you have to join a channel to see it / be part of it, but I've set the ones I've setup to be ones you auto-join on signup.
"It's amazing how deep we had to drill to find our key difference,
but it seems that whilst I am Amazing you are Ultimate."- Lu

#11 Schtroumpf

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 03:10 PM

The only issue I see at the moment is the obvious Chat Channel vs Forum points.  Like you can reply directly to a comment on a forum but can't (as far as I can see) on Slack.

"The temperature inside this apple pie is over 1000 degrees. If I squeeze it, a jet of molten bramley apple will squirt out. Could go your way; could go mine. Either way, one of us is going down."


#12 Hentzau

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 03:45 PM

You actually can! There are threaded messages. In practice nobody ever uses them though; you can @ somebody to tag them with a notification that you're talking at them and that's usually sufficient. If you really want to make clear what you're replying to you can quote it before you tag.

#13 Masked Dave

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 11:08 PM

My work Slack uses threads a lot. Its a good way of spinning off conversations when they get specific.

BTW I've been on the Rock Paper Shotgun forum recently as a good place to chat about general geeky shit.
"It's amazing how deep we had to drill to find our key difference,
but it seems that whilst I am Amazing you are Ultimate."- Lu

#14 Elihu

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Posted 16 February 2018 - 11:50 PM

Good plan - we use slack at work and this is a really nice idea 🙂 this place has been part of our lives for a long time and would be good to keep the conversation going.

#15 Jen

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Posted 22 February 2018 - 09:13 PM

I'd hate to lose y'all so I'm happy to give Slack a go!
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