Slacking off on Slack

Since you’re reading this, you’ve probably already joined the Slack - nice! In case you found this but you’re not in the Slack, you can join here.

Slack is what Hack Club uses for communication. It’s like a Discord server (if you’ve ever used Discord). It’s where everybody hangs out and asks questions and talk to people and participate in silly events.

:How to use Slack

The culture in Slack is generally very welcoming and warm, but sometimes there are mean people. In that case, report them to the Fire Department (FD) using Shroud. The FD is the moderation team for the Slack.

:How to use shroud

Cussing and joking is allowed, but when joking, make sure not to take it too far and make the other person uncomfortable. For example: saying “you’re a fat fuck” might be okay with your friend but might not be okay with someone else. If you’re interested, you can read about how the FD determines which moderation action to perform in a Slack canvas here.

Since its hard to determine tone over text and whether someone is joking or not, you should use tone indicators like “/j” for “joking”, “/hj” for “half-joking”, “/srs” for “I’m serious” and “/lh” for “light-hearted.” But even then, don’t take a joke too far. Adding “/j” to the end of “you’re a fat fuck” won’t save you if they report you to the FD.

Slack has a bajillion channels on almost any topic you can think of. If a channel for your topic doesn’t already exist, you can make it.

:How to make a Slack channel

Some people have a personal channel where people can join to read their ramblings and ideas and talk to them without DMing them directly.

There are too many Slack channels to list. Even ignoring personal channels and ysws channels, there’s still too many. But I’ll list a few that are interesting and link a canvases that lists more channels.

#hq - ask questions directly to the people that run hack club
#gorkie - A helpful AI Slack bot! | we have clawdbot at home:
#counttoamillion - a silly channel to count to a million as a team in base 10
Cool HC channels you should join - a short list of the most prominent Slack channels/the channels you should check first
A curated list of channels that you should join - a massive list of channels in the Slack with short descriptions
What’s happening currently? - a regularly updated canvas that shows an overview of YSWS events currently going-on

Aside from channels, Slack also has some quality-of-life features like…

Canvases: Basically a Google Doc within Slack. Canvases can be created inside a DM or Slack channel. They are often used to write down the rules of a channel or other extra information. :How to make a canvas
Calls: Every channel can double as a call channel, or as Slack calls them, huddles. There are no dedicated voice channels. :How to start a call
Custom emojis: other hack clubbers have made a ton of emojis like :woa: and :hyper-wave-dino: but if you to make your own, join #emojibot and make one! :How to make an emoji
Threads: instead of replies like on Discord, Slack uses threads for replies. Threads are like mini-channels within a channel. This keeps long discussions separated from the rest of the channel so the channel isn’t flooded with messages and so that the discussion is easier to follow. :How do I start a thread?