Slack Closure - Announcement

[joethreepwood]

Changes

OK, so we’re going to close the Slack channel.

Practically the closure will go in stages.

• Stage one: Announce the changes
• Stage two: Archive the channel (after one week)
• Stage three: Close the channel completely (after one week)

Archiving the channel as a first step will give users time to finish conversations and move to other channels, for the edge cases where chats are happening before we close it.

The announcement phase will involve...

• Write a blogpost explaining why we’re closing the Slack and what users should do -- @joethreepwood
• Announce this change to the Slack group -- @joethreepwood
• Remove any remaining links to the Slack from the product and site -- @joethreepwood
• Email any users who are still active within the Slack with a notification -- Messaging: Slack closure email meta#163

Checklist

• If I moved a page, I added a redirect in vercel.json
• I've added (at least) 3 to 5 internal links to this new article
• I've added keywords for this page to the rank tracker in Ahrefs
• I've checked the preview build of the article
• The date on the article is today's date
• I've added this to the relevant "Tutorials and guides" docs page (if applicable)

Useful resources:

• The PostHog style guide
• Full list of tags and categories
• List of content components
• PostHog SEO best practices

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Name	Status	Preview	Updated (UTC)
posthog	🛑 Canceled (Inspect)		Jan 11, 2024 11:53am

[andyvan-ph]

Was discussed on the RFC, but I felt there was agreement we'd do this once we'd merged the website and app auth?

[charlescook-ph]

You shared graphs showing that actually the opposite was happening though and messages are generally declining?

[joethreepwood]

I don't think these two things are mutually exclusive. The number of messages is declining, but the number of messages is still too much because we don't actively support these users (and the other points mentioned).

[charlescook-ph]

Was discussed on the RFC, but I felt there was agreement we'd do this once we'd merged the website and app auth?

Agreed - plan looks good, but we should wait til this has happened?

[joethreepwood]

Was discussed on the RFC, but I felt there was agreement we'd do this once we'd merged the website and app auth?

I wouldn't say there was agreement at all, actually. You mentioned it and Tiina and Marcus gave it a 👍, but there was no further discussion even on the thread where you mentioned it. Whereas the original plan which doesn't mention it got a review approval by most people before it was mentioned.

I agree it makes sense, but I don't think it should be a blocker since neither the website or app auths touch Slack and there's no visibility on when the merge will happen. The issue about it hasn't seen activity in a month. It definitely shouldn't be a blocker to drafting the announcement.

Currently, the number of active users in the Slack is declining at a regular rate. That should compel us to close the Slack and announce this as soon as possible in order to give us the best chance of migrating as many users as possible over to the Community. Every week we wait, there are fewer people to migrate and users in the Slack have a worse support experience.

@MarconLP maybe it would help if you could estimate a timeline for getting the website and app auths merged? If it's going to be by the first week or two of January, we should wait. If it's uncertain or likely to drift further, we should move ahead.

[andyvan-ph]

Right now, I think this reads a little too much like it's a "downgrade" of the community. We know that's not the case, but I think people will read this post that way. Suggestions:

• Change the headline to something like "Important changes to our community" or something to that effect. The news isn't "we're closing Slack" it's "our plan to make community support better".

• Less focus on why Slack is bad / doesn't work for us and more focus on the benefits of our website community + things we're planning to make it better.

[joethreepwood]

Right now, I think this reads a little too much like it's a "downgrade" of the community. We know that's not the case, but I think people will read this post that way. Suggestions:

• Change the headline to something like "Important changes to our community" or something to that effect. The news isn't "we're closing Slack" it's "our plan to make community support better".

I'll tweak it, but I think it's important to get the Slack bit in there tbh. The headline should be specific.

• Less focus on why Slack is bad / doesn't work for us and more focus on the benefits of our website community + things we're planning to make it better.

👍

[smallbrownbike]

I'd like to give users who have migrated from Slack a community achievement for making the switch. Something like "OG Slacker." Have we thought about how we'd be tracking the success of the migration? Assuming I could use that same dataset to determine if the user gets an achievement.

If not, I think the easiest thing to do is provide a tracking link in Slack and on this post before the closure: "Sign up for an account here." If they're coming from that link, we can shoot that off as an event for internal tracking and award the achievement from there.

If we want to be even more accurate, we can send each active Slack user an email or message with a unique tracking link to verify they've actually migrated. Not sure it's necessary, though.

[MarconLP]

@joethreepwood I expect the auth merge to roll out before January

[joethreepwood]

@joethreepwood I expect the auth merge to roll out before January

Amazing! Is there a PR I can stay upto date with? We should def delay until thats done.

I'd like to give users who have migrated from Slack a community achievement for making the switch. Something like "OG Slacker." Have we thought about how we'd be tracking the success of the migration? Assuming I could use that same dataset to determine if the user gets an achievement.

If you have the capability to add achievements to a profile (?) then we can do this. The best way would be to separate it from this blog post and instead do it by email. That way we don't give an award to users who just read the blog post years later.

I can export a list of users from Slack, and create a segment in Customer.io. We can then hit all users in that segment with an announcement email and a direct CTA. We can track users who click the CTA and export that as a list for you to add the award to. All I need to know is what link you want me to send them to.

[MarconLP]

Amazing! Is there a PR I can stay upto date with? We should def delay until thats done.

Yup, it has multiple PR's but this is the main issue: #5847

[joethreepwood]

Cool, we're just waiting for the Auth merge now. I'm going to be off from tomorrow, but I'll follow up on that when I return in 2024.

[joethreepwood]

Caught up with @MarconLP async. We're hoping to merge the auth stuff by end of this week, which will mean we can announce the closure on Monday.

If auth merge drifts further, recommend we announce the closure without it. Reason to move quickly here is that the user Slack is shrinking and giving users a poor experience. The sooner we move, the more users we can bring over to Community and the fewer will have a bad experience.

[joethreepwood]

I've added proposed timelines and achievement details. I'd like to get this published and done tomorrow.

We'll announce on the 11th, archive on the 12th, close completely on the 22nd, and party on the 23rd.

I'd like W&D to take a quick look to make sure the details about the achievements are correct? That's the only real other addition over previous versions.

[andyvan-ph]

A few bits and bobs.