Some kind of private group chat messager thingy (not mobile)?
October 28, 2017 2:37 PM Subscribe
I have been commissioned to deliver a project that includes a text (around 2,500 words) which I have proposed will be generated in a chatroom-style, web messager-type conversation between around 6-10 people. All the participants will be invited personally by me, and will be practitioners in the field they will be talking about. What software/programme/platform should I use? Some requirements/stipulations below.
1. I'm not on Facebook.
2. I know some of the people I want to invite in a semi-professional (but informal) capacity, but several of them will be getting the invite to participate from a cold(ish) email.
3. Ideally, I don't want any of us to have to go through some kind of difficult/annoying sign-up and verification process.
4. The conversation MUST be saved and archived so I can use the complete transcript as the starting point for the edited text.
5. Participants will be from several countries/timezones, all around the world. Perhaps there will be gaps of several hours between contributions to the conversation.
6. The conversation might take place over a period of 3-4 days or so, with people dipping in and out.
7. It is essential that the conversation is private and won't be stumbled upon by other random users.
8. These are professional people, so I need it to be accessible via desktop, not just mobile (so Whatsapp is out).
9. I imagine most contributions will be fairly short, but some may be longer, so character limits won't be great.
10. Good emoji support would be amazing, but I can live with it if it's a copy and paste situation.
I keep hearing about Slack, but isn't this more like a to-do list thing for colleagues?
Basically, I think I need some kind of invite-only chatroom that will autosave everything. Does this exist? Please advise!
1. I'm not on Facebook.
2. I know some of the people I want to invite in a semi-professional (but informal) capacity, but several of them will be getting the invite to participate from a cold(ish) email.
3. Ideally, I don't want any of us to have to go through some kind of difficult/annoying sign-up and verification process.
4. The conversation MUST be saved and archived so I can use the complete transcript as the starting point for the edited text.
5. Participants will be from several countries/timezones, all around the world. Perhaps there will be gaps of several hours between contributions to the conversation.
6. The conversation might take place over a period of 3-4 days or so, with people dipping in and out.
7. It is essential that the conversation is private and won't be stumbled upon by other random users.
8. These are professional people, so I need it to be accessible via desktop, not just mobile (so Whatsapp is out).
9. I imagine most contributions will be fairly short, but some may be longer, so character limits won't be great.
10. Good emoji support would be amazing, but I can live with it if it's a copy and paste situation.
I keep hearing about Slack, but isn't this more like a to-do list thing for colleagues?
Basically, I think I need some kind of invite-only chatroom that will autosave everything. Does this exist? Please advise!
Slack is what you want. It's not a to-do list thing. It's a chat room and saves messages indefinitely.
posted by retypepassword at 2:46 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by retypepassword at 2:46 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
slack is in fact pretty much exactly what you want, i think.
posted by halation at 2:47 PM on October 28, 2017
posted by halation at 2:47 PM on October 28, 2017
Slack was made for the workforce but it's used pretty widely and fulfills all your requirements. It does have some restrictions for free users but I don't think any of those restrictions apply to you. Does require signup but it's not particularly annoying iirc and honestly I doubt you'll find any chat system that doesn't require signup and is still completely private.
Alternatively, google hangouts might work, though I'm not really familiar with it as a chat application- as far as I know it's not nearly as full-featured as slack, but it should still fulfill your requirements. The main pro over slack is that pretty much everyone has a google account, but I think you might be able to sign into slack using google anyways so that might be a moot point.
posted by perplexion at 2:47 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Alternatively, google hangouts might work, though I'm not really familiar with it as a chat application- as far as I know it's not nearly as full-featured as slack, but it should still fulfill your requirements. The main pro over slack is that pretty much everyone has a google account, but I think you might be able to sign into slack using google anyways so that might be a moot point.
posted by perplexion at 2:47 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yes, Slack is exactly as you described, except I'm not 100% sure if the free version lets you easily export the archive (and it has a limit on how far it will let you go back, but I think it's 10,000 messages, so you're probably fine there).
posted by primethyme at 2:49 PM on October 28, 2017
posted by primethyme at 2:49 PM on October 28, 2017
Slack is exactly an "invite-only chatroom that will autosave everything," accessible through desktop, web, and mobile, with good emoji support, though the free plan will only show you the most recent 10K messages. That's a lot of messages though, and you could copy/paste a dump if you think you're getting up there. Signup is pretty straightforward, though you'd want to email your group first and let them know the invitation is coming.
That said, it sounds like you're really attached to a chatroom instead of a document collaboration platform like Google Docs. I'm not sure what process you have in mind, exactly, but Google Docs would allow everyone to see the text, propose and discuss changes, and communicate in a chat. People can use their existing Google accounts, and most everyone knows how to use it. Trying to shoehorn document collaboration into a chatroom could be tricky.
posted by zachlipton at 2:51 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
That said, it sounds like you're really attached to a chatroom instead of a document collaboration platform like Google Docs. I'm not sure what process you have in mind, exactly, but Google Docs would allow everyone to see the text, propose and discuss changes, and communicate in a chat. People can use their existing Google accounts, and most everyone knows how to use it. Trying to shoehorn document collaboration into a chatroom could be tricky.
posted by zachlipton at 2:51 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh, and I just remembered GroupMe can be accessed by desktop now, if you want another alternative.
posted by perplexion at 2:52 PM on October 28, 2017
posted by perplexion at 2:52 PM on October 28, 2017
Slack will do this job, although the 10,000 message archive limit can be used up quickly when users are very active. If your Slack account is converted to a paid account, the disappeared archive content becomes accessible again, so it's not lost forever but might cost you money.
You can create a private Discord server for this purpose at no cost, and I'm not aware of archive limitations on private servers. However, Discord is not designed for business. This means primarily that it does not provide the same administration, audit mechanisms and service guarantees that paid Slack accounts can provide. For a one-time short-term usage after which your private chat will be shut down permanently, this might not be an issue. Discord is targeted at the gaming community, which your private server can be entirely isolated from (which is good). Discord puts a lot of social media and game service linkage into the app and web UIs which can be distracting or, at best, look less professional than a Slack channel.
posted by ardgedee at 5:14 PM on October 28, 2017
You can create a private Discord server for this purpose at no cost, and I'm not aware of archive limitations on private servers. However, Discord is not designed for business. This means primarily that it does not provide the same administration, audit mechanisms and service guarantees that paid Slack accounts can provide. For a one-time short-term usage after which your private chat will be shut down permanently, this might not be an issue. Discord is targeted at the gaming community, which your private server can be entirely isolated from (which is good). Discord puts a lot of social media and game service linkage into the app and web UIs which can be distracting or, at best, look less professional than a Slack channel.
posted by ardgedee at 5:14 PM on October 28, 2017
Slack's free version lets you export the archive as json (in json? with json? I don't know the details; I just know json is involved); active groups that want to keep records set up a "save them out every week" (or two days, when it's very active) system.
If you have money to support the project, paid Slack with all the bonus features is about $8/month/user - for a short-term project, $80 could get you coverage for everyone with all the bells and whistles. You could use all the shiny features during the project, save out archives, and then revert to the free version later.
And if you're uncertain about it, you can start one now and poke around at the settings to decide if it's easy enough for new people to learn, or find an active Slack to join.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:59 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
If you have money to support the project, paid Slack with all the bonus features is about $8/month/user - for a short-term project, $80 could get you coverage for everyone with all the bells and whistles. You could use all the shiny features during the project, save out archives, and then revert to the free version later.
And if you're uncertain about it, you can start one now and poke around at the settings to decide if it's easy enough for new people to learn, or find an active Slack to join.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:59 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Slack, Discord or yes, even WhatsApp. WhatsApp has a web portal now, but you need a mobile device as your primary, and its a bit wiggly to get going.
I would use either Slack or Discord. From the point of view of your requirements, both are much the same and either will work just fine.
posted by bonehead at 7:51 AM on October 29, 2017
I would use either Slack or Discord. From the point of view of your requirements, both are much the same and either will work just fine.
posted by bonehead at 7:51 AM on October 29, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by leesh at 2:46 PM on October 28, 2017 [3 favorites]