Channels, Topics and Threads Three ways to divide a conversation, and the rule for choosing between them.

These look similar and are not. Choosing wrongly is what turns a workspace into a place people stop reading.

Channels: a room

A channel is a place with a membership. People join it, it appears in their sidebar, and everything in it is visible to everyone in it.

Channels are the heaviest of the three. They cost attention from everyone who joins, and they are hard to retire once people are used to them.

Make a channel when a group of people need an ongoing shared place. Not for a project that runs three weeks.

Topics: a section inside a room

A topic groups related discussion inside an existing channel, without needing a new one.

This is the option most teams forget exists, and it is usually the right answer. A channel with four topics keeps one membership and one place to look, rather than four channels people have to remember to join.

Reach for a topic before a channel. You can always promote it later; you cannot easily undo a channel.

Threads: a reply that grew

Replying in a thread hangs the conversation off one message rather than pushing the room up.

Use one the moment a reply generates its own back-and-forth. Two people exchanging eight messages in the main channel makes the room unreadable for everyone else, and the thread costs nothing.

The rule

If	Use
A group needs a permanent shared place	A channel
A subject inside an existing group	A topic
A reply that turned into a conversation	A thread

Direct messages

DMs are for things genuinely between the people in them.

The test worth applying: if the answer would be useful to somebody not in this conversation, it belongs in a channel. Most work questions pass that test, and the cost of a DM is that the answer disappears with it.

Group DMs sit between the two. They are fine for a short-lived huddle of three or four people, and become a problem when they turn into a permanent channel nobody can join.