Slack's default channels are poorly named
I. It is the dev's responsibility to choose a good default
It is the developer's responsibility to choose a good default behavior.
In case the software is not flexible, the default behavior is the only behavior - by definition making it something you need to care about.
In case the software offers customization, the default behavior is still what most people will stick with. So you should still care about it.
In addition, the developer is best positioned to understand many different use-cases for their software and arrive at the most ergonomic default values.
II. Slack has bad defaults
When you create a new workspace on Slack, it creates two channels for you by default - #general and #random.
But the #random channel is absolutely not for random things. It's for things that do not fit anywhere else. So, it'd say, e.g. #off-topic would be a much better default. This also better signals that it's not necessary to follow the channel closely.
Then the #general channel. For most companies, this is implicitly the high-signal/low-noise channel. Company-wide announcements and overall important messages often go here. So why not #announcements, or even #important? More explicit, better explains the channel's purpose and nudges people to use #off-topic for lesser messages.
You might also like
- Software defaults by Jason Fried (37signals)