GitLab's rules for Slack communication

 GitLab's rules for Slack communication in a remote company. Since Slack is a tool for asynchronous communication, employees shouldn't expect to get an immediate answer to a question. Conversely, employees shouldn't feel compelled to answer other people's questions when they are not working. Direct @ mentions and the @channel and @here commands should be avoided whenever possible. Colleagues may only be marked in this way if an immediate answer is really necessary. 

Direct messages should make up less than 50 percent of communication, as they lead to information silos and make teamwork difficult. 

GitLab is also critical of direct messages to several people. They reduce transparency, as no further participants can simply be added. Instead, a separate Slack channel should always be opened for this purpose. If you can't follow all Slack conversations directly on the team messenger, you should activate email notifications. To enforce the company's values ​​on Slack, GitLab also uses bots. For example, one of them advises employees that instead of “hey guys” they should use more inclusive greetings such as “hey team” or “hey y'all”.