@here vs @channel

@here feels polite. It usually isn't. Here's when to reach for @channel instead.

The 30-second explainer

@here

Pings only people currently active in the channel. Everyone else misses it entirely.

@channel

Pings every member of the channel. They'll see it whenever they next open Slack.

The trap: @here feels considerate, but it creates information asymmetry — a random subset of the team gets the message and the rest don't, and you can't predict which is which. For most announcements, that's worse than just pinging everyone.

Quiz: which would you use?

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Takeaways