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thats BS. It is common courtesy to ask if its ok to ask a question.

by readhn 8y ago

paulgb 8y ago
But that in itself is asking a question! More seriously, I never know how to respond to that question because it depends on what the question is. It feels like a trap so that I can't get out of providing an answer to a question I won't want to answer.
jcims 8y ago
In person yes, but in chat I would much prefer people just ask the question. You wouldn't do that with email, why chat? Just dropping it all at once gives them a chance to absorb the question and give a more thoughtful reply. Obviously if the question is of a sensitive nature or needs special care then none of this applies.
burgerboy 8y ago
Yeah these nerds need to learn social cues
isoskeles 8y ago
Who would ever say no? Useless question.
- jrace 8y ago
  People who are too busy to stop what they are doing and change gears? I find it a polite way of determining if the other party is able to give me their attention.
  - gowld 8y ago
    If they are to busy to stop, they are usually also too busy to tell you they are busy.
  - eridius 8y ago
    This really only applies to stream-based immediate communication (i.e. verbal communication). "Can I ask you a question?" is a short question that basically says "Can I take up more of your time?", as the mere act of asking someone a question is taking up time. If you just launch into your long question, the recipient has to wait for you to say your entire question before they can indicate whether they're even in a state to take questions right now. This isn't appropriate at all for packet-based asynchronous communication. It's packet-based, meaning that receiving a short question is no faster than receiving a long question (you don't have to actually read the long question in order to receive it). It's asynchronous, meaning, if you can't answer right this moment but can in a minute, then the asker can still go ahead and ask their question. What's more, it's outright rude in an asynchronous communication, because what you're actually doing is saying "hey can you please suspend what you're doing and have a synchronous communication with me?" when you almost certainly don't need a synchronous communication. About the only justification for this is "I don't want to type my question if nobody's around to answer it immediately, because I won't be staying long", but all I can say to that is: tough cookies. It's even worse if you do this in group chat (like IRC), because you're now asking anyone who's around to stop what they're doing and wait for your question. So it takes the above rudeness and magnifies it by the number of people currently reading the channel.
kelnos 8y ago
It's a common courtesy that, in a text-chat context, ends up being less courteous than just asking. If you "ask to ask", you are wasting my time with an extra interruption that I don't need. Now I either need to sit there and stare at "readhn is typing..." until you've finished your actual question (wasting my time), or I need to go back to what I was doing, only to be interrupted again in a minute or two when you finish typing out your question. I understand that asking to ask is a courteous thing to do in general and follows the general rules of social graces, but when you do that, you're actually wasting my time and are being less courteous. If you really must do this, just put the ask-to-ask in the same (initial) message as the actual question. Given that the ask-to-ask query is functionally useless anyway (what asshole would say "no" to that?), you get to appear courteous while also not wasting your colleague's time.
leetcrew 8y ago
agreed, but the phasing can be improved. instead of "can I ask a question?" (which risks the classic sarcastic retort), ask "do you have a moment to talk about $topic". if you don't give a hint about how involved the question is, the person can't know whether they have time to answer it.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
icebraining 8y ago
That's fine, but then you must follow through on that courtesy by having the actual question ready to paste and send when the person says "yes". By taking more of their time, you're being rude, not courteous.
- romanows 8y ago
  In my darker moments I think people don't want to take the time to type a good question and only commit to it when they believe I'll be faster than grep/google. Not sure if they realize that now I have to sit through that typing time in addition to providing help.

thats BS. It is common courtesy to ask if its ok to ask a question.

by readhn 8y ago

thats BS. It is common courtesy to ask if its ok to ask a question.

But that in itself is asking a question! More seriously, I never know how to respond to that question because it depends on what the question is. It feels like a trap so that I can't get out of providing an answer to a question I won't want to answer.

jcims 8y ago

In person yes, but in chat I would much prefer people just ask the question. You wouldn't do that with email, why chat? Just dropping it all at once gives them a chance to absorb the question and give a more thoughtful reply. Obviously if the question is of a sensitive nature or needs special care then none of this applies.

burgerboy 8y ago

Yeah these nerds need to learn social cues

isoskeles 8y ago

Who would ever say no? Useless question.

jrace 8y ago
People who are too busy to stop what they are doing and change gears? I find it a polite way of determining if the other party is able to give me their attention.
- gowld 8y ago
  If they are to busy to stop, they are usually also too busy to tell you they are busy.
- eridius 8y ago
  This really only applies to stream-based immediate communication (i.e. verbal communication). "Can I ask you a question?" is a short question that basically says "Can I take up more of your time?", as the mere act of asking someone a question is taking up time. If you just launch into your long question, the recipient has to wait for you to say your entire question before they can indicate whether they're even in a state to take questions right now. This isn't appropriate at all for packet-based asynchronous communication. It's packet-based, meaning that receiving a short question is no faster than receiving a long question (you don't have to actually read the long question in order to receive it). It's asynchronous, meaning, if you can't answer right this moment but can in a minute, then the asker can still go ahead and ask their question. What's more, it's outright rude in an asynchronous communication, because what you're actually doing is saying "hey can you please suspend what you're doing and have a synchronous communication with me?" when you almost certainly don't need a synchronous communication. About the only justification for this is "I don't want to type my question if nobody's around to answer it immediately, because I won't be staying long", but all I can say to that is: tough cookies. It's even worse if you do this in group chat (like IRC), because you're now asking anyone who's around to stop what they're doing and wait for your question. So it takes the above rudeness and magnifies it by the number of people currently reading the channel.

kelnos 8y ago

It's a common courtesy that, in a text-chat context, ends up being less courteous than just asking. If you "ask to ask", you are wasting my time with an extra interruption that I don't need. Now I either need to sit there and stare at "readhn is typing..." until you've finished your actual question (wasting my time), or I need to go back to what I was doing, only to be interrupted again in a minute or two when you finish typing out your question. I understand that asking to ask is a courteous thing to do in general and follows the general rules of social graces, but when you do that, you're actually wasting my time and are being less courteous. If you really must do this, just put the ask-to-ask in the same (initial) message as the actual question. Given that the ask-to-ask query is functionally useless anyway (what asshole would say "no" to that?), you get to appear courteous while also not wasting your colleague's time.

leetcrew 8y ago

agreed, but the phasing can be improved. instead of "can I ask a question?" (which risks the classic sarcastic retort), ask "do you have a moment to talk about $topic". if you don't give a hint about how involved the question is, the person can't know whether they have time to answer it.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

icebraining 8y ago

That's fine, but then you must follow through on that courtesy by having the actual question ready to paste and send when the person says "yes". By taking more of their time, you're being rude, not courteous.

romanows 8y ago
In my darker moments I think people don't want to take the time to type a good question and only commit to it when they believe I'll be faster than grep/google. Not sure if they realize that now I have to sit through that typing time in addition to providing help.