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I hated the behavior then, I hate it now, and will continue to despise it in the future. I am not being hyperbolic in my adjective choice. I have seen real wo

I hated the behavior then, I hate it now, and will continue to despise it in the future. I am not being hyperbolic in my adjective choice. I have seen real work drama over this sort of thing, because people misinterpret the 'is-typing' as 'is-paying-attention-to-me', and the inevitable long delays, short replies, forced focusing on waiting for someone to finish... It is an anti-social antipattern from beginning to end.

infogulch 6y ago
I think a big part of the problem is that the feature's implementation doesn't always align with the author's intended drafting / published status. The feature just picks the closest outcome that happens to be measurable (e.g. "author typed in draft box in the last 0.5s" or "draft box is not empty string") without regarding how a notification of that measure maps to the social dynamics of IM communication.
- marketingPro 6y ago
  I run a popular website and people find me on various social media accounts. People usually ask questions or give feedback. I cannot reply to all of them right away. I may be able to reply nightly with a major reduction in productivity. I know the "seen" is a real issue. Most of the time I need to think about it. And me personally, I'm offended if someone "sees" my message and doesn't respond. I'm sure others do too, even if I respond within 1 week. The internet is not IRL. I manage more relationships than would be possible.
fimdomeio 6y ago
Both that and the read status destroyed the charm of chat to me. Before I could be fast or take 2 days to answer but it would mean that I would take my time to do a proper answer. Now it means I'll ignore messages for a bigger period because I don't want the other person to see that I read them, and then I'll right much faster because I don't want to person to see 6 interrupted "... is typing".
- nicbou 6y ago
  This is especially difficult when receiving messages you can't immediately deal with. Yes I'm online, and yes I saw your message, but now is not a good moment. No I don't hate you, I'm just not currently available. I hate having to tiptoe around the notification to avoid marking it as read.
- hobby-coder-guy 6y ago
  Write
- neckardt 6y ago
  I usually just respond with "Hmmm, let me dig into that". That gives me time to do my research and get back to them. It also shows them that I'm actually looking into it, rather than that I forgot about the message. When I have an issue that's blocking me, if I don't get a response from someone within 10 minutes I'll start reaching out to other people. If I know the first person is already looking into the issue I won't waste other peoples' time.
dvtrn 6y ago
I have seen real work drama over this sort of thing, because people misinterpret the 'is-typing' as 'is-paying-attention-to-me' A way to counter this is by tactfully making your boundaries of availability unabimguously and abundantly clear and intentional where you can. Once you’ve communicated this boundary, enforce it. Defend it with all your might but with discretion for when it may need bending (but not breaching). No need to carry the burden of guilt or shame because you’re making a deliberate attempt to triage where your attention is going at a given time with so many dings, pings and alerts all yammering for our collective attentions.
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  >Once you’ve communicated this boundary, enforce it. I 100% agree with you that setting clear professional boundaries is a necessary thing to do. I am also of the opinion that a big part of that is to not use tattle-chat systems whenever possible, because they actively work against exactly this. Or, to put it another way, refusing to use a system like this is to actively choose to reduce the number of dings, pings and alerts for both yourself and everyone you communicate with. Win-win!
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    I am also of the opinion that a big part of that is to not use tattle-chat systems whenever possible, because they actively work against exactly this. I empathize, while realizing many don't have a say in what system their employer uses, which probably (I'm not sure) adds emphasis to if not further necessitates the clear definition of and enforcement of these kinds of boundaries. I suspect for many people who are new to working from home to the extent that many of us have been for so long now, deliberate practice of this will be very difficult and a little painful at first. But like exercise of the body, the exercise and diplomatic deployment of these boundaries gets stronger and you learn new ways to use it without injury while reaping great outcomes with the people around you.
superkuh 6y ago
I hated it in the open source chat application Retroshare so much that instead of using a pre-compiled version I edited the source to disable the activity send notifications from my client. After doing that I noticed the function actaully sent the message "etc etc is typing..." and you could change that message to arbitrary strings. Unaltered clients then display the arbitrary string instead of a "is typing" one.
jjav 6y ago
Agreed, it is very inconsiderate of people's time. The expectation that I'm here sitting all day watching and responding on the chat window is not good. I solve it by configuring slack to send me email notifications and then close the tab. I'll check email only a couple times a day, I'll see it then and open a slack tab to respond, if needed.

infogulch 6y ago

I think a big part of the problem is that the feature's implementation doesn't always align with the author's intended drafting / published status. The feature just picks the closest outcome that happens to be measurable (e.g. "author typed in draft box in the last 0.5s" or "draft box is not empty string") without regarding how a notification of that measure maps to the social dynamics of IM communication.

marketingPro 6y ago
I run a popular website and people find me on various social media accounts. People usually ask questions or give feedback. I cannot reply to all of them right away. I may be able to reply nightly with a major reduction in productivity. I know the "seen" is a real issue. Most of the time I need to think about it. And me personally, I'm offended if someone "sees" my message and doesn't respond. I'm sure others do too, even if I respond within 1 week. The internet is not IRL. I manage more relationships than would be possible.

fimdomeio 6y ago

Both that and the read status destroyed the charm of chat to me. Before I could be fast or take 2 days to answer but it would mean that I would take my time to do a proper answer. Now it means I'll ignore messages for a bigger period because I don't want the other person to see that I read them, and then I'll right much faster because I don't want to person to see 6 interrupted "... is typing".

nicbou 6y ago
This is especially difficult when receiving messages you can't immediately deal with. Yes I'm online, and yes I saw your message, but now is not a good moment. No I don't hate you, I'm just not currently available. I hate having to tiptoe around the notification to avoid marking it as read.
hobby-coder-guy 6y ago
Write
neckardt 6y ago
I usually just respond with "Hmmm, let me dig into that". That gives me time to do my research and get back to them. It also shows them that I'm actually looking into it, rather than that I forgot about the message. When I have an issue that's blocking me, if I don't get a response from someone within 10 minutes I'll start reaching out to other people. If I know the first person is already looking into the issue I won't waste other peoples' time.

dvtrn 6y ago

I have seen real work drama over this sort of thing, because people misinterpret the 'is-typing' as 'is-paying-attention-to-me' A way to counter this is by tactfully making your boundaries of availability unabimguously and abundantly clear and intentional where you can. Once you’ve communicated this boundary, enforce it. Defend it with all your might but with discretion for when it may need bending (but not breaching). No need to carry the burden of guilt or shame because you’re making a deliberate attempt to triage where your attention is going at a given time with so many dings, pings and alerts all yammering for our collective attentions.

Baeocystin 6y ago
>Once you’ve communicated this boundary, enforce it. I 100% agree with you that setting clear professional boundaries is a necessary thing to do. I am also of the opinion that a big part of that is to not use tattle-chat systems whenever possible, because they actively work against exactly this. Or, to put it another way, refusing to use a system like this is to actively choose to reduce the number of dings, pings and alerts for both yourself and everyone you communicate with. Win-win!
- dvtrn 6y ago
  I am also of the opinion that a big part of that is to not use tattle-chat systems whenever possible, because they actively work against exactly this. I empathize, while realizing many don't have a say in what system their employer uses, which probably (I'm not sure) adds emphasis to if not further necessitates the clear definition of and enforcement of these kinds of boundaries. I suspect for many people who are new to working from home to the extent that many of us have been for so long now, deliberate practice of this will be very difficult and a little painful at first. But like exercise of the body, the exercise and diplomatic deployment of these boundaries gets stronger and you learn new ways to use it without injury while reaping great outcomes with the people around you.

superkuh 6y ago

I hated it in the open source chat application Retroshare so much that instead of using a pre-compiled version I edited the source to disable the activity send notifications from my client. After doing that I noticed the function actaully sent the message "etc etc is typing..." and you could change that message to arbitrary strings. Unaltered clients then display the arbitrary string instead of a "is typing" one.

jjav 6y ago

Agreed, it is very inconsiderate of people's time. The expectation that I'm here sitting all day watching and responding on the chat window is not good. I solve it by configuring slack to send me email notifications and then close the tab. I'll check email only a couple times a day, I'll see it then and open a slack tab to respond, if needed.