19 ms·

A case for using punctuation in Slack

173 points by dontmitch 6y ago

saagarjha 6y ago
I feel like (so, of course, this is how I use instant messaging) periods at the end of a message suggest the logical conclusion of a thought, and are far too formal to use with every message. Email, sure, but not chat. (I do use question marks and capitalize in general, but periods in particular seem strange to me.)
- RandallBrown 6y ago
  I feel like periods mark the end of a sentence. So I use them all the time, even in text messages. I've had people get actually angry with me for doing it.
  - dtech 6y ago
    ok.
  - Rusky 6y ago
    Text/instant messages have evolved their own norms, as all language does. To many people, periods have a different meaning there. See e.g. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909969004/before-texting-your-kid-make-sure-to-double-check-your-punctuation https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909969004/before-texting-your...
    - klmarket 6y ago
      So again, people below 20 dictate what everyone else must do. It's a race to the bottom.
      - dqv 6y ago
        It's pretty common with people I know born from 1980 and beyond. Of course, it gets more common the closer their year of birth is to the aughts. But I guess you are right, everyone doing it today was under 20 at some point.
        oytis 6y ago
        As someone born in the late 80s I've only heard about it from the press. I really sometimes omit periods in one-sentence text messages, but sometimes I don't, and it wouldn't come to my mind to ascribe any semantics to this. My personal nitpick is people writing a stream of one-sentence messages without punctuation instead of a longer structured message - that definitely carries the connotation of unstructured thinking to me - but it doesn't have much to do with full stops per se.
        dqv 6y ago
        Unstructured messages in a serious place is annoying, yes, but in a water cooler area it can set a more relaxed tone. It's a cultural thing and I'd never force someone to endure my style of communication in a place where it's not welcome.
      - Afton 6y ago
        It's just a different convention. I don't see how that makes it a 'race to the bottom'.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Angry? "Eff Off" buddy.
- aflag 6y ago
  I frequently hit return rather than typing a period. However, I feel that's not really good practice, as I often see myself sending a lot of small messages which could probably be better summarised with a couple well thought out sentences.
  - djur 6y ago
    It really depends on the context. If people tend to fire off every sentence into the channel as they think, the person who writes a paragraph is going to come off strangely. The reverse is also true.
- axaxs 6y ago
  Same, but not sure why now that you mention it. I'm a stickler for grammar, oxford commas and all, but in messaging, periods feel...rude at times. I can't explain why, perhaps it is the 'conclusion in thought' aspect.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    It really feels abrupt, to be honest. Mostly because most chat messages are single sentences. So I guess that people leave them out when they aren't part of a full paragraph of text.
    - andreareina 6y ago
      Many times I've started writing something I intend to be a single sentence so I'll be lax about capitalization. Then I realize a second sentence is warranted so I go back to fix things and carry on. IM really is an odd medium.
  - gwright 6y ago
    This discussion is really confusing me. Are people talking about periods being negative when used anywhere? when used in the last sentence in a multi-sentence message? when used at the end of a single sentence/thought message? Confused.
    - vbql 6y ago
      I'm sure there will be a CoC soon that classifies period terminated messages as a micro aggression. Penalties will be between 6 to 12 months hard labor in a re-education camp, where 15 year olds make you scrub the floor and kiss their boots.
    - axaxs 6y ago
      For me, only when used on a single short message sentence. Long explanations and paragraphs get punctuated at usual. I'll also add I'm not the arbiter of what is and isn't correct or wrong, just explaining my own opinion.
    - 6y ago
- lostcolony 6y ago
  I agree with you that for your final sentence it's optional. That said, I still do it. But that's kind of ancillary to the point of this post, no? The main point it's trying to drive home is be as informative as possible. Don't assume your audience knows your tone, your conventions, your abbreviations. I suspect this is largely for those who have newly entered the work force, who may only know texting style communication (with friends, shared corpus of knowledge), and formal business communication, and this is to warn them that Slack, while less formal than the latter, doesn't imply the shared context that the former would often have.
- swimfar 6y ago
  Could you explain this more because it's completely foreign to me. For me a period is the end of a sentence. It has nothing to do with ending the message I'm trying to get across. Is this a cultural or generational or professional field difference? I'd never heard of the idea that a period would be too formal in any context.
  - dqv 6y ago
    The non-use of grammar is an adaptation to indicate a different "tone" of communication. As an example, it can be used to indicate sarcasm.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    It made more sense when I followed some other links in this discussion. Read this: Hey. Or this exchange: Statement: We got the tickets for tonight! Response: Yay. It comes off as very flat or dry. Unenthused. A plain "Yay" with no punctuation would be better here. I wonder if this is the context that we're missing and others aren't providing, because I almost always use punctuation, including periods, in my messages. No one has ever complained. But with short messages, like these, I would never use a period. For full sentences, however, I can't think of any occasion outside being rushed where I wouldn't end it with a period.
    - oytis 6y ago
      IMO, it looks dry, because an exclamation mark would be more appropriate. If you just omit the punctuation, it can be interpreted as if you omitted the "!", but with the full stop you explicitly say that you don't mean "Yay!".
  - jbay808 6y ago
    It's definitely something that I notice with instant messages. Periods are used between sentences in a multi-sentence message, but if you put them at the end, you might seem upset -- especially if the sentence is short. This is probably because: - IMs are already formatted to show the end of each message (chat bubble, etc), so a period communicates extra 'finality' beyond what is necessary; - Sentence fragments are normal and expected, but seem weird with a period at the end; - Using formality in an informal setting can create a sense of emotional distance; - IM cues like these are likely established and spread by people who have mostly used IM in non-professional settings, with friends and significant others, and those norms are then brought with them when interpreting the IMs they receive in a professional setting. If you never communicated with your significant other via text message, you've probably never needed to express as many subtle emotional signals into your texts, and so just treat them like emails. But if you have, then you eventually pick up how powerful punctuation can be at communicating emotion in that medium. Eg. > I'll be home late tonight >> Okay VS: > I'll be home late tonight >> Okay.
- Slartie 6y ago
  Periods generally end sentences, and if that sentence convenes a thought, they do conclude the thought. I consider that to be the default mode of conversation, regardless of whether it's chat or mail or whatever. I like it when people take the effort to bring their thoughts to a conclusion rather than flooding me with cheap stream-of-consciousness-style conversation (cheap for them, not for me), and I tend to treat others the same way I want to be treated. If I want to explicitly leave a thought open for continuation, especially in chat style communication, I place three periods at the end of a sentence. I consider that an invitation to the reader's mind to conclude the sentence. So it's either one period or three of them for me, but none at all just feels wrong.
- GhostVII 6y ago
  Whenever I read a sentence with a period in my head, I read it in a very flat tone, since the period explicitly excludes any exclamation point, question mark, emoji, etc. So that makes it sound weird when someone uses a period in casual conversation, because if I was talking to them on person they would usually have some kind of emotion. For example, I would read "Sounds good" in a generally positive way just like when someone is saying that in person, but when I read "Sounds good." I read it without any emotion in my head which sounds wierd.
bluetidepro 6y ago
I agree, and disagree. Remember that context matters a ton. Are you posting in a company wide channel, or DM-ing you're close coworkers? Are you posting about an update, or just sharing something random to your team. All that plays into this more than the author expands on (he does quickly mention it in the last section). I think you just have to be a human, esp. in times where everyone is working from home. I think if you followed this advice in every channel, in every scenario, your company Slack culture would start to suffer a ton, and feel very cold (not that the author says that, just an FYI). This is good advice generally, don't get me wrong, but just be smart to when you apply it. Don't ruin your culture, and come off as a robot/cold person in every message you post.
beisner 6y ago
I think this entire post can be distilled into the following: The time you spend composing a message should be proportional to the number of people in your intended audience.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  this makes me feel bad about my hn comments
- necovek 6y ago
  I remember a quote from Blaise Pascal's (if my memory serves me right) letter going something like "apologies for the long letter, but I lack the time to make it shorter".
nprz 6y ago
lol no
oytis 6y ago
Have "intimidating full stops" been posted to the HN already?
- chapium 6y ago
  Probably.
quicklime 6y ago
Unfortunately, text (or Slack) messages with a period at the end are also perceived as less sincere, and sometimes passive-aggressive: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/12/08/study-confirms-that-ending-your-texts-with-a-period-is-terrible/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2... https://lifehacker.com/dont-use-periods-in-texts-1843744818 https://lifehacker.com/dont-use-periods-in-texts-1843744818
- doc_gunthrop 6y ago
  From the WaPo article you linked, regarding a period at the end of a sentence: > that's an indication that the text message period has taken on a life of its own. It is no longer just the correct way to end a sentence. It's an act of psychological warfare against your friends. It's so bizarre that people perceive some nefarious intent because a sentence ends with a period.
  - pochamago 6y ago
    It's not that it's nefarious, but because human language often relies so much on the tone of voice used, we've begun creating informal norms for how to get that across in text form. A period at the end of a short phrase gives it a flat intonation in many circles. Communication isn't as simple as proscribing by fiat how people ought to use a given medium, and pragmatism requires that we adapt to what the group does for clear communication.
  - kps 6y ago
    Also from the WaPo article, the study surveyed “126 undergraduates”. While it's clear that many Silly Valley startups use undergraduate all-nighters as a model for their culture and code quality, that is by no means universal.
whimsicalism 6y ago
this seems like a strong case for not using initialisms or abbreviations (or at least for including a clarification in parens). but this article claimed to provide justification for focusing on grammar and style in communication. i do not see that justification here. i will continue to not capitalize my slack messages.
closed 6y ago
> The argument here is scoped to people who have some degree of mastery over the language but are being sloppy with their written communication, which is to say "careless and unsystematic; excessively casual". I think there are some good points here for technical writing. But it's easy to forget how memorable playful communication can be. E.g. a responding via haiku or something no-caps and full of enjambment, might be extremely memorable. (especially in a chat full of technical writing style).
- dqv 6y ago
  Right. Where I'm from, lack of punctuation and capitalization indicates less serious discussion, irony, sarcasm, etc. A non-serious "mood". If someone starts using correct grammar (e.g. I instead of i, periods, commas for introductory phrases and splices) it's an indication of the serious "mood" and to start a more thoughtful discussion. It's probably a good idea to tell people this instead of just assuming everyone knows... but it's kind of engrained in the culture of the communities I'm in.
danpalmer 6y ago
Clarity in communication is undervalued. Things like punctuation are a great start, but we can go even further. Avoiding acronyms where possible is often good for this, particularly if you can build a culture where asking people to expand acronyms happens. A tough side-effect of this I've seen though is the possibility of excluding some non-native English speakers, both in terms of making it harder for them to consume content because of it using a wider vocabulary, and making it harder for them to succeed (in things like interviews) because of higher communications standards. I don't know where I fall on this, because it does allow for better communication, it just requires more from participants. In fact poor communicators would be excluded regardless of their native language.
- swimfar 6y ago
  I think the goal should not be to lower the standards for everyone, it should be to help bring people up to the basic standards. The more often people write informally, the more difficult it is for non-native speakers to learn correct grammar. I almost always use full sentences and correct punctuation in all forms of communication. But I make sure to always write correctly when I'm communicating with non-native speakers. I am doing them a disservice, otherwise. And it's also frustrating to me when I'm learning a language and what I'm reading from native speakers is below even my capability. Also, I think there's a difference between making mistakes in a foreign language, and being lazy or not caring. For example, capitalizing the first letter of a sentence or the word "I" is something that 99% of people know they should do. So that mistake is not usually due to lack of fluency in a language.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- JoshuaDavid 6y ago
  One convention I've found useful is to define any acronym, or even any word or phrase that's used in a nonstandard way, the first time it's used in a conversation. Additionally, acronyms frequently pick up additional meanings than those you get from the individual words that comprise them, so you probably should not just expand the acronym the first time you use it. Consider the acronym "DDL", as in "Data Definition Language". If you're not familiar with the term, you will be equally lost whether someone says "The prod DB is down because the third DDL migration of the release hung" or "The production database is down because the third Data Definition Language migration of the release hung". If you instead say "The prod DB is down because the third DDL migration (DDL migrations = schema changes like adding or removing columns or tables)", everyone who's worked with a database before knows what happened even if they don't necesssarily know exactly what DDL stands for. Acronyms are nice when you've got a long, frequently used phrase, as long as everyone in the conversation knows what they mean. I think banning acronyms entirely would be eliminating all of the useful value from the practice of using acronyms, while not necessarily addressing the largest problem that the use of acronyms causes.
danenania 6y ago
I think the other side of this is that some folks tend toward perfectionism in their writing, so in an atmosphere where writing standards are perceived as very high, people can spend way too much time and energy trying to put things in just the right way, when they otherwise could have gotten their ideas across in a few seconds using a "stream-of-consciousness" style that is more similar to casual conversation. It can become a huge time sink. Also, if people feel like casual or "sloppy" communication will be judged negatively, they might often choose to say nothing at all instead of sharing half-baked ideas, which probably reduces organic creativity and innovation, even if it leads to fewer interruptions. So while I get the point this post is making, there are costs on both sides here. And some of the worst downsides of the casual style (interruptions, in particular) can be minimized by adding more structure around sync vs. async communication, protected focus time, and using different mediums when appropriate.
- comeonseriously 6y ago
  >I think the other side of this is that some folks tend toward perfectionism in their writing... People should go for the middle ground on Slack. If you miss a period, so what? But skipping all of them just to be "casual"? That induces a cognitive load on your reader that you shouldn't.
jasode 6y ago
I can't debate what some perceive as costly because it's an honest reaction to reading some forms of text. In my case, all lowercase and lack of punctuation don't bother me or slow me down. (I'll agree on uncommon acronyms hindering understanding.) To reduce some frustrations... listen to linguist McWhorter explaining that people should think of texting (or Slack) as "transcribed informal speech" -- instead of formal writing.[1] That said, the author Mitch Lee's bio says he's a cofounder of Penny. If you are employed by him and are communicating at his company via Slack, it's better for your career if you follow his guidelines. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvOgW6iV2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvOgW6iV2s
- comeonseriously 6y ago
  >listen to linguist McWhorter explaining that people should think of texting (or Slack) as "transcribed informal speech" -- instead of formal writing.[1] I can't watch the video right now, but even in informal speech, I hear periods and commas. I think that those are necessary for communication. Not including them, as I mention in another comment above (or below?), induces a cognitive load on the reader. Nobody should be asking for perfection on Slack, but mostly correct should be the bar.
  - djur 6y ago
    Sure, commas should be used when grammatically necessary, but a period before a newline is not going to make a big difference one way or the other in terms of cognitive load.
  - bccdee 6y ago
    no you hear pauses, which can be communicated in more than one way as shown here ...was this unduly hard to understand?
iamatworknow 6y ago
I've spent my whole life using punctuation and full sentences when typing. Does it make me seem cold? Maybe, but it'd take more conscious effort for me to change it at this point, which sorta defeats the purpose of some commenters here claiming that it would increase communication speed, at least for me. As far as reading what others write, I really don't care, and find it sort of bizarre that anyone would.
- wtetzner 6y ago
  > As far as reading what others write, I really don't care, and find it sort of bizarre that anyone would. The main one that trips me up is when people use acronyms I'm not familiar with. Then I try to Google for them, but sometimes it's hard to find, or ambiguous.
  - rhn_mk1 6y ago
    Acronyms are similar to slang/jargon in that they are understandable only to a specific audience, and may have a confusing meaning for someone unfamiliar. Which makes me wonder if the author of the article used the noun "ask" deliberately, and whether it simply means "question". Using that word out of carelessness in an article about the clarity of communication, with a mention of non-native speakers would be ironic.
  - iamatworknow 6y ago
    Acronyms and other jargon are the exceptions, absolutely. But half the time when I see these used it seems more like "intelligence signaling" than an actual means of making communication more efficient. Domain specific jargon might be unavoidable and should be elaborated on, especially for new people, but the business newspeak that gets thrown around a lot is almost always unnecessary, in my opinion.
- hobofan 6y ago
  I think coldness/warmth of the messaging style is much more dependent on emoji use, at least in Slack. I couldn't imagine writing without at least attempting to use proper grammar. Especially in German where ignoring capitalization makes a difference of night and day. My reasoning has been similar to the one of the author, but more on a "positivity" than a plain productivity level. If it's easy for others to read my messages and not having to puzzle over them, I hope that it will leave them with overall a more positive association of writing/communicating with me. And that not only goes for professional texting, but writing with friends (or dating) as well. I know it won't always come out perfect, but overall I think it shows some level of respect towards the other person.
motohagiography 6y ago
There is a cargo-cult tech management trend where people use low-effort, sloppy messages and even rudeness as a status signal. I get that the simplest things are the important ones, and wall of text details are usually prevarication, but Slack isn't Tinder. Like project managers think they're channelling Bezos with "?" messages. I can see how some people interpret "stupid" as "powerful," when that's their experience of authority and then they just imitate it, but it's worth being aware that it breeds contempt.
- xxpor 6y ago
  >Slack isn't Tinder. Heh, my Slack messages are way more casual than Tinder messages. I think the essential difference is I just met someone who I'm talking to on Tinder (hopefully :D), while on Slack I'm probably talking to someone I've known for years; it's fundamentally more casual.
- comeonseriously 6y ago
  Fortunately, I don't work for a manager who would send me just a "?", but if I did, it would go ignored. I think it would tickle me if they followed up with "?!".
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    I would prefer the “...” response.
  - bigwavedave 6y ago
    Anytime my boss has sent me a '?' with no context, I've always responded with a '?' of my own. Context has always been forthcoming afterwards.
    - lucisferre 6y ago
      And they keep doing it? ?
      - 6y ago
bszupnick 6y ago
Something the author didn't mention (or maybe it's simply a specific case but I think demands explicit mention) is that it lowers the barrier of entry for new employees. I started a new job ~2 months ago and things that everyone thinks everyone understands I simply did not. These weren't documented acronyms but rather "socially understood" acronyms that meant each time I didn't understand something I had to message someone asking. While onboarding the amount of times I message people asking for help is so much that it gets uncomfortable (for me, at least) so minimizing the acronyms would be super helpful. As a counter-point, though, it could be that each culture/tribe needs their own language that only they can understand and it creates this feeling of comradery? Just a thought.
- Lukeas14 6y ago
  When you're new to a job everyone expects you to ask a million questions and not know what internal acronyms mean (although it would also be nice if they were documented). It'd be suspicious if a new employee didn't ask enough questions. It may be uncomfortable but you should never feel bad about it. I personally start to struggle with this after the first year when the grace period to ask "stupid" questions is over.
parliament32 6y ago
I feel like people complaining about this didn't grow up in the IRC/IM era. It probably depends on your corp's culture as well, but for us, Slack is a very informal communcation mechanism. If you need to write something formal, you use an email. Slack is equivalent to shouting out to the room (as if you were there in person).
- ardy42 6y ago
  > I feel like people complaining about this didn't grow up in the IRC/IM era. At one time most written language didn't put spaces between words (some still do), and many languages don't write vowels. That's not a good reason for doing the same in your informal English Slack messages. You can write an informal message and still use punctuation.
  - bccdee 6y ago
    you dont have to tho i havent used any but ive been perfectly clear
- justin_oaks 6y ago
  I think it's less about formalism than it is about clear communication. People will also be confused if you shout out a message to the room without appropriate pauses (commas or periods) or without the right tone (question marks).
  - parliament32 6y ago
    But that's the thing, if you ever used IM for a significant amount of time, you know you don't need punctuation. Question marks, yes, he's right about that.. but I certainly don't add periods at the end of every five word chat post. Maybe if you're writing a paragraph in Slack go for it, but if I have a few sentences to say I'll usually just send them in a few messages instead. This whole idea of writing formal multi-sentence messages in Slack shows the author's dissonance with how real-time-chat is supposed to work (keeping in mind that Slack is supposed to be next-generation-corp-IRC).
X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
It feels to me like the title of this post should reflect the title of the blog post, possibly with [in Slack] appended.
renewiltord 6y ago
This will not have a positive or negative impact on anything.
adjkant 6y ago
The message beyond the HN title actually has potential. However, the author focuses in some odd places for me. As far as punctuation, ending periods actually have negative emotion in text vernacular now for younger audiences and should almost never be used in 1-1 messaging. Exclamation points, commas, and question marks, great! For abbreviations, it's simply know your audience. You should use them when everyone in the room knows them, but you have to think about that first before use. The step of thinking about it is a great mental step to add, but the article presents it more as a steadfast rule. Also, expanding them in parentheses can be a chance to educate your audience for the future even when you have people who don't know, like I'll do below :P To me, the smallest point was actually the most interesting and valuable, and it was skated over entirely - communicating emotion and sentiment, particularly through emoji use. With WFH (Work From Home) especially, communicating emotion is very socially helpful. I've found a lot of engineers think "well I don't care/need so I'll skip the flowery additions for efficiency" and then leave many non-tech people and some engineering coworkers to decipher if this random slack ask is mad, passive aggressive, inquisitive, or a check-in. This has far worse effects longterm often than an unknown acronym. Adding emojis can solve this, or if you don't like those, literally giving more social context in words can also do the trick. When we're talking in person, we always communicate emotion, even when it's not the primary purpose. I think many would do well to include that in their online messaging as well :)
- soggybutter 6y ago
  100% agree about ending periods. I always read those messages as being irritated or overly firm. Potentially worse, though, are people who have a habit of abusing ellipses (...) in weird places. My boss does this in virtually every sentence, sometimes multiple times, and it always comes off like he can't believe you'd say something so stupid
  - necovek 6y ago
    I am not sure why would you think that... If a period is to make a statement firmer, ellipsis does it triple... Like that, right? ;)
ssivark 6y ago
The best form of communication is ultimately based on the amount of shared context (Eg: acronyms), so it’s silly to create rules per the communication medium — slack, email, HN comments, etc. Even within a medium, a slack DM to a friend has very different shared context from a message to a company-wide channel. Being mindful of that, and communicating respectfully, regardless of the actual medium, is likely to be far more useful. Nothing special about Slack. For me, respectful written communication also includes proper punctuation & capitalization — since it makes reading easier.
SkyPuncher 6y ago
I don't think this is good generalized advice. * Posting in a highly-visible channel where most/if not all people will lack context. Treat it like an email and make sure it's punctually and grammatically correct. * Posting in a team channel where the attitude is casual. Pump those messages out pretty much like you're talking them.
doc_gunthrop 6y ago
I think Samuel Johnson (author of the first modern English dictionary) put it well: "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."
slumpt_ 6y ago
“How to date yourself further in a persistently youthful tech workforce.”
MapleWalnut 6y ago
OT: this blog could use RSS.
edw 6y ago
The care and thought you put into your writing, regardless of medium, says everything about how (and how much) you care and are thinking about your audience.
smileysteve 6y ago
Acronyms are such a lossy communication mechanism; Last week; GTM. Go To Meeting Google Tag Manager Go to Market Good to Me It's so frustrating when external requests without context come to me with this.
Jcampuzano2 6y ago
As someone of the younger generation who grew up always using mostly proper punctuation over texts, and avoided abbreviations for common terms this hits home. I'm 28 for reference, and I get VERY different vibes from those younger than me who join slack, and those older (40+ or so). The difference in meaning for different punctuation for these crowds is SO evident, I feel like I'm always playing translator for even the language I grew up speaking and writing. The biggest example of this is the ellipsis among the older crowd. In informal messaging that I grew accustomed to it went from being overused, to nowadays seeming like you are being sarcastic or angry about something. So among the younger crowd I see it almost never used anymore. On the other hand the older generations picked it up from how we used to use it, as a sort of pause. But they co-opted it as probably the most common punctuation used in their messaging. I'm not joking when I will sometimes receive a message from an older coworker that will contain an ellipsis every 5 words or so. It's always been interesting deciphering the actual meaning of some messages based on solely age of the sender. This all to say, deciphering punctuation at all in informal writing is an interesting game.
- necovek 6y ago
  This sounds highly anecdotal: I am nearing 40 myself and have a bunch of 40+ colleagues, yet I rarely see them use ellipsis! So in order to avoid throwing your anecdata altogether, how many people of each age group did you communicate with using text form?
  - Jcampuzano2 6y ago
    You are correct in that it is anecdotal, but across the board among those I interact with it has seemed to reign true. And from those my age I talk to they seem to mostly agree. It could also be a case of when I do see it used regardless of age, it appears to either be overused, or rarely used, and overuse tends to lean older.
    - sethammons 6y ago
      I had the same observation years ago. Like 2001. Folks that were 40+ at the time used ellipsis for pause or dramatic effect vastly more than the younger, tech savvy kids at the time. I've been downvoted previously for the observation. :shrug:
armoredkitten 6y ago
I can't help but feel like the real point the author is trying (not very successfully) to communicate is the importance of considering how other people will interpret and understand your messages. This includes content (will they understand this acronym?), but also includes how they are likely to interpret the tone of your message. Punctuation, grammar, emojis, etc. help to communicate tone -- but that doesn't lend itself to a blanket "always use punctuation" statement. Being too formal can appear cold and aloof; being too informal can appear apathetic or unkind. It's also important to consider the range of reactions. For those who understand an acronym, they likely won't even notice; for those who don't understand it, they risk losing face and potentially looking like an idiot when they have to ask what the acronym means. The "time saved" is helpful, sure, but considering how people will respond goes beyond "how much time will they spend asking a follow-up question?" and also includes "how will they feel if they don't understand this?"
azangru 6y ago
This just goes back to the linguistic maxim, which (I am paraphrasing here) stipulates that the language is always a compromise between the convenience of the producer and the convenience of the consumer. The more common context the producer and the consumer share, the less need there is for punctuation, spelling out abbreviations or other niceties.
rayshan 6y ago
Agreed. My mentor Charles taught me: "engineers are humans too, they deserve proper English, so write proper English in your code comments". This kind of empathy gave humanity and warmth to the NeXT and Apple products he worked on.
Geee 6y ago
I sometimes add typos in messages to make them appear that I wrote them quickly without thinkng.
tpoacher 6y ago
?
tpoacher 6y ago
The message effectively seems to be: "The only reason your shortcut is efficient is because it saves you time and effort, at the cost of other people's time and effort". To which I say: "Duh!? What, you thought people who do it don't realise that's the case? That's exactly why they do it, even!".
rhplus 6y ago
The author missing another huge benefit: it will also help improve recall/precision when searching conversation history, especially if that search is 'smart'.
xxpor 6y ago
You can use as many periods as you'd like (including 0) when messaging me, as long as you don't just start with just "hi"
bovermyer 6y ago
Another reason for me to use punctuation, proper grammar, and more advanced vocabulary in Slack is purely personal: I enjoy writing, both as a creative endeavor and a social one. I like to think that sometimes, my chat style gives others a little bit of break-think amidst all the rapid-fire.
nyghtly 6y ago
In academic writing, the general rule is that whenever you introduce an acronym, you must first use the full version. For example: You must always be mindful of privacy laws when handling personal health information (PHI). Remember, that you may only access PHI when necessary to do your job, and never to fulfill personal curiosity about a patient. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for a chat room because it's not meant to be read from beginning to end. My personal rule is to never use acronyms, unless I can follow the above rule. I've worked in many different industries, and learning acronyms has been a consistent and pointless barrier to achieving productivity. I don't want to put that onto anyone else. Even worse, you run the risk of your reader ignoring the lesson entirely, simply because they don't know what the acronym means. In and of itself, "PHI" does not seem any more important than any other acronym. On the other hand, "personal health information," has an obvious connotation of importance.
ctur 6y ago
There is a good book about the evolution of written communication as the Internet evolved. "Because Internet" by Gretchen McCulloch goes into some of the subtle implications of using punctuation such as periods ending sentences, capitalization, etc. Text makes it difficult to convey emotions and subtlety so even using punctuation can add signal to the communication channel. It turns out there is relatively powerful tonal communication through those deviations on "standard" English grammar rules. Similarly, Emoji also acts as a replacement for gesturing. Very interesting book and worth reading to understand how to tailor communication for the medium.
keithnz 6y ago
Not that I use Slack anymore, I use Discord at work... I disagree with the details of this argument, the costs seem strawman ish. You quickly get used to writing styles, chat systems are an ongoing ecosystem and you adapt quickly. What I would suggest is to try and make your messages self contained with context. Avoid private messaging and ask things on open channels, too much information is hidden away in private messages. Even if your question is really for a specific person. Seeing conversations helps build narratives and context for teams.
mcqueenjordan 6y ago
I think the title should be more general. This advice should not be scoped only to "in slack". It should be for any written communication that you actually care about.
qwerty456127 6y ago
Indeed, real-time chats are a horror. A blight that should be removed from the organized collaboration world. I would rather use E-mail, if only there was a FidoNet-like culture of using it properly among the users and the E-mail client software authors (that would enable proper threading and include quoting only the particular parts you answer). IMHO the best communication format is a HN-like comments thread.
ulisesrmzroche 6y ago
Are emojis hyeroglyphs? I’ve got no clue but it would be kinda funny
aaron695 6y ago
We need better (MIT open source) grammar and spelling checkers.
ccarterlandis 6y ago
> this [this fast and loose style] interrupts more productive work and deters deep thinking This doesn't mesh with how I feel toward Slack. Slack itself is the thing that's disrupting my productivity and deterring deeper thinking by pinging me all the time. When I open Slack, the vast majority of the time, I'm looking to express my point as clearly AND concisely as possible so I can get back to doing whatever it was, which is 99% of time more important. As a result I use (or don't use) grammatical conventions, capitalization, and emoji depending on the context of my message and what will allow me to get my entire message across the fastest, and hopefully correctly. If I'm messaging the person I've pairing with all day, or if I'm coordinating with my team about who will pick up a story, I'm much less likely to give my message all the proper formatting. These people what I'm like and how I tend to communicate, and so I can rely on that prior knowledge to "cut corners" here and there. I'm also much, much more likely to use emoji because I can communicate my intentions and my "intonation" nearly instantly, without having to sit there and worry about wordsmithing my whole message. That being said, if I'm message in a large public channel that perhaps has multiple teams or belongs to a team I don't normally interact with, I'll spend much more time wordsmithing and editing to make sure I'm following proper conventions - mostly for the sake of clarity. It does make some very salient points (think about how others could misinterpret your message, expand acronyms/use them sparingly, write to your audience, etc.) but I think they bought a little bit too much into the "Slack has replaced email" argument. For me, the main benefit of Slack over email is the lowered barrier to entry to starting a conversation and the ability to keeping it flowing, and part of achieving that is being okay with lowering the standards of communication.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
spacefiish 6y ago
> this [this fast and loose style] interrupts more productive work and deters deep thinking This doesn't mesh with how I feel toward Slack. Slack itself is the thing that's disrupting my productivity and deterring deeper thinking by pinging me all the time. When I open Slack, the vast majority of the time, I'm looking to express my point as clearly AND concisely as possible so I can get back to doing whatever it was, which is 99% of time more important. As a result I use (or don't use) grammatical conventions, capitalization, and emoji depending on the context of my message and what will allow me to get my entire message across the fastest, and hopefully correctly. If I'm messaging the person I've pairing with all day, or if I'm coordinating with my team about who will pick up a story, I'm much less likely to give my message all the proper formatting. These people what I'm like and how I tend to communicate, and so I can rely on that prior knowledge to "cut corners" here and there. I'm also much, much more likely to use emoji because I can communicate my intentions and my "intonation" nearly instantly, without having to sit there and worry about wordsmithing my whole message. Sure, sending "I'm done for the day" and "I'm done for the day <wave emoji>" mean the same thing, my hope is that by including the waving emoji it shows I'm not signing off out of frustration, but instead that I'm just at the end of my hours and it's time to log off. This is a bit of a contrived example, as I don't think hardly anyone would read the first message and think "they're mad", but I hope my argument is still clear. That being said, if I'm message in a large public channel that perhaps has multiple teams or belongs to a team I don't normally interact with, I'll spend much more time wordsmithing and editing to make sure I'm following proper conventions - mostly for the sake of clarity. The author does make some very salient points (think about how others could misinterpret your message, expand acronyms/use them sparingly, write to your audience, etc.), and as a whole I think erring on the side of more "professional" and "standardized" is always a safe bet, but I can't help but feel that they bought a little bit too much into the "Slack has replaced email" argument (not really his fault, that is how they like to market it). For me, the main benefit of Slack over email is the lowered barrier to entry to starting a conversation and the ability to keeping it flowing; part of achieving that is being okay with somwhat lowering the standards of communication. Unrelated: I posted this comment and then tried to correct a typo, and the edit didn't go through. After I hit "Update" the page would just refresh and the text stayed the same. Anyone seen that before?
effnorwood 6y ago
Fuck off
james_pm 6y ago
Yes. And go back and fix your typos.
chasing 6y ago
Punctuation, capital letters, proper spelling, etc. exist for a reason: They're a standardized set of tools for making our writing clearer and easier to read. In a professional setting, they also indicate a level of thoughtfulness and attention to detail. In my mind, at least. If you can write clearly without using these tools or if you're writing in a situation where style is more important than clarity, fine. Go nuts. If you just can't be bothered to make, like, five extra keypresses... C'mon, man.
ashton314 6y ago
Here is a pet theory of mine: the quality of the discussion on an Internet forum is directly related to the quality of grammar and punctuation. HN scores excellently in this regard. But perhaps this is just my bias. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
odomojuli 6y ago
For myself. General chat: Proper punctuation. Keep sentences terse. Reply promptly. Leave no room for ambiguity. Direct message: Often if a matter takes place outside of a public channel, it is because a duty or responsibility is being delegated to you or a sensitive subject is involved. One should take extra precaution to speak forthrightly to ease the recipient, but also take measures to be prompt and present. Makes a world of difference. The most important thing I've learned about online tone is that it's less about what you say and more about how you tell others to speak to you.
meowface 6y ago
This post is confusing to me. It's titled "Or, a case for using punctuation in Slack", and then spends almost the rest of the post discussing the issue with acronyms/initialisms/shorthand. I totally agree about shorthand. It can be unnecessarily ambiguous. But punctuation isn't related to acronyms, I don't think? As others have pointed out, punctuation over instant-messaging services can add meaning you don't intend. I generally don't capitalize the first letter of sentences or end messages with periods in IM applications. If they had just named it "A case for avoiding use of shorthand in Slack", I'd 100% agree.
peterfield 6y ago
A case for using punctation, in Slack.

173 points by dontmitch 6y ago

I feel like (so, of course, this is how I use instant messaging) periods at the end of a message suggest the logical conclusion of a thought, and are far too formal to use with every message. Email, sure, but not chat. (I do use question marks and capitalize in general, but periods in particular seem strange to me.)

RandallBrown 6y ago
I feel like periods mark the end of a sentence. So I use them all the time, even in text messages. I've had people get actually angry with me for doing it.
- dtech 6y ago
  ok.
- Rusky 6y ago
  Text/instant messages have evolved their own norms, as all language does. To many people, periods have a different meaning there. See e.g. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909969004/before-texting-your-kid-make-sure-to-double-check-your-punctuation https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909969004/before-texting-your...
  - klmarket 6y ago
    So again, people below 20 dictate what everyone else must do. It's a race to the bottom.
    - dqv 6y ago
      It's pretty common with people I know born from 1980 and beyond. Of course, it gets more common the closer their year of birth is to the aughts. But I guess you are right, everyone doing it today was under 20 at some point.
      - oytis 6y ago
        As someone born in the late 80s I've only heard about it from the press. I really sometimes omit periods in one-sentence text messages, but sometimes I don't, and it wouldn't come to my mind to ascribe any semantics to this. My personal nitpick is people writing a stream of one-sentence messages without punctuation instead of a longer structured message - that definitely carries the connotation of unstructured thinking to me - but it doesn't have much to do with full stops per se.
        dqv 6y ago
        Unstructured messages in a serious place is annoying, yes, but in a water cooler area it can set a more relaxed tone. It's a cultural thing and I'd never force someone to endure my style of communication in a place where it's not welcome.
    - Afton 6y ago
      It's just a different convention. I don't see how that makes it a 'race to the bottom'.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Angry? "Eff Off" buddy.
aflag 6y ago
I frequently hit return rather than typing a period. However, I feel that's not really good practice, as I often see myself sending a lot of small messages which could probably be better summarised with a couple well thought out sentences.
- djur 6y ago
  It really depends on the context. If people tend to fire off every sentence into the channel as they think, the person who writes a paragraph is going to come off strangely. The reverse is also true.
axaxs 6y ago
Same, but not sure why now that you mention it. I'm a stickler for grammar, oxford commas and all, but in messaging, periods feel...rude at times. I can't explain why, perhaps it is the 'conclusion in thought' aspect.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  It really feels abrupt, to be honest. Mostly because most chat messages are single sentences. So I guess that people leave them out when they aren't part of a full paragraph of text.
  - andreareina 6y ago
    Many times I've started writing something I intend to be a single sentence so I'll be lax about capitalization. Then I realize a second sentence is warranted so I go back to fix things and carry on. IM really is an odd medium.
- gwright 6y ago
  This discussion is really confusing me. Are people talking about periods being negative when used anywhere? when used in the last sentence in a multi-sentence message? when used at the end of a single sentence/thought message? Confused.
  - vbql 6y ago
    I'm sure there will be a CoC soon that classifies period terminated messages as a micro aggression. Penalties will be between 6 to 12 months hard labor in a re-education camp, where 15 year olds make you scrub the floor and kiss their boots.
  - axaxs 6y ago
    For me, only when used on a single short message sentence. Long explanations and paragraphs get punctuated at usual. I'll also add I'm not the arbiter of what is and isn't correct or wrong, just explaining my own opinion.
  - 6y ago
lostcolony 6y ago
I agree with you that for your final sentence it's optional. That said, I still do it. But that's kind of ancillary to the point of this post, no? The main point it's trying to drive home is be as informative as possible. Don't assume your audience knows your tone, your conventions, your abbreviations. I suspect this is largely for those who have newly entered the work force, who may only know texting style communication (with friends, shared corpus of knowledge), and formal business communication, and this is to warn them that Slack, while less formal than the latter, doesn't imply the shared context that the former would often have.
swimfar 6y ago
Could you explain this more because it's completely foreign to me. For me a period is the end of a sentence. It has nothing to do with ending the message I'm trying to get across. Is this a cultural or generational or professional field difference? I'd never heard of the idea that a period would be too formal in any context.
- dqv 6y ago
  The non-use of grammar is an adaptation to indicate a different "tone" of communication. As an example, it can be used to indicate sarcasm.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  It made more sense when I followed some other links in this discussion. Read this: Hey. Or this exchange: Statement: We got the tickets for tonight! Response: Yay. It comes off as very flat or dry. Unenthused. A plain "Yay" with no punctuation would be better here. I wonder if this is the context that we're missing and others aren't providing, because I almost always use punctuation, including periods, in my messages. No one has ever complained. But with short messages, like these, I would never use a period. For full sentences, however, I can't think of any occasion outside being rushed where I wouldn't end it with a period.
  - oytis 6y ago
    IMO, it looks dry, because an exclamation mark would be more appropriate. If you just omit the punctuation, it can be interpreted as if you omitted the "!", but with the full stop you explicitly say that you don't mean "Yay!".
- jbay808 6y ago
  It's definitely something that I notice with instant messages. Periods are used between sentences in a multi-sentence message, but if you put them at the end, you might seem upset -- especially if the sentence is short. This is probably because: - IMs are already formatted to show the end of each message (chat bubble, etc), so a period communicates extra 'finality' beyond what is necessary; - Sentence fragments are normal and expected, but seem weird with a period at the end; - Using formality in an informal setting can create a sense of emotional distance; - IM cues like these are likely established and spread by people who have mostly used IM in non-professional settings, with friends and significant others, and those norms are then brought with them when interpreting the IMs they receive in a professional setting. If you never communicated with your significant other via text message, you've probably never needed to express as many subtle emotional signals into your texts, and so just treat them like emails. But if you have, then you eventually pick up how powerful punctuation can be at communicating emotion in that medium. Eg. > I'll be home late tonight >> Okay VS: > I'll be home late tonight >> Okay.
Slartie 6y ago
Periods generally end sentences, and if that sentence convenes a thought, they do conclude the thought. I consider that to be the default mode of conversation, regardless of whether it's chat or mail or whatever. I like it when people take the effort to bring their thoughts to a conclusion rather than flooding me with cheap stream-of-consciousness-style conversation (cheap for them, not for me), and I tend to treat others the same way I want to be treated. If I want to explicitly leave a thought open for continuation, especially in chat style communication, I place three periods at the end of a sentence. I consider that an invitation to the reader's mind to conclude the sentence. So it's either one period or three of them for me, but none at all just feels wrong.
GhostVII 6y ago
Whenever I read a sentence with a period in my head, I read it in a very flat tone, since the period explicitly excludes any exclamation point, question mark, emoji, etc. So that makes it sound weird when someone uses a period in casual conversation, because if I was talking to them on person they would usually have some kind of emotion. For example, I would read "Sounds good" in a generally positive way just like when someone is saying that in person, but when I read "Sounds good." I read it without any emotion in my head which sounds wierd.

bluetidepro 6y ago

I agree, and disagree. Remember that context matters a ton. Are you posting in a company wide channel, or DM-ing you're close coworkers? Are you posting about an update, or just sharing something random to your team. All that plays into this more than the author expands on (he does quickly mention it in the last section). I think you just have to be a human, esp. in times where everyone is working from home. I think if you followed this advice in every channel, in every scenario, your company Slack culture would start to suffer a ton, and feel very cold (not that the author says that, just an FYI). This is good advice generally, don't get me wrong, but just be smart to when you apply it. Don't ruin your culture, and come off as a robot/cold person in every message you post.

beisner 6y ago

I think this entire post can be distilled into the following: The time you spend composing a message should be proportional to the number of people in your intended audience.

saagarjha 6y ago
this makes me feel bad about my hn comments
necovek 6y ago
I remember a quote from Blaise Pascal's (if my memory serves me right) letter going something like "apologies for the long letter, but I lack the time to make it shorter".

nprz 6y ago

lol no

oytis 6y ago

Have "intimidating full stops" been posted to the HN already?

chapium 6y ago
Probably.

quicklime 6y ago

Unfortunately, text (or Slack) messages with a period at the end are also perceived as less sincere, and sometimes passive-aggressive: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/12/08/study-confirms-that-ending-your-texts-with-a-period-is-terrible/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2... https://lifehacker.com/dont-use-periods-in-texts-1843744818 https://lifehacker.com/dont-use-periods-in-texts-1843744818

doc_gunthrop 6y ago
From the WaPo article you linked, regarding a period at the end of a sentence: > that's an indication that the text message period has taken on a life of its own. It is no longer just the correct way to end a sentence. It's an act of psychological warfare against your friends. It's so bizarre that people perceive some nefarious intent because a sentence ends with a period.
- pochamago 6y ago
  It's not that it's nefarious, but because human language often relies so much on the tone of voice used, we've begun creating informal norms for how to get that across in text form. A period at the end of a short phrase gives it a flat intonation in many circles. Communication isn't as simple as proscribing by fiat how people ought to use a given medium, and pragmatism requires that we adapt to what the group does for clear communication.
- kps 6y ago
  Also from the WaPo article, the study surveyed “126 undergraduates”. While it's clear that many Silly Valley startups use undergraduate all-nighters as a model for their culture and code quality, that is by no means universal.

whimsicalism 6y ago

this seems like a strong case for not using initialisms or abbreviations (or at least for including a clarification in parens). but this article claimed to provide justification for focusing on grammar and style in communication. i do not see that justification here. i will continue to not capitalize my slack messages.

closed 6y ago

> The argument here is scoped to people who have some degree of mastery over the language but are being sloppy with their written communication, which is to say "careless and unsystematic; excessively casual". I think there are some good points here for technical writing. But it's easy to forget how memorable playful communication can be. E.g. a responding via haiku or something no-caps and full of enjambment, might be extremely memorable. (especially in a chat full of technical writing style).

dqv 6y ago
Right. Where I'm from, lack of punctuation and capitalization indicates less serious discussion, irony, sarcasm, etc. A non-serious "mood". If someone starts using correct grammar (e.g. I instead of i, periods, commas for introductory phrases and splices) it's an indication of the serious "mood" and to start a more thoughtful discussion. It's probably a good idea to tell people this instead of just assuming everyone knows... but it's kind of engrained in the culture of the communities I'm in.

danpalmer 6y ago

Clarity in communication is undervalued. Things like punctuation are a great start, but we can go even further. Avoiding acronyms where possible is often good for this, particularly if you can build a culture where asking people to expand acronyms happens. A tough side-effect of this I've seen though is the possibility of excluding some non-native English speakers, both in terms of making it harder for them to consume content because of it using a wider vocabulary, and making it harder for them to succeed (in things like interviews) because of higher communications standards. I don't know where I fall on this, because it does allow for better communication, it just requires more from participants. In fact poor communicators would be excluded regardless of their native language.

swimfar 6y ago
I think the goal should not be to lower the standards for everyone, it should be to help bring people up to the basic standards. The more often people write informally, the more difficult it is for non-native speakers to learn correct grammar. I almost always use full sentences and correct punctuation in all forms of communication. But I make sure to always write correctly when I'm communicating with non-native speakers. I am doing them a disservice, otherwise. And it's also frustrating to me when I'm learning a language and what I'm reading from native speakers is below even my capability. Also, I think there's a difference between making mistakes in a foreign language, and being lazy or not caring. For example, capitalizing the first letter of a sentence or the word "I" is something that 99% of people know they should do. So that mistake is not usually due to lack of fluency in a language.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
JoshuaDavid 6y ago
One convention I've found useful is to define any acronym, or even any word or phrase that's used in a nonstandard way, the first time it's used in a conversation. Additionally, acronyms frequently pick up additional meanings than those you get from the individual words that comprise them, so you probably should not just expand the acronym the first time you use it. Consider the acronym "DDL", as in "Data Definition Language". If you're not familiar with the term, you will be equally lost whether someone says "The prod DB is down because the third DDL migration of the release hung" or "The production database is down because the third Data Definition Language migration of the release hung". If you instead say "The prod DB is down because the third DDL migration (DDL migrations = schema changes like adding or removing columns or tables)", everyone who's worked with a database before knows what happened even if they don't necesssarily know exactly what DDL stands for. Acronyms are nice when you've got a long, frequently used phrase, as long as everyone in the conversation knows what they mean. I think banning acronyms entirely would be eliminating all of the useful value from the practice of using acronyms, while not necessarily addressing the largest problem that the use of acronyms causes.

danenania 6y ago

I think the other side of this is that some folks tend toward perfectionism in their writing, so in an atmosphere where writing standards are perceived as very high, people can spend way too much time and energy trying to put things in just the right way, when they otherwise could have gotten their ideas across in a few seconds using a "stream-of-consciousness" style that is more similar to casual conversation. It can become a huge time sink. Also, if people feel like casual or "sloppy" communication will be judged negatively, they might often choose to say nothing at all instead of sharing half-baked ideas, which probably reduces organic creativity and innovation, even if it leads to fewer interruptions. So while I get the point this post is making, there are costs on both sides here. And some of the worst downsides of the casual style (interruptions, in particular) can be minimized by adding more structure around sync vs. async communication, protected focus time, and using different mediums when appropriate.

comeonseriously 6y ago
>I think the other side of this is that some folks tend toward perfectionism in their writing... People should go for the middle ground on Slack. If you miss a period, so what? But skipping all of them just to be "casual"? That induces a cognitive load on your reader that you shouldn't.

jasode 6y ago

I can't debate what some perceive as costly because it's an honest reaction to reading some forms of text. In my case, all lowercase and lack of punctuation don't bother me or slow me down. (I'll agree on uncommon acronyms hindering understanding.) To reduce some frustrations... listen to linguist McWhorter explaining that people should think of texting (or Slack) as "transcribed informal speech" -- instead of formal writing.[1] That said, the author Mitch Lee's bio says he's a cofounder of Penny. If you are employed by him and are communicating at his company via Slack, it's better for your career if you follow his guidelines. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvOgW6iV2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvOgW6iV2s

comeonseriously 6y ago
>listen to linguist McWhorter explaining that people should think of texting (or Slack) as "transcribed informal speech" -- instead of formal writing.[1] I can't watch the video right now, but even in informal speech, I hear periods and commas. I think that those are necessary for communication. Not including them, as I mention in another comment above (or below?), induces a cognitive load on the reader. Nobody should be asking for perfection on Slack, but mostly correct should be the bar.
- djur 6y ago
  Sure, commas should be used when grammatically necessary, but a period before a newline is not going to make a big difference one way or the other in terms of cognitive load.
- bccdee 6y ago
  no you hear pauses, which can be communicated in more than one way as shown here ...was this unduly hard to understand?

iamatworknow 6y ago

I've spent my whole life using punctuation and full sentences when typing. Does it make me seem cold? Maybe, but it'd take more conscious effort for me to change it at this point, which sorta defeats the purpose of some commenters here claiming that it would increase communication speed, at least for me. As far as reading what others write, I really don't care, and find it sort of bizarre that anyone would.

wtetzner 6y ago
> As far as reading what others write, I really don't care, and find it sort of bizarre that anyone would. The main one that trips me up is when people use acronyms I'm not familiar with. Then I try to Google for them, but sometimes it's hard to find, or ambiguous.
- rhn_mk1 6y ago
  Acronyms are similar to slang/jargon in that they are understandable only to a specific audience, and may have a confusing meaning for someone unfamiliar. Which makes me wonder if the author of the article used the noun "ask" deliberately, and whether it simply means "question". Using that word out of carelessness in an article about the clarity of communication, with a mention of non-native speakers would be ironic.
- iamatworknow 6y ago
  Acronyms and other jargon are the exceptions, absolutely. But half the time when I see these used it seems more like "intelligence signaling" than an actual means of making communication more efficient. Domain specific jargon might be unavoidable and should be elaborated on, especially for new people, but the business newspeak that gets thrown around a lot is almost always unnecessary, in my opinion.
hobofan 6y ago
I think coldness/warmth of the messaging style is much more dependent on emoji use, at least in Slack. I couldn't imagine writing without at least attempting to use proper grammar. Especially in German where ignoring capitalization makes a difference of night and day. My reasoning has been similar to the one of the author, but more on a "positivity" than a plain productivity level. If it's easy for others to read my messages and not having to puzzle over them, I hope that it will leave them with overall a more positive association of writing/communicating with me. And that not only goes for professional texting, but writing with friends (or dating) as well. I know it won't always come out perfect, but overall I think it shows some level of respect towards the other person.

motohagiography 6y ago

There is a cargo-cult tech management trend where people use low-effort, sloppy messages and even rudeness as a status signal. I get that the simplest things are the important ones, and wall of text details are usually prevarication, but Slack isn't Tinder. Like project managers think they're channelling Bezos with "?" messages. I can see how some people interpret "stupid" as "powerful," when that's their experience of authority and then they just imitate it, but it's worth being aware that it breeds contempt.

xxpor 6y ago
>Slack isn't Tinder. Heh, my Slack messages are way more casual than Tinder messages. I think the essential difference is I just met someone who I'm talking to on Tinder (hopefully :D), while on Slack I'm probably talking to someone I've known for years; it's fundamentally more casual.
comeonseriously 6y ago
Fortunately, I don't work for a manager who would send me just a "?", but if I did, it would go ignored. I think it would tickle me if they followed up with "?!".
- tshaddox 6y ago
  I would prefer the “...” response.
- bigwavedave 6y ago
  Anytime my boss has sent me a '?' with no context, I've always responded with a '?' of my own. Context has always been forthcoming afterwards.
  - lucisferre 6y ago
    And they keep doing it? ?
    - 6y ago

bszupnick 6y ago

Something the author didn't mention (or maybe it's simply a specific case but I think demands explicit mention) is that it lowers the barrier of entry for new employees. I started a new job ~2 months ago and things that everyone thinks everyone understands I simply did not. These weren't documented acronyms but rather "socially understood" acronyms that meant each time I didn't understand something I had to message someone asking. While onboarding the amount of times I message people asking for help is so much that it gets uncomfortable (for me, at least) so minimizing the acronyms would be super helpful. As a counter-point, though, it could be that each culture/tribe needs their own language that only they can understand and it creates this feeling of comradery? Just a thought.

Lukeas14 6y ago
When you're new to a job everyone expects you to ask a million questions and not know what internal acronyms mean (although it would also be nice if they were documented). It'd be suspicious if a new employee didn't ask enough questions. It may be uncomfortable but you should never feel bad about it. I personally start to struggle with this after the first year when the grace period to ask "stupid" questions is over.

parliament32 6y ago

I feel like people complaining about this didn't grow up in the IRC/IM era. It probably depends on your corp's culture as well, but for us, Slack is a very informal communcation mechanism. If you need to write something formal, you use an email. Slack is equivalent to shouting out to the room (as if you were there in person).

ardy42 6y ago
> I feel like people complaining about this didn't grow up in the IRC/IM era. At one time most written language didn't put spaces between words (some still do), and many languages don't write vowels. That's not a good reason for doing the same in your informal English Slack messages. You can write an informal message and still use punctuation.
- bccdee 6y ago
  you dont have to tho i havent used any but ive been perfectly clear
justin_oaks 6y ago
I think it's less about formalism than it is about clear communication. People will also be confused if you shout out a message to the room without appropriate pauses (commas or periods) or without the right tone (question marks).
- parliament32 6y ago
  But that's the thing, if you ever used IM for a significant amount of time, you know you don't need punctuation. Question marks, yes, he's right about that.. but I certainly don't add periods at the end of every five word chat post. Maybe if you're writing a paragraph in Slack go for it, but if I have a few sentences to say I'll usually just send them in a few messages instead. This whole idea of writing formal multi-sentence messages in Slack shows the author's dissonance with how real-time-chat is supposed to work (keeping in mind that Slack is supposed to be next-generation-corp-IRC).

X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago

It feels to me like the title of this post should reflect the title of the blog post, possibly with [in Slack] appended.

renewiltord 6y ago

This will not have a positive or negative impact on anything.

adjkant 6y ago

The message beyond the HN title actually has potential. However, the author focuses in some odd places for me. As far as punctuation, ending periods actually have negative emotion in text vernacular now for younger audiences and should almost never be used in 1-1 messaging. Exclamation points, commas, and question marks, great! For abbreviations, it's simply know your audience. You should use them when everyone in the room knows them, but you have to think about that first before use. The step of thinking about it is a great mental step to add, but the article presents it more as a steadfast rule. Also, expanding them in parentheses can be a chance to educate your audience for the future even when you have people who don't know, like I'll do below :P To me, the smallest point was actually the most interesting and valuable, and it was skated over entirely - communicating emotion and sentiment, particularly through emoji use. With WFH (Work From Home) especially, communicating emotion is very socially helpful. I've found a lot of engineers think "well I don't care/need so I'll skip the flowery additions for efficiency" and then leave many non-tech people and some engineering coworkers to decipher if this random slack ask is mad, passive aggressive, inquisitive, or a check-in. This has far worse effects longterm often than an unknown acronym. Adding emojis can solve this, or if you don't like those, literally giving more social context in words can also do the trick. When we're talking in person, we always communicate emotion, even when it's not the primary purpose. I think many would do well to include that in their online messaging as well :)

soggybutter 6y ago
100% agree about ending periods. I always read those messages as being irritated or overly firm. Potentially worse, though, are people who have a habit of abusing ellipses (...) in weird places. My boss does this in virtually every sentence, sometimes multiple times, and it always comes off like he can't believe you'd say something so stupid
- necovek 6y ago
  I am not sure why would you think that... If a period is to make a statement firmer, ellipsis does it triple... Like that, right? ;)

ssivark 6y ago

The best form of communication is ultimately based on the amount of shared context (Eg: acronyms), so it’s silly to create rules per the communication medium — slack, email, HN comments, etc. Even within a medium, a slack DM to a friend has very different shared context from a message to a company-wide channel. Being mindful of that, and communicating respectfully, regardless of the actual medium, is likely to be far more useful. Nothing special about Slack. For me, respectful written communication also includes proper punctuation & capitalization — since it makes reading easier.

SkyPuncher 6y ago

I don't think this is good generalized advice. * Posting in a highly-visible channel where most/if not all people will lack context. Treat it like an email and make sure it's punctually and grammatically correct. * Posting in a team channel where the attitude is casual. Pump those messages out pretty much like you're talking them.

doc_gunthrop 6y ago

I think Samuel Johnson (author of the first modern English dictionary) put it well: "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."

slumpt_ 6y ago

“How to date yourself further in a persistently youthful tech workforce.”

MapleWalnut 6y ago

OT: this blog could use RSS.

edw 6y ago

The care and thought you put into your writing, regardless of medium, says everything about how (and how much) you care and are thinking about your audience.

smileysteve 6y ago

Acronyms are such a lossy communication mechanism; Last week; GTM. Go To Meeting Google Tag Manager Go to Market Good to Me It's so frustrating when external requests without context come to me with this.

Jcampuzano2 6y ago

As someone of the younger generation who grew up always using mostly proper punctuation over texts, and avoided abbreviations for common terms this hits home. I'm 28 for reference, and I get VERY different vibes from those younger than me who join slack, and those older (40+ or so). The difference in meaning for different punctuation for these crowds is SO evident, I feel like I'm always playing translator for even the language I grew up speaking and writing. The biggest example of this is the ellipsis among the older crowd. In informal messaging that I grew accustomed to it went from being overused, to nowadays seeming like you are being sarcastic or angry about something. So among the younger crowd I see it almost never used anymore. On the other hand the older generations picked it up from how we used to use it, as a sort of pause. But they co-opted it as probably the most common punctuation used in their messaging. I'm not joking when I will sometimes receive a message from an older coworker that will contain an ellipsis every 5 words or so. It's always been interesting deciphering the actual meaning of some messages based on solely age of the sender. This all to say, deciphering punctuation at all in informal writing is an interesting game.

necovek 6y ago
This sounds highly anecdotal: I am nearing 40 myself and have a bunch of 40+ colleagues, yet I rarely see them use ellipsis! So in order to avoid throwing your anecdata altogether, how many people of each age group did you communicate with using text form?
- Jcampuzano2 6y ago
  You are correct in that it is anecdotal, but across the board among those I interact with it has seemed to reign true. And from those my age I talk to they seem to mostly agree. It could also be a case of when I do see it used regardless of age, it appears to either be overused, or rarely used, and overuse tends to lean older.
  - sethammons 6y ago
    I had the same observation years ago. Like 2001. Folks that were 40+ at the time used ellipsis for pause or dramatic effect vastly more than the younger, tech savvy kids at the time. I've been downvoted previously for the observation. :shrug:

armoredkitten 6y ago

I can't help but feel like the real point the author is trying (not very successfully) to communicate is the importance of considering how other people will interpret and understand your messages. This includes content (will they understand this acronym?), but also includes how they are likely to interpret the tone of your message. Punctuation, grammar, emojis, etc. help to communicate tone -- but that doesn't lend itself to a blanket "always use punctuation" statement. Being too formal can appear cold and aloof; being too informal can appear apathetic or unkind. It's also important to consider the range of reactions. For those who understand an acronym, they likely won't even notice; for those who don't understand it, they risk losing face and potentially looking like an idiot when they have to ask what the acronym means. The "time saved" is helpful, sure, but considering how people will respond goes beyond "how much time will they spend asking a follow-up question?" and also includes "how will they feel if they don't understand this?"

azangru 6y ago

This just goes back to the linguistic maxim, which (I am paraphrasing here) stipulates that the language is always a compromise between the convenience of the producer and the convenience of the consumer. The more common context the producer and the consumer share, the less need there is for punctuation, spelling out abbreviations or other niceties.

rayshan 6y ago

Agreed. My mentor Charles taught me: "engineers are humans too, they deserve proper English, so write proper English in your code comments". This kind of empathy gave humanity and warmth to the NeXT and Apple products he worked on.

Geee 6y ago

I sometimes add typos in messages to make them appear that I wrote them quickly without thinkng.

tpoacher 6y ago

The message effectively seems to be: "The only reason your shortcut is efficient is because it saves you time and effort, at the cost of other people's time and effort". To which I say: "Duh!? What, you thought people who do it don't realise that's the case? That's exactly why they do it, even!".

rhplus 6y ago

The author missing another huge benefit: it will also help improve recall/precision when searching conversation history, especially if that search is 'smart'.

xxpor 6y ago

You can use as many periods as you'd like (including 0) when messaging me, as long as you don't just start with just "hi"

bovermyer 6y ago

Another reason for me to use punctuation, proper grammar, and more advanced vocabulary in Slack is purely personal: I enjoy writing, both as a creative endeavor and a social one. I like to think that sometimes, my chat style gives others a little bit of break-think amidst all the rapid-fire.

nyghtly 6y ago

In academic writing, the general rule is that whenever you introduce an acronym, you must first use the full version. For example: You must always be mindful of privacy laws when handling personal health information (PHI). Remember, that you may only access PHI when necessary to do your job, and never to fulfill personal curiosity about a patient. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for a chat room because it's not meant to be read from beginning to end. My personal rule is to never use acronyms, unless I can follow the above rule. I've worked in many different industries, and learning acronyms has been a consistent and pointless barrier to achieving productivity. I don't want to put that onto anyone else. Even worse, you run the risk of your reader ignoring the lesson entirely, simply because they don't know what the acronym means. In and of itself, "PHI" does not seem any more important than any other acronym. On the other hand, "personal health information," has an obvious connotation of importance.

ctur 6y ago

There is a good book about the evolution of written communication as the Internet evolved. "Because Internet" by Gretchen McCulloch goes into some of the subtle implications of using punctuation such as periods ending sentences, capitalization, etc. Text makes it difficult to convey emotions and subtlety so even using punctuation can add signal to the communication channel. It turns out there is relatively powerful tonal communication through those deviations on "standard" English grammar rules. Similarly, Emoji also acts as a replacement for gesturing. Very interesting book and worth reading to understand how to tailor communication for the medium.

keithnz 6y ago

Not that I use Slack anymore, I use Discord at work... I disagree with the details of this argument, the costs seem strawman ish. You quickly get used to writing styles, chat systems are an ongoing ecosystem and you adapt quickly. What I would suggest is to try and make your messages self contained with context. Avoid private messaging and ask things on open channels, too much information is hidden away in private messages. Even if your question is really for a specific person. Seeing conversations helps build narratives and context for teams.

mcqueenjordan 6y ago

I think the title should be more general. This advice should not be scoped only to "in slack". It should be for any written communication that you actually care about.

qwerty456127 6y ago

Indeed, real-time chats are a horror. A blight that should be removed from the organized collaboration world. I would rather use E-mail, if only there was a FidoNet-like culture of using it properly among the users and the E-mail client software authors (that would enable proper threading and include quoting only the particular parts you answer). IMHO the best communication format is a HN-like comments thread.

ulisesrmzroche 6y ago

Are emojis hyeroglyphs? I’ve got no clue but it would be kinda funny

aaron695 6y ago

We need better (MIT open source) grammar and spelling checkers.

ccarterlandis 6y ago

> this [this fast and loose style] interrupts more productive work and deters deep thinking This doesn't mesh with how I feel toward Slack. Slack itself is the thing that's disrupting my productivity and deterring deeper thinking by pinging me all the time. When I open Slack, the vast majority of the time, I'm looking to express my point as clearly AND concisely as possible so I can get back to doing whatever it was, which is 99% of time more important. As a result I use (or don't use) grammatical conventions, capitalization, and emoji depending on the context of my message and what will allow me to get my entire message across the fastest, and hopefully correctly. If I'm messaging the person I've pairing with all day, or if I'm coordinating with my team about who will pick up a story, I'm much less likely to give my message all the proper formatting. These people what I'm like and how I tend to communicate, and so I can rely on that prior knowledge to "cut corners" here and there. I'm also much, much more likely to use emoji because I can communicate my intentions and my "intonation" nearly instantly, without having to sit there and worry about wordsmithing my whole message. That being said, if I'm message in a large public channel that perhaps has multiple teams or belongs to a team I don't normally interact with, I'll spend much more time wordsmithing and editing to make sure I'm following proper conventions - mostly for the sake of clarity. It does make some very salient points (think about how others could misinterpret your message, expand acronyms/use them sparingly, write to your audience, etc.) but I think they bought a little bit too much into the "Slack has replaced email" argument. For me, the main benefit of Slack over email is the lowered barrier to entry to starting a conversation and the ability to keeping it flowing, and part of achieving that is being okay with lowering the standards of communication.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

spacefiish 6y ago

> this [this fast and loose style] interrupts more productive work and deters deep thinking This doesn't mesh with how I feel toward Slack. Slack itself is the thing that's disrupting my productivity and deterring deeper thinking by pinging me all the time. When I open Slack, the vast majority of the time, I'm looking to express my point as clearly AND concisely as possible so I can get back to doing whatever it was, which is 99% of time more important. As a result I use (or don't use) grammatical conventions, capitalization, and emoji depending on the context of my message and what will allow me to get my entire message across the fastest, and hopefully correctly. If I'm messaging the person I've pairing with all day, or if I'm coordinating with my team about who will pick up a story, I'm much less likely to give my message all the proper formatting. These people what I'm like and how I tend to communicate, and so I can rely on that prior knowledge to "cut corners" here and there. I'm also much, much more likely to use emoji because I can communicate my intentions and my "intonation" nearly instantly, without having to sit there and worry about wordsmithing my whole message. Sure, sending "I'm done for the day" and "I'm done for the day <wave emoji>" mean the same thing, my hope is that by including the waving emoji it shows I'm not signing off out of frustration, but instead that I'm just at the end of my hours and it's time to log off. This is a bit of a contrived example, as I don't think hardly anyone would read the first message and think "they're mad", but I hope my argument is still clear. That being said, if I'm message in a large public channel that perhaps has multiple teams or belongs to a team I don't normally interact with, I'll spend much more time wordsmithing and editing to make sure I'm following proper conventions - mostly for the sake of clarity. The author does make some very salient points (think about how others could misinterpret your message, expand acronyms/use them sparingly, write to your audience, etc.), and as a whole I think erring on the side of more "professional" and "standardized" is always a safe bet, but I can't help but feel that they bought a little bit too much into the "Slack has replaced email" argument (not really his fault, that is how they like to market it). For me, the main benefit of Slack over email is the lowered barrier to entry to starting a conversation and the ability to keeping it flowing; part of achieving that is being okay with somwhat lowering the standards of communication. Unrelated: I posted this comment and then tried to correct a typo, and the edit didn't go through. After I hit "Update" the page would just refresh and the text stayed the same. Anyone seen that before?

effnorwood 6y ago

Fuck off

james_pm 6y ago

Yes. And go back and fix your typos.

chasing 6y ago

Punctuation, capital letters, proper spelling, etc. exist for a reason: They're a standardized set of tools for making our writing clearer and easier to read. In a professional setting, they also indicate a level of thoughtfulness and attention to detail. In my mind, at least. If you can write clearly without using these tools or if you're writing in a situation where style is more important than clarity, fine. Go nuts. If you just can't be bothered to make, like, five extra keypresses... C'mon, man.

ashton314 6y ago

Here is a pet theory of mine: the quality of the discussion on an Internet forum is directly related to the quality of grammar and punctuation. HN scores excellently in this regard. But perhaps this is just my bias. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

odomojuli 6y ago

For myself. General chat: Proper punctuation. Keep sentences terse. Reply promptly. Leave no room for ambiguity. Direct message: Often if a matter takes place outside of a public channel, it is because a duty or responsibility is being delegated to you or a sensitive subject is involved. One should take extra precaution to speak forthrightly to ease the recipient, but also take measures to be prompt and present. Makes a world of difference. The most important thing I've learned about online tone is that it's less about what you say and more about how you tell others to speak to you.

meowface 6y ago

This post is confusing to me. It's titled "Or, a case for using punctuation in Slack", and then spends almost the rest of the post discussing the issue with acronyms/initialisms/shorthand. I totally agree about shorthand. It can be unnecessarily ambiguous. But punctuation isn't related to acronyms, I don't think? As others have pointed out, punctuation over instant-messaging services can add meaning you don't intend. I generally don't capitalize the first letter of sentences or end messages with periods in IM applications. If they had just named it "A case for avoiding use of shorthand in Slack", I'd 100% agree.

peterfield 6y ago

A case for using punctation, in Slack.