18 ms·

Please don't say just hello in chat (2013)

• alpaca128 6y ago
  Also, please send messages once you're done thinking and writing. When someone is so inconsiderate and just does a real-time braindump in the messenger, hitting return every half sentence, I'll mute them.
  • Tenoke 6y ago
    I find this style much better for casual conversations given that it mimics real talk better and I can start thinking/responding from earlier.
    • alpaca128 6y ago
      It doesn't mimic real talk, it's 10x too slow for that. To me being on the receiving end of this is like watching a YouTube video that switches between playback and buffering every few seconds.
  • DangitBobby 6y ago
    Why does this bother you?
    • deeblering4 6y ago
      Possibly because it triggers numerous notifications for a request or question thats not complete yet. That can be quite distracting, especially if the conversation isn’t urgent.
    • corty 6y ago
      because every time someone hits return, the messenger goes bling. Then I'll read what was sent because I was interrupted anyways. Then I'll discover it was incomplete and I can't make sense of it. I'll go back to productive work until the next snippet of this flow of consciousness madness interrupts me. Then I'll read that message, plus the preceding ones for context. Now you interrupted me multiple times, forcing me to read partial stuff over and over again, just to have to wait for your next snippet for it all to maybe make sense. People messaging like the above cause me to mute them and just look at their messages once in a blue moon.
      • jaredsohn 6y ago
        >because every time someone hits return, the messenger goes bling. I realize there are still distractions re: notifications, etc. but I recommend people turn off chat sound effects to make the notifications less distracting. It bugs me when on a Zoom call, I slack something, and I hear the Slack notification sound.
  • planb 6y ago
    I can live with that in chat. It's not an email and I can switch the window and later read it all at once. But please please don't send me voice messages like this!
  • rascul 6y ago
    I prefer to receive multiple messages instead of one long and hard to read wall of text.
  • kamalhm 6y ago
    Absolutely, people who do this instantly goes down on my priority
• ColinWright 6y ago
  As with so much ... it depends. Sometimes when I'm working I need to chat open so I can get urgent requests and feedback. In that case it's really, really annoying for someone to pop something completely different into my feed and just baldly ask the question. It's a form of nerd-sniping[0], showing no consideration for my work mode. Better to pop in something like this: > I have a question, should take you X (second|minutes), ping me when you're free If I'm busy I can ignore it, if I have an expected time of availability I can send that back, and if I'm free now I can send back a "Go!" I strive to get into flow, but sometimes the overall context is such that people should be able to break that with urgent questions. Popping non-urgent questions into my time-line breaks flow and is a destroyer of productivity So "it depends" - having blanket rules such as proposed in the post can be counter-productive. [0] https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/ Edit: I get that not everyone will agree with me, but it's so, so annoying to construct what I hope is a clear, reasoned response, just to get a downvote. And no, this isn't a complaint about getting the downvote, I've learned to expect downvotes when I express a contrary view, even one as mild as this. No, this is an expression of disappointment that someone just won't engage in the discussion. Very disappointing ... usually HN is better than that.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • StavrosK 6y ago
    I, too, am puzzled by your downvotes. > In that case it's really, really annoying for someone to pop something completely different into my feed and just baldly ask the question Why? Can't you just reply whenever you can?
    • xuhu 6y ago
      After someone spent 15 minutes typing a wall of text, it might be rude if you ignore it. Them asking first allows you to tell them to hold off until later.
    • ColinWright 6y ago
      > I, too, am puzzled by your downvotes. OK, so it's not just me, but I can see that others continue to hold contrary opinions. Which, as I say, is fine, I just wish they'd express them (as some have - thank you) and not just downvote without feedback. >> ... annoying for someone to pop something completely different into my feed and just baldly ask the question > Why? Can't you just reply whenever you can? No, because of the nerd-sniping problem. If it's an interesting question that requires thought, I'll inevitably start thinking about it now, even if only in background, resulting in context-switching, and my productivity goes way down. I'm guessing that many in the HN community quite simply work differently from how I work. I'm learning something already from the responses, and I'm getting the sense of a real disconnect between us (me and them, not me and you).
• andersco 6y ago
  Hi, is it ok if I post a comment?
  • mongol 6y ago
    Hi
  • robbyt 6y ago
    Hello
  • nicwolff 6y ago
    Yes, but only one, and that was it.
• lwhi 6y ago
  How about people choose for themselves? Feels that one person's annoyance is another's wish. I don't see why someone's invented manifesto should be used as a guide for everyone.
  • andersco 6y ago
    Except you are imposing your “manifesto” on others by forcing an extra response.
    • lwhi 6y ago
      Really. What? A manifesto of free choice??
  • blablabla123 6y ago
    Almost any request on how communication should be (apart from basic politeness) seems bogus to me. Apart from this, chat is async and rather novel, phone is sync and already around since a bit more than 100 years.
  • burnthrow 6y ago
    Because the thread is an echo chamber of irritable pricks whose time and focus is valuable.
• deeblering4 6y ago
  I also like the notion of “if this will matter tomorrow, don’t use chat”. Especially when working async across time zones. Logging requests and responses in an issue tracker is far more organized and less distracting/stressful.
• andersco 6y ago
  My strategy is to just wait a bit and not respond immediately, to see if they get the message that their initial greeting was useless, and then post what they actually have to say.
  • xuhu 6y ago
    That must work great with your bosses.
    • kapran0s 6y ago
      I do not have bosses per se. The top of the company does not need to address anything to me because the power is very well decentralized. And even if my PO or PM talks directly to me, they just request it in the same message as they greet.
  • politelemon 6y ago
    I have attempted this several times with varying degrees of failure. In some cases, the sender deleted the hello, and then attempted another hello later. In some cases, the sender would wait a few hours and say hello again, or some just email me instead (they must have assumed I am not available). In one exceptional case, I waited 2 days before saying "hello" back, and they then immediately continued the conversation as though no abnormal communication gap had occurred.
  • jghn 6y ago
    A lot of people at DayJob do the "Hi" thing, waiting for a response. Like you, I just don't respond.
• westmeal 6y ago
  Hello
• OskarS 6y ago
  I generally don't like the "steve is typing" notifications that all modern communication apps ahve (it's the weirdest feeling is seeing one of those and then see it disappear without the person sending a message), but for THIS PARTICULAR PURPOSE they work really well. If someone says "hi!" as their first message, you can see that they're typing their follow-up you can just wait for them to finish. Yes, it would be better if they just came out and said what they needed to say, but the typing notification does remove some of the awkwardness.
• NietTim 6y ago
  So much this. Recently got a coworker who does this, it honestly gets frustrating because it complicates communication. You already broke my concentration, get to the point! I've tried explaining it to him but it hasn't gotten across, maybe this will.
• DebtDeflation 6y ago
  This is like every Slack conversation I have with non-technical people at work. "Hello" --"Hi" "You there" -- "Yes" "Do you have a sec?" -- "Sure" <long pause> -- "What do you want???"
• GordonS 6y ago
  Gods, but this drives me absolutely nuts at work. Like OK, what?! It tells me nothing about the urgency of the matter, let alone what it relates to. So I can put it to the side and keep working - but it's going to be nagging at me "hmm, what if it's about x?". So now I've got to break focus and waste time just to find out how important it is, and what it even relates to. I much prefer "Hi, I have a question regarding how to x, could you ping me when you get a chance pls?", or "Hi, we've got an urgent problem with x, the customer is losing their shit, pls help ASAP!" The absolute worst is when the person giving you "hello" is someone you don't know (I work at a megacorp). From "hello" I will plainly have no clue what you want, so wtf?! I wonder if it's a cultural thing. I don't think my colleague in the UK, Norway or Europe have ever done this, but it seems to be just about the only way my colleagues in India start a chat?
  • ballenf 6y ago
    Seems like a great use case for a slack bot. Monitor for naked hellos and show a link to this page. That way it’s not personal.
    • _underfl0w_ 6y ago
      I think you are legitimately on to something. I may actually build that this week if I get some downtime. It would need to be _polite_ though since most people who do this do seem to be generally well-meaning, if unwittingly annoying.
      • dvtrn 6y ago
        Slackbot has an autoresponder / custom response feature built in. Sadly you can’t gate it to PMs. Please share if you do build it, I’ve been looking for a PM auto responder for vacations. They exist but many of them are bundled to other services with features I don’t care about and come at a cost that’s more than I want to pay for just the one feature of actual interest.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• seanwilson 6y ago
  > People who do this are generally trying to be polite by not jumping right into the request Sometimes it's the opposite and used as a trap to force you into answering something awkward on the spot - when you reply "yes?" in chat, they know if they ask something quickly after you'll feel obligated into replying immediately. Obviously I hate games like this but I've worked with others that complain about e.g. managers doing this often so they learn to absolutely dread "hello?" messages even when it turns out to be nothing.
  • dindresto 6y ago
    I generally don't reply to hello messages unless it's from my parents / brother. Whoever tries to message me will just have to go ahead with the actual content or leave it be.
• codingdave 6y ago
  Different people have different communication styles. I have some co-workers who hate it when people do not say hello the first time I talk to them in a day. There are other who I can jump straight to the question even having not talked for months. And I have one coworker who will ignore your questions until you stop, say hello, and talk to them a bit about how things are going. Anyone who gets to know their coworkers and change their own communication style to match their desires ends up having effective communications with them all. On the other hand, dictating that everyone must cater to your own style can give you a reputation of being difficult to work with.
  • username90 6y ago
    Just say "Hello, how do I do X?" and you are nice to both crowds.
• DebtDeflation 6y ago
  "Is the item still available?"
• 0xbadcafebee 6y ago
  I would not share this page at work. This is basically a scolding. If you want anyone to change their behavior, the messaging needs to be empathetic and kind. (Or highly threatening, I guess)
• jasode 6y ago
  >People who do this are generally trying to be polite by not jumping right into the request, like one would in person or on the phone - and that's great! Different people have different reasons but I notice that many people that do a naked "hi" / "hey" are trying to see if the receiver is present for an immediate reply. In other words, the sender deliberately wants a synchronous instead of asynchronous convo. They don't want to type out a bunch of words for a question if the reply isn't going to happen for a few hours. EDIT to reply: "Then send it in an email." To clarify, some people don't want an async communication so switching to email doesn't solve their problem at all. The issue is that some personality styles do not like sending questions into an indeterminant void. Thus, a naked "hi" for them is shorthand for "r u there to talk to me RIGHT NOW?" I sympathize with their need for immediacy but I made a previous comment on why it drives me crazy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17255452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17255452 Yep, some people are really confused as to why many async-preference people like me do not want to answer the phone.
  • mackatsol 6y ago
    Thank you. I never thought of it that way before. Much appreciated.
  • jethro_tell 6y ago
    For me, it can also be a privacy thing. Sometimes I want to validate that my chat is not going to got onto a presenters screen somewhere.
    • hedora 6y ago
      This is why I use slack in a web browser, and don’t give it permission to display notifications. I wish there was a way to permanently disable the “you have disabled notifications” prompts though.
      • tuwtuwtuwtuw 6y ago
        Hmm I just disabled notifications in the normal slack client. Not sure why you would use the web browser?
• mackatsol 6y ago
  I don't mind that 'hello' or 'hi mackatsol' .. as I know more is coming. What drives me crazy is people who say "can I ask you a question?" I really try hard not to say "you just did". None of those compare to those folks who do not understand that to help them we need details. How do I infer what a problem is without any details? I used to ask all sorts of questions so as to be able to help them. Now I tend to post a 'More details please! Once I have those I can help you.' What amazes me is that sometimes we get no response at all! (By we I mean those of us in the channel/group). Note that these are co-workers who have been told many many times that we need some basic details to be able to do anything at all, like a client's domain name, or a client id in our CMS.
  • dvtrn 6y ago
    I feel this in my bones, and have been trying to get engineering managers to work with their teams on creating better tickets because in a company of nearly a two hundred developers including a massive overseas contingent, but a painfully understaffed ops and infrastructure team of 3: “My build doesn’t work, please prioritize” Does not help me help you. I wish I were making it up that this is the level of detail with which people ask my team to stop what they are doing and render aid (we don’t, when it’s that bare). These are developers who you’d think would know how to flesh out an error ticket and at least be somewhat specific in what they’re asking for. What build? What repo is the build pipeline attached to? What’s the error message (many of the times these were errors that could have been self-solved if the developer bothered read the error message to notice they forgot to close a bracket. I’ve pointed to this to their leads. It doesn’t change) Do you know how many developers are using the pipelines we’ve build for them? Do you realize how many development initiatives are going on? I’d hope so, we Go over then as a tech division with a regular cadence. What product are you working on? Which feature branch? How about so much as a screenshot or a link to the repo where the build is failing? So. What I’ve done is gone to all of their engineering leads, showed them examples of the ticket. Explained my problem. And told them “if your people can’t help us enough by being descriptive and at least putting a link to the build with the error they’re seeing, it’s not getting prioritized it won’t even be triaged”
    • 6y ago
• eel 6y ago
  Prior to extended remote work, I used to feel this way when people just sent a single hello. But now I use it as an invitation to make small talk. So if someone just says hello, I start asking them questions: how's it going, how's is <whatever fact I remember about them>, etc. This makes some people go straight to their original question, but I think it also helps both of us feel a little more connected while everyone is remote.
  • _underfl0w_ 6y ago
    Interesting! I and several on my team feel the opposite. This extended remote work has been a breathe of fresh air - no longer so burdened by unnecessary social conventions like small talk, except at predetermined times such as "virtual happy hour".
• dfboyd 6y ago
  I am the original author of the document this document was based on. It was an internal Wiki page at Google written when I was an SRE. After I wrote the original page, someone put up an internal shortlink at "go/nohello". After I left Google, someone took the Wiki page content and [illegally, since it was Google confidential, simply from being on the internal Wiki], and put it up on the net at "nohello.com". The linked article at nohello.net is a paraphrase of the nohello.com content; compare the list of salutations (especially "yt?) and the paragraphs at the end mentioning "asynchronous communication". ("yt?" was a favorite of Raymond B---., who was in many ways my mentor at Google and who I'm forever grateful to.)
  • 0xbadcafebee 6y ago
    I doubt any judge would consider this confidential information. If you copied the sentence "Apples are red." from an internal wiki, would that be confidential?
  • shiftpgdn 6y ago
    I mean it's not an original idea and trying to keep it locked up in Google's internal wiki system isn't doing anyone any favors. Go look at all the posts on /r/sysadmin where everyone says to just ignore the "hello" slack/teams messages.
    • benhurmarcel 6y ago
      I wish you could just configure the app to not notify you for a first "hello" message, unless it's been 5 minutes or something. While I'm at it, it shouldn't send you multiple notifications for messages arriving in short sequence.
      • andai 6y ago
        > multiple notifications for messages arriving in short sequence Oh god, I know people who average three words per line, and I just have them permanently muted so my screen doesn't fill up with a giant stack of shit. But then I never hear when they message me, which isn't ideal either, because sometimes it's important.
• hyko 6y ago
  Note that there’s nothing wrong with adding pleasantries to an IM, the problem is that you’re passing the conversation to your partner at the wrong point. The SYN-ACK bit at the start is awkward and unnecessary.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• piinbinary 6y ago
  A problem with saying "hi" and then waiting is it turns an asynchronous communication medium into a synchronous one. Say you have a question for me, but I'm in a meeting (or it's past working hours in my timezone). By the time I respond to your "hi", you might now be in a meeting (or it might be before your working hours, the next day). Finally you ask the question, and I respond the next time I'm available. This could easily cause a question that takes 30 seconds to answer to have 24 hours of latency. Or I might be busy doing something else or talking to someone else. Waiting for me to respond to "hi" is basically demanding real-time access to my focus. I don't have the capacity to always have live conversations with everyone who wants one. Just posting a (complete, thought-out) question allows me to devote just a short window of focus, and do so only when I have that focus to spare.
• eecks 6y ago
  The only good reasons I can think of are: * To ensure the other person isn't in a meeting. The sender might not want the text to be broadcast unintentionally. * To force a synchronous conversation. I think this is pretty rude though. What would be better would be some context and an aim to get a time that suits both people. Something like: "Hi Mark, do you have any time today to get together to discuss the ongoing database issues? I have two potential ideas for the cause."
  • corty 6y ago
    Both are good reasons for "Hi, I need to discuss something confidential", "Hi, may I have your immediate undivided attention" or maybe a phone call. Just "Hi" doesn't convey enough of the intent.
• mirekrusin 6y ago
  "hi" = "yo" = "are you currently online and free to be asked possibly quick question?"
  • whatshisface 6y ago
    As the article explains, why would you ever care about asking that? If you can send "hi" you can send the question.
• BrandoElFollito 6y ago
  I ALWAYS say hello as the first thing in any chats that have some kind of importance. Why? because the person may be presenting to 200 people and my message will be displayed. They may be with someone and they cannot communicate. If this is a message of the kind "lunch at 12?" then fine, but anything remotely sensitive starts with hello, and I wait for that person to respond.
  • 11235813213455 6y ago
    It's fine to say Hello, as long as it's immediately followed by something consistent, preferably in the same message
    • BrandoElFollito 6y ago
      No, the point is to say "hello" and nothing else. And wait for the other person to reply, I then assume it is safe to chat. This is obviously for more sensitive/professional settings but directly saying "we have had a 100M loss because of that M&A", even on a safe IM, is irresponsible because this is likely to pop up on their screen.
      • bsmithers 6y ago
        I don't get this at all. What happens if they reply to you - maybe hours later - when you are the one presenting?
        • BrandoElFollito 6y ago
          They will say "hello" and wait for me :)
  • hezag 6y ago
    You can just ask the person to let you know when they are available to talk to you. This way you are less prone to interrupt the person and also don't expose sensitive information.
• wired_devil 6y ago
  I just do not reply anything for the next 15 minutes until they say what it is about.
• jtr1 6y ago
  I get a lot of these and try to assume that it's the person wanting to be polite. Starting a conversation without a greeting is very rude in a lot of cultures. But yes, it's annoying in chat form, and especially when the conversation is left dangling. Depending on the situation, I'll write out what I'd like to say, then copy it before starting off with a "hello". If the person starts typing, I'm ready to follow up with the request. If not, I'll prepend it with: "when you have a minute", or whatever makes sense given the urgency of the request. And I'll generally only start with the "hello" if it's the first time we've interacted that day. We've also experimented a little bit on my team with prepending asynchronous messages with emojis: a turtle means you can take your time, an alarm means it's urgent, a custom thumbs up/thumbs down emoji means you just need a yes or no answer.
  • _underfl0w_ 6y ago
    The emoji symbols seem like a good idea, but unfortunately just because its the first time you've communicated with a person for the day, doesn't mean that they _aren't_ incredibly busy. We may have different work cultures, but I used to report to someone who would lead with a bare "Hey!" and I eventually found that if I waited long enough she would either elaborate or the issue would go away. Somehow I don't think that was her actual plan.
• JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  In conversation, the equivalent is "I just have a quick question". No you don't. You just wasted time on that sentence. An actual quick question would be, just the question. Just ask it. For god's sake. That's my pet peeve anyway.
• ramosu 6y ago
  I miss the times when people had to deal with problems that really matter.
• toxik 6y ago
  Kind of dystopian to forego pleasantries in the name of productivity, to be honest. There is a point to be made here, sure, but there is also something sad about it.
  • raspyberr 6y ago
    But the first thing the article says to do instead is say "Hi" or "as many pleasantries as you see fit". Did you read it?
    • toxik 6y ago
      I did, yes. Did you read my comment?
      • FabHK 6y ago
        All the article advocates is this: "Hi Peter. Did you get the memo requiring new cover sheets for the TPS report?" rather than "Hi" "Peter" "We have sort of a problem here." "Yeah" "You know, we put the new cover sheets on all the TPS reports now before they go out" "Yeah" "Did you get the memo?"
• moralestapia 6y ago
  I get the point but we would go further if we just stopped trying to police other peoples' peculiarities ... particularly ones as trivial as these.
• benburton 6y ago
  Imagine being so socially inept that you write a manifesto to dictate how others greet you.
• michaelcampbell 6y ago
  I tend to agree with this, but a friend of mine and I have had a number of conversations that could be potentially embarrassing if anyone else saw them, like during a presentation or meeting. If this is going to be a potentially "eyes only" convo, we'll start with "cyt" for "can you talk". Any answer but an affirmative is taken to be "no", including no answer. Works great.
  • wenc 6y ago
    Agree with this. Even in real life, it’s good practice to say, “hi I have a question. Is this a good time?” It gives the party the option to say “yes” or “give me 5 minutes?” Just saying “hi” isn’t good online etiquette in my opinion.
• u678u 6y ago
  I hate this so much. It seems to be a culture thing too where people in our Asia offices always do it. I'm sure I seem really rude to them when I ignore, or suddenly ask questions without doing the "hi" handshake.
  • kijin 6y ago
    Asian here. Yeah, it feels a little rude to start asking questions without first going through the equivalent of a SYN+ACK handshake. I usually compromise by sending two messages in quick succession. I write the actual question first, Ctrl+X it, send a "hi" first, Ctrl+V the question back into the textarea, and send it immediately afterward so that I don't waste the recipient's time.
• devops000 6y ago
  Why did you create a webpage just for this?
• jmull 6y ago
  I think the right way to deal with the frustration of this is to find a way to let of your frustration. Why? Because carping about it here and making web sites for this is going to change nothing. There are reasons people start chats like this, and those reasons aren’t going to go away, so this is going to keep happening whether it annoys you or not. * They want to have a live chat with you and are trying to see if you are available for this. “Hi” -> “Are you currently available for a conversation?” * A message that jumps right to the point can be considered rude or disrespectful, especially if the sender is going to ask you for something, and double if they are going to ask you for something difficult or outside your routine responsibilities. Culture, personalities of both parties, and the dynamic of the relationship between them all play a role here. Sometimes a person starting a chat feels they need to move slowly.
  • ballenf 6y ago
    Maybe a more nuanced status instead of just green could help. Like Purple means I’m signed in and available for synchronous chat.
    • arpa 6y ago
      It's called "active". Async is "away"
• epr 6y ago
  I used to have a big customer that started every text conversation this way and it drove me nuts. Me: [question about requirement] Him: Hey buddy, how are you doing? Me: Oh, great man, you? (Thinking: less great now that you are turning this into a big thing) Him: Great, [talks about non work-related shit] (10 minutes and several texts later) Him: [one sentence response to my original question] I really liked this guy, but god damn he loved to chat. He spent about half of my onsite time talking on the phone with his mother or wife. I always wondered how he got anything done, since he clearly did this when I wasn't there as well according to his coworkers.
• codeulike 6y ago
  I dont agree with this. Its good to be polite. Also if you throw your question into the chat without first verifying that they are seeing it and responding then you can end up asking the question, then they dont see it, then it hangs around for ages, then they see it hours later when it might not be relevant anymore and it causes confusion. Saying hello is fine, and polite, our social instincts are pretty good generally, dont worry about the 'lost productivity'. There are ephemeral benefits - the feeling of connection as you wait for them to type their question in real time.
  • ballenf 6y ago
    Ask the question and then follow up with a nvm if they take longer to answer than is useful. You can do it politely and explain you got the answer or whatever.
    • codeulike 6y ago
      True
  • oauea 6y ago
    hi codeulike - you there? I'd like to reply to your post. Can you please confirm you are available?
  • vultour 6y ago
    You really need to stop doing this, it’s only making people hate you.
    • codeulike 6y ago
      Stop doing what?
  • tene 6y ago
    If you believe the comments of people advocating nohello are about "lost productivity", I recommend you try re-reading this comment thread with a bit more empathy, looking for the emotions behind the comments. You mention our social instincts. For a lot of people, nohello is exactly what our social instincts are pushing for. For us, a bare "hello" without any context or information is uncomfortable, and feels rather rude. A big part of politeness, courtesy, and etiquette is helping people feel comfortable, meeting them where they are. For me personally, and I think a lot of others who agree with nohello, a bare "Hello" with no content or context gives me nothing to work with, nothing to say, nothing to grab on to to understand what kind of conversation I'm having. You mention a "feeling of connection" while waiting for someone to type the rest of their question, but to me it only feels like disrespect. When people talk about things you summarize as "lost productivity", it's not about a desire to advocate the interests of the company, but instead it's expressing that for people like us, these kinds of content-free social rituals feel disruptive to the flow of work, and that these disruptions feel irritating, uncomfortable, and disrespectful. It feels like a violation of our culture's etiquette. Feel free to say hello, include as many social pleasantries as you like in your messages, but please also include at least some meaningful content about your goals or intentions.
• delecti 6y ago
  This problem was driving me insane in the early days of WFH last year. I'm the most senior engineer on the team, so am often reached out to for information, and I had to start enforcing some protocols for getting my attention. I've sent this exact link to multiple members of my team in response to a "Hi", because getting distracted by the message and then having to wait for the actual question was causing me significant stress. It's worked, and I strongly recommend it. It was probably a bit impolite to do, but I had to enforce boundaries for my own sake. Incidentally, I think doing so has also helped a ton with people asking if they could call me. If they first have to state their question via text, it lets me triage whether this is an issue that needs a call or not. That was a much more significant benefit, because a voice chat is an even bigger breaker of flow than waiting for the question after a "hi".
• munaf 6y ago
  I do this if I don't want a notification popping up on the person's computer when someone else might be looking (i.e. I don't know if they're sharing their screen, which is common on teams I work with).
• vortico 6y ago
  Also: https://dontasktoask.com/ https://dontasktoask.com/
• Cd00d 6y ago
  I think it's amusing that both the "don't do" and "do this" examples are exactly the same length and time investment for both parties. I agree with the author, but it does mildly undermine the point.
  • FabHK 6y ago
    No. For the sender, yeah, time and effort is the same (or even less, as it saves hitting carriage return/newline once), which makes it more infuriating. Because for the recipient there is an extra latency of several seconds after the useless "hi" message during which he cannot sensibly continue with his current task (switching cost), but cannot quickly resolve the interrupt either, because it is unclear what the issue is.
• plandis 6y ago
  Saying “hello” with no immediate follow up is just as useless as saying “I have a problem” without context. It provides no useful/actionable information and just shows how little the person saying hello values your time because it forces your attention and prevents you from prioritizing an answer efficiently.
  • qw 6y ago
    Adding context will also makes it possible for you to actually prepare for the answer. In a busy workplace this can be a huge time saver. Another thing I hate is the people who just say "Hello" and then disappear for some reason. Even if I say "Hi" back after 20 seconds, they don't answer for several minutes. Then I just waste time staring at the screen...
• DC1350 6y ago
  Good content, but I'm not impressed to see the page using the white supremacist emoji in the "what to do" section.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• bobm_kite9 6y ago
  This is generally true. However, sometimes I like to ‘bury’ a hard-to-answer question in a follow up. The reason is, if you ask the question straight off, people have the option of pretending they haven’t seen it. They can’t do that if you’ve already exchanged pleasantries and made the conversation synchronous. Devious, I know.
• robthebrew 6y ago
  "Please don't just say hello in chat": order of words is everything. I have never said "just hello" in chat.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• utopkara 6y ago
  Depends on the people involved. Some are likely to be sharing screen in a presentation at any given time, then it is the expected way of starting a chat. Others would be unlikely to be in meetings often, then it is plain unnecessary (and even pretentious).
• johnchristopher 6y ago
  What's HN take on short messages vs long messages in slack/signal/whatsapp ? I was recently asked to make longer messages rather than short sentences when exposing ideas in the flow of the conversation (I think the manager was annoyed by incessant notifications on his phone but he could either keep the screen on or turn them off instead of telling me I could use shift-enter :D). I don't intend to change my style though, chat isn't email.
  • ScoobleDoodle 6y ago
    Yikes. Screw that noise, literally. Your messaging habit of sending each message fragment as a new notification is the most annoying. 5 messages to communicate one thought? You have no respect for other people or their attention and are so self centered that even at their explicit request you can’t use the shift key when hitting enter. You,re the type of communicator I’d have to look up Slack documentation to mute all messages. And forever more you would get no synchronous responses. And that’d be ok: you lack respect, you don’t deserve respect.
    • johnchristopher 6y ago
      Jeez, that's some vitriol and some ad hominem here. Calm down, would you ? > Your messaging habit of sending each message fragment as a new notification is the most annoying. 5 messages to communicate one thought? Not 5 messages to send one thought. 3 different messages (each message being one full sentence) to send three distinct points that led to a fourth message being a conclusion. > You have no respect for other people or their attention That's a very broad statement about me based on a single specific instance of an event. Don't do that. In a fucking semi-formal heated whatsapp conversation with 5 other people messaging back and forth ? Give me a break. It doesn't change anything to the flow. Either he was reading and participating or he was not. If he was participating then it's all the same. Different messages are equivalent to punctuation, emphasis and bullet points. If he was not participating then he simply has to turn off notifications from everyone or the whole app if he doesn't want to be pinged. 103 messages instead of 100 is showing no respect ? As if. > are so self centered that even at their explicit request you can’t use the shift key when hitting enter Yeah, I won't because it's not needed and not justified at all. One giant fucking blob of text coming after all the other messages and being out of sync with the live conversation because you were busy writing your Proust version of your advice on a Whatsapp vs XMPP ? That's not how IRC, slack or anything ever worked. That's what email is for. Especially when two minutes later he and another were firing "ok" and "testing" messages in the same conversation. So no, I don't take your accusation of being self-centered that well. Want a practical point why it's better to split your ideas in different messages ? Because then you can hit the reply button and every other participants know that this reply will be to that particular point. Not the pedantic but carefully crafted useless train of sentences and a thousand word long comment you slap in everyone's face. It's a conversation not a long distance snail mail relationship. > You,re the type of communicator I’d have to look up Slack documentation to mute all messages. And forever more you would get no synchronous responses. And that’d be ok: you lack respect, you don’t deserve respect. What's that ghetto outlook of respect you are trying to pull now ? Respect is not something you take off the table when the other side doesn't conform to what you think respect is. It's basically the opposite of what you should if you ever want to come to a compromise or a mutually beneficial solution to both parties. Something clearly you are not ready to do. The type of communicator and self righteous person I'd have to look up Slack documentation to mute all messages. PS: I also didn't take well the "do you know you can use shift enter ?". Jeez, I was using IRC years before that guy ever first installed messenger on his iphone. PPS: now that I think about it I wonder what would happen if I replied "you know there's a built-in spelling and grammatical checker in your mail client?" because not only are their email lacking formatting (they write like they are texting) but they are full of grammatical and spelling mistakes that would get them to fail their primary school exams. And not taking the time to write correctly is clearly a lack of respect and lazyness, right?
• dvtrn 6y ago
  Since we’re all bitching about communication annoyances, let me ask this: Which is worse? - Naked ‘Hello’/‘Are you there’ messages? Or - Having your “DND/In a meeting/On Vacation” status indicator completely ignored by “Are you there?” Messages?
• rvz 6y ago
  Hello.
• secondcoming 6y ago
  Depending on who it is, I generally leave them hanging. If it's important they'll add something soon after. If it's not, or they can get an answer elsewhere, they'll just forget they messaged me until I eventually reply at a time convenient for me.
• city41 6y ago
  On a similar note, please don't send a private message to someone asking a technical question more suitable for a channel. It puts unfair pressure on the receiver, denies others who could help the opportunity to do so, and doesn't help others who have the same question (including the answer not being archived in search).
  • logbiscuitswave 6y ago
    At my BigCorp just finding the right channel can be very difficult and channels can be a lightly monitored dead end. That being said I have no problem if someone says, “can you ask this on the Foobar channel?”
    • city41 6y ago
      Yeah I get that. That was the case at my last job as well. But I also said "can you ask in foo channel?" several times a day, every day. It truly got old and was a pretty big distraction. That's why whenever nohello comes up, I make my original comment.
• arpa 6y ago
  Chat is not email. It's perfectly normal to do a handshake (syn? Syn ack. Syn ack.) in this medium, as it's fine to say "hello" or "mushi-mushi" at the beginning of the phone convo. Please don't push your lack of social skills on others.
  • mgalgs 6y ago
    "social skills" LMAO. This is highly annoying and absolutely not good chat etiquette. Just ask your damn question!
    • arpa 6y ago
      Spend 20 more years on irc before teaching me online etiquette.
• lambda_obrien 6y ago
  I just say my request with the urgency: "Hey, how do i do X with a microservice? Not urgent, take your time." Or "Hey, my service is crashing and I'm not sure why, can you look at it in the next few minutes and see if you can help? If not, I'll ask X or Y, no worries, thanks."
• whoknew1122 6y ago
  This is a practically a motto in my org at AWS. During any point in the day, I'm usually: 1.) Doing my actual job 2.) Chatting with a work friend 3.) Helping 1-3 other engineers with their jobs If you just say 'Hi [name]', you're going right to the bottom of the priority list. I got things to do right now. Just tell me what you need from me so we can get down to business. When things are less busy we can chop it up and chat. But if I don't know you, I'm not going out of my way to see what you want from me. Especially since I got 3-4 other balls I'm juggling at the same time.
• AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  The offshore people on one of my big corporate jobs used to do this with such ubiquity they must have been coached to do it.
• jasonv 6y ago
  You don’t actually need to ask what they need. You just need to acknowledge your presence. I usually just write “Hello” back to hello’s and things get started. I find the styles differ based on a few factors: if someone says hi because we don’t work together very often, that makes sense. My teammates usual just throw the whole request into the hello. There’s also the issue that if I don’t answer immediately the initiator might need to find someone else. If they write their whole request out and I’m not there, it creates a demand incongruity especially if I try and work it (or provide an answer) 15 minutes later but someone else is already on it. There’s also the factor that sometimes the person you need help from is the same person who has 40K unread emails in their inbox and doesn’t make it to all the meetings they accept. That’s another issue, but those people are also the kind of people who are subject to the most varied attempts at communication initiation.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• hi41 6y ago
  I say hello to know if the recipient isn’t sharing his screen in another meeting. Otherwise they will see my message.
• jayd16 6y ago
  Its a silly thing but many years ago the Andorid dev IRC channel's pinned subject was "Don't ask to ask. Just ask." I feel like that helped me, haha.
  • FabHK 6y ago
    Yes. And goes to show that async chat is totally different from a presentation, where I've been recommended this structure: 1. Tell them what you're going to tell them. 2. Tell them. 3. Tell them what you've told them.
• jancsika 6y ago
  Imagine some idiot trolling a tcp mailing list about the futility of connection establishment, wasting the time of the experts, then digging deeper and claiming even if there's a reason for it there's still no sensible way to automate the process of responding to the initial request. That's what it feels like every time programmers attempt to "socialize" users to their incompetently designed, user-hostile software.
• napkin 6y ago
  I totally relate. But my even greater peeve is the unaccompanied personal question 'how are you?', especially after a period of little to no communication. It's in these moments I feel forced to analyze the give-and-take balance with contacts. I don't like being called to attention without at least a small offering. I try very hard to reflect this when reaching out to people myself.
  • midev 6y ago
    You are way overanalyzing it. This is some internalized thing, not a problem on anyone else. You don't need to analyze the "give-and-take balance with contacts" just because someone said hi, or asked how you are.
• nullc 6y ago
  I don't think this advice is useful because a lot of the time the reason people are doing this is the reason people don't like it. When someone states their request outright the recipient may be "conditionally there" based on the content of the request: They'll reply if they find the question interesting/relevant and worth interrupting what they're doing and put it off otherwise. The asker, however, would prefer their question get answered. If they first determine if the recipient is present there will be social pressure to answer the following question, even if its a waste of the recipient's time at the moment. The recipient may find it aggravating to have people soft-force them to pre-commit to responding when they don't even know what will be asked.
  • nelsondev 6y ago
    There may be some who are doing this deliberately based on the reasons you mentioned; but for me personally, and my guess is for others, I did it out of ignorance of the frustration it gave the other person. Once I had awareness, I could change my behavior. So the article is useful.
  • nullc 6y ago
    Aside, the best work around I've found is replying to prompts is with something like "I'm kinda here, in and out-- just leave a message and I'll get to it when I make my way back around to the chat window." You're around, but you're not committing to reply on any particular time-frame. They'll often keep doing it, but at least you don't have to feel pressured to accept a synchronous conversation sight-unseen.
  • allknowingfrog 6y ago
    I'm aware of this motivation, and it's the reason that I deliberately delay responding to "hey" messages. If I don't know what you want, then I also don't know whether I have time to think about it right now. It's a bit of an arms race.
  • fukmbas 6y ago
    Just because I respond with "what's up?" Or "hey" does not mean I will immediately respond to the request. In fact I usually come back to these types of chats an hour or so later kind of as a punishment. You have to train-UP your peers and customers to set expectations. It may sound brash but we're not here to make friends and constantly being interrupted while in deep thought is not healthy.
• kissgyorgy 6y ago
  We pinned a similar article to our team Slack channel: https://m.signalvnoise.com/from-an-internal-basecamp-announcement-re--pings-ims/ https://m.signalvnoise.com/from-an-internal-basecamp-announc...
• Grustaf 6y ago
  This is how normal people communicate. If you want them to behave differently to satisfy your desire for extreme computer like efficiency, you’ll probably have kore success if you’re less confrontational about it.
• yottalove 6y ago
  I always identify myself and recognize the voice or text of my counterpart before diving into the subject. At least I do after mistakenly blurted something solely for my spouse into an old group chat.
• jMyles 6y ago
  I have to say: I find this reasoning (which of course is not new - it's been a guideline on many IRC channels for over a decade, maybe longer) and also many of the responses here to be quite inhumane. I provide plenty of support - internal and world-facing, and I have no problem with people starting with 'hello', and I often do so myself. And then I say, "hello, how are you?" ...because our first priority as humans is to care about each other. If you are having a mental health breakdown, living in fear or heartache, if your basic, fundamental human needs aren't met, then I want to know that first. It doesn't matter who you are or why I'm in a position to be a support channel for you, my first priority is to hear from you if you need help. Fuck man, that's what support is. If you are only willing to support a product and not a person, you aren't ready for a support role. 99.9% of the time, people get straight to the point. But in the 1/1000 time that somebody says, "actually, I'm struggling a bit; my Mom got detained by ICE this morning" it is everyone's job to support that need first. Merging the PR can wait a few minutes so that this person can be safely heard. And that's what 'hello' and 'hello, how are you?' establish.
• baliex 6y ago
  https://nohello.com https://nohello.com
• hutchisonc 6y ago
  Many of the commenters here need to learn how to take a few deep breaths and not take it so seriously. Not everyone is going to communicate the way you want and that’s fine.
• upofadown 6y ago
  Them: Hi! Me: (thinks) Aww, how nice! I am thinking about you too, random coworker! Later when I see the coworker in person... Me: I got your "Hi!". So Hi! back! Them: I had a question. Why didn't you respond? Me: I wanted to say "Hi!" in person! I guess your question got lost, I never saw it.
• dkarl 6y ago
  This is an annoying way to ask a question, but it makes sense for answering one. ("Hey dkarl, can you reach out to so-and-so; he needs some help with the plagtron events tables.") If you're there right now, we can chat for a few seconds so I can clarify your question and give you exactly the information you need. If you're not there, I'm going to spend twenty minutes writing something comprehensive, especially if we're in different time zones and your day tomorrow will start six hours before mine. Sometimes it's good to default to a comprehensive write-up if it will be useful for a long time to multiple people, but it can be a bit wasteful if you write up a thorough description of a relational schema and it turns out they just wanted to know why there was a particular index on a particular table.
• ridaj 6y ago
  These kinds of things are personal preference. Top reasons I do want people to say hello to me first over IM: * Other people looking at my screen. Common when working out designs, in person or remote * I'm presenting my screen publicly and might have forgotten to turn off notifications * I might be busy and want you to email me instead so that I'll get to your request on my own time * I don't want you to think that I got your message if I haven't especially if it's set to be deleted on some timer That said I recognize that some people who don't have these problems have a "nohello" preference. I generally advise people to make their preferences explicitly known without sounding like there's only "one true way" of doing business when it comes to communication modes (and to respect others' preferences).
  • oauea 6y ago
    Right, so you want other people to work around your forgetfulness? Your private messages are intended to be private. If you're knowingly displaying them during a presentation, that is very rude of you.
    • ridaj 6y ago
      ?? I didn't say I would knowingly display them, that would be rude. I'm saying it can happen, for example when someone is passing by and you're showing something to them on your screen, or yes if one is forgetful about notifications during a presentation, but everyone is forgetful at some point...
• ealhad 6y ago
  Nice. Any plans to make translations? I think it could be useful to a lot of people.
• globular-toast 6y ago
  The rule normally stated on IRC is "don't ask to ask". You'll find that in IRC channel topics everywhere (although I have noticed many geeks going soft and trying to be more "approachable" these days). People asking to ask really pisses geeks off (me included). This was one of the first things that made me realise that I'm very similar to a very small number of other fellow geeks, and very different from most people. Most people think they're being polite by asking to ask. We think they're being rude by wasting our time on such pointless pleasantries. I like that this page uses The Office for its examples. I don't think it will do any good, though. People either get why you don't ask to ask, or they don't. And some people don't value their time (let alone your time) as highly as you value yours.
• surfsvammel 6y ago
  In the old ICQ times, back in 1996, instant messaging was a bit different. At least to me. Back then, we always sent a single “Hi”. Just as an acknowledgment that we where both online at the same time. The chat was also a more central thing back then, it was a major part of even being online. Nowadays. Everyone is online , always. The chat is not as central anymore and it’s like the need to acknowledge each other like that, no longer is as relevant.
  • namelosw 6y ago
    This. We are being too much overloaded by information and tasks nowadays. There was even a time we take our time just for chatting and it actually felt good.
• r0m4n0 6y ago
  tldr plz take this very short survey: https://linkto.run/p/SXDD5T38 https://linkto.run/p/SXDD5T38 After reading many of the comments here, it actually seems like most people think there is good enough reason to still use a quick hello (as do I). I’m curious though... so I made the survey. With the result I might just change my ways :)
• graton 6y ago
  Same idea back in 2009 for IRC https://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2014/02/20/naked-pings/ https://blogs.gnome.org/markmc/2014/02/20/naked-pings/ From: Adam Jackson To: memo-list Subject: On “ping” etiquitte Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:21:30 -0500 IRC has developed a “ping” convention for getting someone’s attention. It works because most clients will highlight channels in which your name has been mentioned, so something like ajax: ping will make that channel show up pink instead of white for me [1]. I wish to correct, or at least amend, this behaviour. The naked ping should be Considered Harmful, for at least two reasons. The first is that it conveys no information. The recipient of your ping, like you, is a Busy Person. They may be in the middle of something requiring intricate thought, and should not be interrupted for anything less than fire, flood, or six figures of revenue. Worse, _you_ may forget why you pinged someone; when, four hours later, your victim gets back to IRC and responds to you, _you_ will be disrupted in turn trying to remember what was on your mind in the first place. The second, more subtle reason proceeds from the first. A ping with no data is essentially a command. It’s passive-aggressive; it implies that the recipient’s time is less valuable than yours. [2] The pingee will respond in one (or both) of two ways. Either they will experience increased stress due to increased unpredictable demands on their time, or they will simply ignore naked pings. The fundamental issue here is a misunderstanding of the medium. IRC is not a telephone. It’s volatile storage. The whole reason the ping works is because the client remembers seeing the ping, and can save it in your history buffer so you can see who was talking to you and why. The naked ping removes this context. Please. Save your time. Save my time. Make all of our lives more efficient and less stressful. Ping with data. At a minimum: ajax: ping re bz 534027 See the difference? Now you’ve turned slow, lockstep, PIO-like interaction into smooth pipelineable DMA. It’s good for your hardware, and it’s good for you. [1] – irssi 4 life. [2] – Their time may well be less valuable than yours. That’s not the point. – ajax
• unabst 6y ago
  The proper response to "hello" is just "hello". I was annoyed at first, but when I saw the phone of one of the kids that kept doing it, I saw his message app had 1283 unread messages. They basically can't keep up with each other, and "hello" is a way of inserting yourself in the queue. That's them calling. You not answering is you not picking up. So ya, ignore it too if you want. Communication guidelines are necessary and enforcable at a workplace, but this is also no big deal. Being annoyed by it is a problem, and really is your problem until you make it a problem for the person doing it. And it becomes a power issue. So without the guideline and without it being enforced, they may judge you for judging them or be offended by you thinking you can change their behavior. With that said, communication is a skill that does seem to be lacking. A lot of so called "teams" will have information going around in circles in a game of telephone. Then there are those who can't seem to grasp what is important, and keep deflecting to sentiment or respect issues. Bill Maher jokes about how millineals are emotional hemophiliacs, but regardless of the characterization the problem is real. You'll offend them and they'll cancel you without telling you. You become someone they talk about behind your back. And you'll cancel them for that. But cancelling each other out doesn't work if they're a client or a coworker that isn't going away. If they work for you I guess you can fire them, and if you work for them, I suppose you can quit. The only other option is to learn their language. Ergo, communication remains a skill.
  • unabst 6y ago
    edit for the record: > You'll offend them... If you encounter someone oversensitive, millineal or otherwise, you'll offend them...
• hnarn 6y ago
  I’m annoyed by this but for direct messages at least it’s easily solved by simply not replying. If there’s no question or indication of criticality in a professional setting, that means it can wait. If they really need your help, they’ll send a second message. This also avoids the infuriating situation where a reply to “hey” is then replied to with something like “nvm fixed it”. I apply the golden rule: while doing this I also don’t expect immediate responses from other people to my questions. If it’s critical, I will call them.
• dranka 6y ago
  I don't like people saying just hello and expecting me to answer before they get to the point. If I see the message and immediately respond hello back then I have to sit and wait and watch the 'person is writing' indication until I get the the real reason they contact me. This time is just active waiting and can't be used for anything. In the situation where I see the hello at some later time and reply back the other person might not even be there. Should I actively wait or start something else and keep an eye on the chat, prepared to be interrupted? A lose-lose situation for me..
• logicchop 6y ago
  I get so fatigued by "behavior" advice like this. Why spend time trying to optimize your chat encounters? Is the status-quo that much of an enemy that we have to fight it in every small corner?
• vmception 6y ago
  How about we all make an agreement to reply with the clown emoji and its purpose being to laugh at them for not getting to the point
• jcelerier 6y ago
  am I the only one to think that in the > Keith hi > Tim ...? interaction, the issue is Tim not answering by "hi, what's up" ? I find that utterly rude
  • codeulike 6y ago
    Agreed
  • kirstenbirgit 6y ago
    One could also argue that it's utterly rude and disrespectful to the other persons' time to just type "hi".
    • jcelerier 6y ago
      you... never just say "hi" to people ?
      • kirstenbirgit 6y ago
        Not on Slack, no.
        • jcelerier 6y ago
          for me it feels super rude, as in, "you're not a human I like to interact with, just a cog I need to turn to continue my job"
• neilv 6y ago
  I know someone who not only does this, but, even when I respond instantly, they often take minutes to respond. The process can take minutes of standing-by, which is a hard interruption to whatever I was doing, before getting info that could've been in the first message. Thus far, it's never seemed the right time to say something or paste nohello.net URL. :) We used to have a related problem on technical IRC channels, and sometimes the channel title would include a message to newbies, like "don't ask whether you can ask a question; just ask the question".
• juancn 6y ago
  Crap, I'm not the only one. A "Hi" conveys no actionable information. It's impossible to triage. It's disrespectful of people's time, even though the sender thinks it's being polite. The further I get in my career, the busier I get, and the more painful this becomes. Relentless prioritization is the only way to get the right shit done. I need to choose and pick where my attention goes to, so please, just ask!
  • logbiscuitswave 6y ago
    Relentless prioritization. I like that.
• sfgweilr4f 6y ago
  Context does matter here. A catch-all "rule" doesn't make sense. In some channels I just type my update. Those channels don't have Hello or similar. We usually never actually leave them. We're always on. Even if we go offline we're deemed "will connect later". The message will get to wherever eventually. Especially PMs to a particular person. In other channels, especially those Question/Answer channels... often the Hello is to see if anyone is around. If no one is around and the question is time sensitive, why bother asking it? Other channels work across time. Ask your question now and a person may later answer. Even later still you will get the answer. No one is offended by delays. Its expected. In still other channels, a "hello" is mandatory. Who are you? Why are you here? Did you just barge in and start asking questions or join the chat? Introduce yourself. Different context. Different rules. Synchronous vs Asynchronous. Different expectations.
• ganzolo 6y ago
  Yes let's all make robots out of ourselves. I don't see the issue in someone wanted to initiate an IM this way : > "Hi, how are you doing?" > Meaning : I want to IM with you, are you available. In a polite way. We're working remotely (for most of us), we already lost social link, so let along now just start directly requesting things from people. For non IM related stuff there is a great tool call : EMAILS
• danaliv 6y ago
  Everything I know about instant messaging, I learned from communicating via radio with ATC. Pleasantries are not required, but brief (< 3 words) ones are appreciated. Just saying “hi” wastes time and effort. Ask your question. Put these two together and you get something like, “good morning! Do you know how many froops the borgle puts out?” If a question you’ve asked is no longer relevant/you’ve found the answer elsewhere, a simple “disregard” closes the loop. “Disregard - Jeff said it’s 12” People won’t always reply. There are things going on behind the scenes that you don’t and can’t know about. Keep it brief. Unless there’s an actual reason to write a paragraph, don’t. If you’re given information without a question, a simple acknowledgment suffices. “Roger,” “copy,” or a thumbs up. Chat is a walkie-talkie, not a coffee date!
• logbiscuitswave 6y ago
  I have a link to this site in my chat status. It drives me crazy when someone says “hello” and waits for a reply, or asks if they can ask me a question. In all cases this feels like my time is being wasted. Just go in and ask your question. Or if you feel the need to be polite, say hello then just ask your question. If you truly need synchronous communication, then use the damn phone.
• dang 6y ago
  5 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24239880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24239880 2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19648415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19648415 2017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868294
  • manojlds 6y ago
    It's not a dupe, this is a new, much better website based on the old.
• satisfice 6y ago
  There is no problem saying “hi” in a chat. This is an example of a completely imagined general social problem, generated from the social anxiety of one guy. It’s like TDD: somebody finds a way they like to work and then elevates that to a moral imperative for all. Feel free to say “hi” to me in Slack. I take it to mean that you would like to have a conversation, when I am free. If you don’t want me to ping you in that way, then I will adapt to you. Just don’t claim your protocol is objectively better. It’s not.