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Ask HN: Instant Messaging Etiquettes
What are some etiquettes of instant messaging that people should follow?
Link to blog posts if it has your way of answer.
- logicalmonster 5y agoWrite out your entire message and only then hit send. Don't type out "Hi" and hit send, then write out one sentence and hit send. Then have another thought a minute later and hit send. Doing that selfishly occupies my attention for too long.
- jp57 5y agoSadly, most messaging apps send the message when you hit <enter>. Slack has a preference to send on cmd-<enter> instead, which prevents the one-message-per-sentence annoyance.
- MivLives 5y agoA lot of them (Discord, Slack, etc) will also let you use shift-enter as a way to go down a line without sending.
- theimpetus 5y agoEvery message should be actionable at the time of receipt. That means no “hey” followed by silence until there’s a response. As an extension of that, a message should only be sent when you’re available to continue the conversation unless otherwise stated. We must show respect for the attention we are grabbing by choosing an instant message. I often start a message with “this isn’t urgent, reply at your leisure”. Basically just pretend you’re emailing.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoBroadly speaking: Be considerate of others' time. Specifically: - Be concise and quick. Write out a succinct message, review it, include necessary links, and then hit send. - Avoid formalities ("Hey" "How are you" "Do you have a minute?"). Just get to the point and let them respond when they're ready. - If it should be an e-mail, send an e-mail. If it needs to be a meeting, schedule a meeting. If it's best discussed in person, find the person. Resist the lazy temptation to use instant messages for everything. - Watch the hours. If it's 9PM at night and you don't need a response by morning, wait until morning to send it. Or send an e-mail. - Use group channels when appropriate. If you're discussing something the entire team needs to hear, use the team channel. If you're having a back-and-forth debate with one person, take it to a thread or private message. - Show you've done your homework. Before asking someone for help, be prepared to list what you've tried and why it failed. Don't ask coworkers to help you with things that could be answered by reading the documentation or using Google.
- piinbinary 5y ago> Use group channels when appropriate I would strengthen this statement to "use group channels unless inappropriate." There are definitely topics that shouldn't be discussed publicly, but for everything else, I think it's best to default to using a public channel. I can't tell you how many times people give me a bunch of details in a direct message, only to have to replay all those details when someone else is added to the conversation. Using direct messages is also rude if you are doing so in an attempt to bypass a team's normal process for handling incoming requests.
- cosmotic 5y agoI've seen people get quite upset when I skip the "hi, how are you" bits. Know your audience I guess.
- jp57 5y agohttps://www.nohello.com/ https://www.nohello.com/
- rescripting 5y agoI hope the irony of having to click through a truncated bit of the article before reading the whole thing is not lost on the creator of this site…
- obviyus 5y agoI prefer using https://nohello.net/ https://nohello.net/
- logicalmonster 5y agoThis is a bit of a personal pet peeve, but I absolutely despise it when people close messages with the phrase "Please advise." It's the fakest sounding attempt to be professional that drives me up a wall.
- BeetleB 5y agoMy advice: Take everything people say here with a grain of salt. There are lots of cultures and subcultures around IM, and they do conflict. It also varies with age/generation. You will not get much that is universal. As an example, I can already see the common advice on not writing "Hi" IMs. Plenty of people at my company complain when people jump right in without these perfunctory messages. Plenty of other people at the same company complain when people do write these messages. Whatever consensus that forms will be outdated in a few years anyway. The ground constantly shifts. And don't even get me started on whether to end a sentence with a period!
- serverholic 5y agoI don't think we'll achieve much of a consensus. Even in normal conversation some people prefer exchanging pleasantries before diving into a topic. Others (like myself) find that annoying and wish people would just get to the point.
- dcminter 5y agoI don't think anyone objects to "Hi" per se. It's Hi followed by slow typing that's annoying. Include all the pleasantries you want, but include the actual meat of the message before you hit send.
- laserlight 5y agoNot writing “Hi” specifically refers to the first message sent on its own without the actual content. It distracts receiver and wastes time until the actual content is received. Beginning a message with “Hi” and following with the actual content in the same message wouldn’t be offensive.
- blueboo 5y agoThe need for this clarification itself is an example for why “hi” is necessary. People assume. The small talk helps set a tone that combats extreme terseness’s ambiguity, which all too often stochastically resolves to arrogance, aloofness, or coldness.
- MivLives 5y agoOne thing I've always liked is when people use the formatting their messaging client provides. Making points in bulleted lists, paragraph breaks, proper linking are all great. Another good one is if you have multiple questions to split them from the main body and number them. It makes it easier for people to respond to them partially and specifically, and see they're there at all.
- cinntaile 5y agoYou find out by using said communication medium, there is no universal answer. It is very context dependent.
- ufmace 5y agoI don't know if there's any universal etiquette, but personally I find it highly annoying when people abuse notification levels. Most room-like chat systems have a way to notify everyone in the room, like @here. IMO, you should only use that if your message is both important and time-sensitive for every person in the room. Sorry, no, it's not important to everyone else that you can't figure out why something isn't working. Even more annoying is the people who post a message with max notification and lots of words about how it's super-urgent, and then don't respond for half an hour when you ask for more details. I guess it's not really that urgent if you can't be bothered to pay attention to responses to your question. Or people who post screenshots of long error codes that you'd want to look up. If you want me to spend my time to figure out your problem, please take 5 seconds to copy and paste the error code so I can search it in other systems easily. I also find it annoying when you help someone with some random thing, and they now decide that you're now their universal go-to mentor and expect you to fix all problems with everything. ESR's page on How To Ask Questions would be a good read for a lot of such people: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
- maininformer 5y ago> " ... and now they decide that you're their ... mentor" I recommend reviewing this feeling. It is a success as a social creature if others go to you for help. The fact that someone will go to you a second time is both natural and a testament to your helpfulness. It is natural because if you have n choices and m are known to work and you are being risk averse you will choose one of m. Now of m=1 for far too long that is an organizational issue and I suggest either asking for more help or money.
- dehrmann 5y agoIf it's for work, don't sent messages during off hours, especially if you're in a management or leadership roll.
- joegahona 5y agoScheduled slacks has made this one even easier to observe.
- piinbinary 5y agoI'll try to list a few that other comments here haven't mentioned: - Don't be needlessly vague. Instead of saying "we need to chat, can you hop on Zoom?" say "we have a new development in project X, can we chat about it on Zoom?" Instead of saying "I need help," say "I need help learning how to use this API." Instead of "can you look into this?" ask for what you actually need. - Instead of sending a screenshot of text, send the actual text. It's rude to force the recipient to re-type the text to (for example) search for the error message in their code. - Don't use leet-speak or other shortcuts. Writing 'u' instead of 'you' makes the recipient feel like you don't respect them. - Check that instant messages are the right format for what you are trying to do. Sometimes writing a document and sharing it is a better approach. - Follow the conventions in a channel for using threads. Threads become more important in high-volume channels with lots of concurrent conversations. - If a channel has a welcome message with instructions, pay attention to them!
- karmakaze 5y agoExcellent points. I'll add that for error messages that sometimes the text isn't copy/pasteable and a screenshot may show extra context that might be useful. In all cases, it's important that the information be verbatim, don't paraphrase or unduly shorten messages.
- randomhodler84 5y agoOnly contact me by IM and say what you need in a single message first. I’ll get to it when I can. Don’t assume read means I even digested it. Don’t email me, I won’t read it (lol seriously fuck email). Don’t call me I won’t answer. If we need to talk or video, give me at least a days notice.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gaws 5y agoNo. 1 rule: Don't spam.