46 ms·

Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

• eimrine 5y ago
  https://nohello.net/en/ https://nohello.net/en/
  • mrpotato 5y ago
    haha, when I read OP, I thought exactly of "Hello".
  • smcl 5y ago
    I want one of these sites for this flow-destroying scenario: Bob: Hi Me: hey Bob. What can I do for you? (Five minutes later) Bob: how are you? Me: I’m ok Bob. What do you need? (Five minutes later) Bob: Do you know much about the daily Foo sync task? That “how are you” gets me because its meant to be polite but it has the exact opposite effect. It’s funny because developers are often characterised as lacking social skills, but it’s usually the non-developers (analyst, PM etc) who do this. Maybe also one for good old: Bob: <screenshot of blank page, address bar omitted> Bob: Do you know what's going on here?
    • ehnto 5y ago
      That reminds me of the time someone sent me a screenshot of the homepage of the website, and the email just said "please fix". I will get right on that.
  • globular-toast 5y ago
    This is a related but slightly different phenomenon. Frustrating the recipient, but probably not detrimental to the sender. Asking to ask in an IRC channel is definitely detrimental to the sender, though.
• globular-toast 5y ago
  I like these type of articles where someone tries to understand why they feel a certain way about something. As a long-time IRC user I definitely feel that asking to ask is wrong, but never really thought about why I feel that way. This seems to sum it up well.
• russellbeattie 5y ago
  These are the people who write one line emails with no punctuation. We get it, you're a super mega busy person and I am just one of the many people you will interact with today, and therefore I shouldn't expect common courtesy. No worries. I'll make sure to communicate with you as little as possible from now on.
• aerovistae 5y ago
  Has anyone else noticed a serious escalation in references to this phenomenon the past couple weeks? I've seen highly upvoted posts on it both here and on reddit all of a sudden and am just curious where the momentum is coming from so abruptly.
• INTPenis 5y ago
  This is a cultural thing and it's annoying. We have french and indian companies here in Sweden with their own culture of saying hi to everyone "good morning sir" "good morning madam", every damn morning. They are the same ones who say "Hello how are you?" in chats now that people are working remotely more.
• joeberon 5y ago
• linsomniac 5y ago
  Reminds me of that old yarn: "Can I ask you a question?" "You just did." This makes a totally valid point in online communications.
• zomg 5y ago
  ahh, the airing of irc grievances!
• blablabla123 5y ago
  True words for 1:n communication. For 1:1 communication it's a different thing though. I really prefer people to warn me before dropping a bomb
  • charcircuit 5y ago
    >I really prefer people to warn me before dropping a bomb Why? These "hi" or "are you there" or "can I ask a question" are useless to me. Also in the reverse role I find it useful to just type up my whole problem. Sometimes in the middle of typing it all up I will figure out a good solution and then just not send the message. Even if the person is not there to help you, you can always copy paste your message to someone else.
    • blablabla123 5y ago
      It depends, I mean in times of remote work it's good when the routine doesn't degrade to a purely mechanical exchange. Also it can be actually useful if people chit-chat about what they are doing which can lead to discussions and save time by cutting useless work. It's not ideal when people repeatedly ask me about a certain class of problems - terse or not - it's a disruption to my work. (With dropping a bomb I also mean something like a larger/tedious amount of work)
  • danaris 5y ago
    While it's polite, IMO, to include some form of greeting or other pleasantries, in any kind of asynchronous communication medium, I do not want to wake up to (or come back from lunch to, or whatever) someone saying "Hey" or "Can I ask you something?" Chances are, by the time I've said "sure, go ahead", the person won't be there anymore, and then both of us just have to wait frustratingly.
  • Smaug123 5y ago
    Use the asynchronous channel to set up a synchronous channel over a medium that's actually designed for it, then!
  • somebodythere 5y ago
• corobo 5y ago
  This feels like one of those internet rules that stems from a neurodiverse IRC-type crowd Neurotypical people use this sort of social foreplay as a way to handshake a conversation[1], where the tech types want an input/output process devoid of mood and feeling It is silly and quite time wasting online too, but it's what they need to feel comfortable asking you questions. I figure if they need to adapt to some of my quirks I'll do likewise for theirs [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_talk#Purpose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_talk#Purpose
  • ddaalluu2 5y ago
    It does stem from IRC. But I can't remeber where it was that I first read that rule and the link to this domain
    • corobo 5y ago
      I’d imagine this domain might ring a bell in that case http://mywiki.wooledge.org/NetEtiquette#Just_ask_the_question http://mywiki.wooledge.org/NetEtiquette#Just_ask_the_questio... Also famed for the “XY problem” that nerds always assume now wanting to look clever, often used incorrectly http://mywiki.wooledge.org/XyProblem http://mywiki.wooledge.org/XyProblem
  • watwut 5y ago
    > Neurotypical people use this sort of social foreplay as a way to handshake a conversation[1], where the tech types want an input/output process devoid of mood and feeling Majority of "tech types" are neurotypical. Neurodiverse are minority in tech. There is more of them in tech then among teachers or something like that, but still. And even neuroatypical use elaborate rituals before they ask question. Even autists in tech.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • corobo 5y ago
      I understand the point you're making but I think you're focusing on the precise wording of my comment rather than the meaning I am not a psychologist or therapist or anything, lets just assume I'm using the words wrong and grouping people inaccurately. I'm talking about the people who make internet rules like don't ask to ask vs the people that don't do that
• jstx1 5y ago
  I've seen a lot of this in internal Slack channels. There's 0 probability that I'll engage someone who is looking for an "expert in $x" even if I think that I could help. The worst is when a 3rd party tags you in with a comment like "oh hey, you know about this, can you possibly help?".
• zeepzeep 5y ago
  How (not) to ask a technical question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53zkBvL4ZB4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53zkBvL4ZB4
• trevcanhuman 5y ago
  Very short message, but concise. I think it very much relates to the sentiment of Nardwuar's TEDx talk: [0]. He's an interviewer. He's interviewed practically everyone alive with music, from Nicky Minaj to Kurt Cobain and back! almost every genre ! And you know what the message is from his talk ? Just ask. You wanna do an interview with X person ? Just ask, do it! He doesn't wait for anyone to push him, he wants to do something, he does it. He interviewed Billie Eilish and even interviewed Cobain before the 2000s ! refs [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkSUazeI2nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkSUazeI2nM
  • BurningFrog 5y ago
    Interviewing Cobain after 2000 would be even more impressive!
    • trevcanhuman 5y ago
      yeah, lol I just realized he is dead. Nice joke. But he was kind of an ass in that interview so yeah.
• ganzuul 5y ago
  Why are people feeling like they need to ask to ask you?
  • hermannj314 5y ago
    It probably goes back to the Usenet days where the group on C++ was absolutely horrific to developers because they were only there to discuss the language specification and you asked a question about implementation or whatever the hell their tribal rules were. I think many of us are still scared shitless we are going to be verbally abused for asking for help in the wrong room so we hide behind conversational formality- like asking for permission to be heard.
• uhtred 5y ago
  This doesn't bother me so much as I would just not reply until the question comes. What pisses me off is when someone asks: "Can someone just quickly do x for me?". It trivializes the amount of work you are asking me to commit to doing. It's a task that only someone skilled in that particular technology can do. Why don't YOU quickly do it? Oh, because you can't.
• thenerdhead 5y ago
  This advice applies best in business settings. Business is transactional and it's very rare that someone wants to "get to know you". Those who do, will let you know by getting more involved or talking to you outside of these types of requests, not just out of the blue. I'm a huge fan of no hello & "just ask" in our future world of async work. https://sbmueller.github.io/nohello/ https://sbmueller.github.io/nohello/
  • IgorPartola 5y ago
    The opposite applies in interpersonal relationships. There you should ask to ask every time: “Hey John can I ask you about your ex Gina? If now is not a good time, let me know when.” John might not want to talk about Gina. Or he might not want to talk about an emotional issue before a big meeting at work. Or he might want to know what exactly you want to know and establish parameters of the conversation before diving into it.
    • thenerdhead 5y ago
      Great point!
  • zajio1am 5y ago
    > I'm a huge fan of no hello & "just ask" in our future world of async work. That is just a conflict between people who prefer async and who prefer sync communication. For sync communication, "hello" and "bye" are just markers for begin and end of a session, with implicit expectation that people focus on the session in between.
• vymague 5y ago
  It's complaining for the sake of complaining. Sometimes you need to test the water first. Some online communities are rather hostile after all. As shown by this silly website.
  • nkrisc 5y ago
    Hostile? What, are they going to break down your door and beat you? If they say mean words when you ask a question just close the channel and try somewhere else. I'm well aware you might think I'm proving your point with this response.
    • vymague 5y ago
      > I'm well aware you might think I'm proving your point with this response. You are correct. Your comment was mean. Not even sure why you responded aggressively. Hostile is perfectly correct word to describe some online communities. Do you think the word "hostile" only applies when you meet people physically?
      • nkrisc 5y ago
        > Do you think the word "hostile" only applies when you meet people physically? Not literally, no. But if someone is mean to you in a chat channel you just close it and poof it's gone. It's as hostile as someone just not liking you. That's what I meant. In a busy chat channel asking to ask or testing the waters is just spammy and most people will just ignore a vague, pointless question like "is anyone around?" Just ask your question. Worst case scenario people say mean stuff and you just leave and try somewhere else. I've done that when people just ignore my question or give glib replies. Then I go ask somewhere else. FWIW I didn't think I was being aggressive, but thought it might be interpreted that way since disagreement online often is. Maybe I'm showing my hand here but I really can't tell what was mean about it.
• icedchai 5y ago
  I don't mind a little chitchat if the person is responsive. I had one guy say "hi, can I ask you a question?" I responded within 30 seconds. The guy disappears and isn't heard from for 14+ hours. Kinda annoying.
• hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  Don't answer the question, provide the information the asker needs. This is a vital design and engineering skill. Clients come to you with solutions they themselves came up with, but you're supposed to query their underlying problem and offer a better solution.
• alecbz 5y ago
  > ..which is just lazy. If you're not willing to do the work to solve your problem, why should we? Eh, don't think I agree here. The initial ask is low-effort but so is the initial response expected ("I could help, what's up?"). It seems fair to want to aim for something like: A: low effort ask B: low effort response A: high effort ask now that you know someone's listening B: high effort response to avoid things like: A: high effort ask (no one's around, effort wasted)
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • volent 5y ago
    A: high effort ask From experience, this is never wasted. At the contrary, stating a problem clearly very often helps finding the solution, without bothering anybody else :)
  • Hinrik 5y ago
    In an asynchronous medium like Slack or IRC, the effort _isn't_ wasted, because the question will stay there, allowing people to see it later who weren't even around when the question was first asked. Just like you don't email someone saying "Hey" waiting for a reply before you ask your question.
  • baliex 5y ago
    I disagree with a "high effort ask" being a wasted effort if no-one's around. Just because no-one's around now doesn't mean someone won't be around later. And writing down your thoughts can often be enough to crystalise your thinking to the point of having a new idea about a solution. So, you've either solved your problem for yourself, or you can share it with the person that does help in the end. If you're asking for help it's useful to show where you're up to in your thinking and giving details on what you've tried already.
    • danaris 5y ago
      Furthermore, once you've written it out once...you can copy and paste that to ask someone else later, if you don't get a response!
• gondo 5y ago
  Sometimes you have to adjust the amount of information you are allowed to disclose depending on who you are talking to. And you don't want to exclude people based on this as any amount help can move you forward.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
  If you really want a question answered, the best way to get your answer is to write a blog post confidently giving the incorrect answer and post it on HN and Reddit. In the replies, you will find many answers to your question.
  • meribold 5y ago
    This principle is also known as Poe's law.
• leephillips 5y ago
  I agree strongly with the advice on the page. But more interesting is the fact that the author seems to have registered a domain for just this one piece of advice. I know there are other examples (some are linked) but this wouldn’t scale for me. I have so much crucial wisdom to share that the registration fees would kill me.
• mig39 5y ago
  This reminds me a lot about when people ask "Hey, are you doing anything Saturday afternoon?" Which is trap. Because if you say "no" then you don't have a polite excuse to decline to help someone move houses, troubleshoot a fiber install, or go for a hike. The polite way to ask is "hey, can you help me move on Saturday? I have a truck and 3 others already."
  • spergactual 5y ago
    > Which is trap. This is a completely normal day-to-day conversation topic I have with my buddies via text. > Friend: What're you getting into tomorrow? > Me: Not much man, doing some chores around the house. Got a pork butt I need to butcher. Typical Saturday. > Me: What about you? At which point my friend will either directly ask or otherwise mention that he is moving. At this point I may volunteer all, some, or none of my time depending on what life has.
  • jthrowsitaway 5y ago
    I'm a socially awkward person and always feel bad diving right into requests like that.
• aww_dang 5y ago
  It is even worse when it comes from an inept salesperson. Asking to ask is just bigger annoyance. Worse yet, it is a terrible sales method because you'll never get to your pitch. Intro, yes. Asking permission, no. Use the set up to frame the discussion. Only ask questions you know the answer to. Make them answer in the affirmative repeatedly. Why give an opening for rejection at all? Being interrupted by a sales call is bad enough. Being interrupted by someone who botches the pitch on a product I would never want and will never hear about due to ineptitude is a face palm. Humans never cease to amaze me. Not only will I marvel at the fail, but I'll write useless comments about it later.
• lhorie 5y ago
  One step further, don't start a conversation with "X is broken, can you help me fix it?" Tell me what you did so far, actual behavior and expected behavior. Pragmatically speaking, I get a lot of coworkers asking questions (like several per day) so if your question is formulated poorly, it has a very high chance of slipping through the cracks simply because the easier to answer questions will take priority.
• kashyapc 5y ago
  This is also sometimes called a "naked ping"[1]: <Bob> Alice: Ping <Alice> Bob: Pong? <Bob> Alice: Can I talk to you now? I have a question. [LONG SILENCE...] <Alice> Bob: Sure. (Inside Alice's head: "Sigh, please ask the question, already!") [Again, in some cases, this is followed by a LONG SILENCE...] <Bob> Alice: A vague question with not much details. Now, imagine what a test of sanity it becomes if it happens several times throughout the day, week, month. Note, though: I don't mind "naked pings" myself; they don't bother me much. But I of course appreciate "fully dressed up pings". [1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/No_naked_pings https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/No_naked_pings
• MaxBorsch228 5y ago
  I agree such meta-questions are annoying. However, I saw many times a situation when a new guy joins some Telegram chat and asks a question, only to get an avalanche of angry and overreacting "go read nometa.xyz a hundred times" replies. Of course the guy never writes to this hostile chat again: he did noting bad but was treated like a piece of shit. And it's always the same people complaining, most of chat members just don't care.
• mabbo 5y ago
  I feel like the author is not highly aware of social norms, nor how they change depending on context, culture, and confidence. Many inexperienced users- the kind who often need help the most- are coming from a place of low confidence. They don't even know if this is the right place to ask this question. They don't even know if they're asking the right question. That's the nature of being inexperienced. I'm glad they're cautious and trying to be polite! If you don't want to help such people, don't lurk in channels designed for helping people.
  • sigstoat 5y ago
    > If you don't want to help such people, don't lurk in channels designed for helping people. and where do i go to not get these questions from senior engineers?
  • oxplot 5y ago
    Re inexperienced users : you want to encourage them to learn and build confidence. Ignoring their "polite" ping-pong messaging isn't going to do them any good. Sure, don't be a jerk, but do mention "don't ask to ask - just ask" in a friendly way.
• ipiz0618 5y ago
  I used to do this a lot because It thought it's more polite to check in with "can I ask you a question about <something>?". It took me way too long to realize this behavior was actually annoying lol
• nineplay 5y ago
  I'll blame stackoverflow. It's lead us to believe that anything but a precise, specific questions with clear use cases and previous attempt is going to get scolded for not meeting the guidelines. It takes time to formulate a good tech question. "Why isn't my API getting called" is a easy question to ask but not likely to get much feedback. "Why isn't my API getting called I'm using library <X> and callback <Y> and routing framework <Z> and I've already read the documentation which says <XX> should work?" is a better question but harder to formulate. It's not surprising that someone wants to check to see if there's anyone in the void willing to answer first.
  • lmilcin 5y ago
    The problem has been present basically forever. Well before stackoverflow.
  • wongarsu 5y ago
    Formulating a question that doesn't waste your time requires me to shift perspective to figure out what information you need. As a result, half the time formulating the question leads me to discovering the answer. I'd consider that time well spent regardless of the answers I get.
    • topaz0 5y ago
      I've also experienced this. I wonder if this phenomenon leads to an overwhelming selection bias in what questions actually get to stackoverflow or irc or slack or whatever. It could be that the majority of people are good at asking good questions, but they usually don't get through formulating their good question before answering it themselves, so the majority of questions end up being bad.
• readingnews 5y ago
  What you really want to do is read the "how to ask questions the smart way" page by ESR: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
• ChrisArchitect 5y ago
  Discussion from 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24259156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24259156
• hackernewds 5y ago
  Did the author really pay for a domain per topic? Seems to be numerous others that are <title>.com
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  They registered an entire domain for that? It sounds like a fairly typical StackOverflow Meta posting. I read stuff like this constantly. There's a lot of SO folks that won't answer any question, unless it has already been solved, by the asker, in their question, so they can criticize it. The place is a lot less useful, for me, these days, than it used to be. I ask excellent questions, and I don't need to have someone call me "lazy," because I didn't throw the seed into the nest. It's not wrong, but it's also not gonna change anything. Askers gonna ask.
• 11235813213455 5y ago
  This is actually also relevant for customer support
  • topaz0 5y ago
    It should be, although I have had recent experiences where I give all relevant information at the beginning of the exchange but they still ask for it piece by piece because that's what's in their script. Possibly this is because the start of the conversation is handled by a robot.
• oxplot 5y ago
  A response I often get is how "refreshing" it is to speak with someone who doesn't spew out fluff and gets to the point. And these are people who themselves ping-pong for 10 minutes before getting to the meat of a conversation. This is a good example that what people do isn't necessarily what they appreciate or like. It's just a norm. Whether it's positive or not is quite a different aspect.
• toolslive 5y ago
  X: "Can I ask you a question?" Y: "You just did."
• devoutsalsa 5y ago
  I had an overly polite couch surfer from South Africa who couldn't find my place in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. He really struggled because he kept asking people "pardon me, may I ask you a question?", which is what nearly every panhandler asks before they ask you for money. I told him that he should learnt to be direct (at least in America) and simply ask for directions.
• uses 5y ago
  This reminds me of the chat situation where a coworker will start with "Hi!" typing indicator. In either case, it's like "yes, you have my attention. I cannot focus on anything at all until you hit enter, and I also can't reply because I have nothing to reply to". I also can't complain like "hey if you're going to interrupt me can you just say the whole message so I can actually reply instead of being held in absolute suspense for many seconds of my life?" because that would be, frankly, even worse than what they're doing, which was done out of a kind of ignorance of etiquette.
  • hkon 5y ago
    Indeed, which is why I have turned off the "someone is typing" in the UI.
  • mynameisash 5y ago
    Which is why a lot of people set their status message (on Teams, Slack, etc.,) to "nohello.com"
  • dom96 5y ago
    What I do in this instance is mute that person for an hour or so and leave to do what I was doing. It means a less quick response to the person but keeps me sane a lot of the time.
  • rtb 5y ago
    There's a similar 1 page site for that problem: https://nohello.net/en/ https://nohello.net/en/
    • jackbravo 5y ago
      https://nohello.club https://nohello.club
  • kashyapc 5y ago
    I (politely) summarize this on IRC as: "Had you asked your question to start with, my response would've been your answer."
  • 5y ago
• felix318 5y ago
  A bit off-topic perhaps but as a non-native speaker I'm always baffled by English smalltalk. People who reach out to me on Teams usually start with "Hi, how are you" and I never know what is the proper reply because I know the question is not sincere. Why not just say "Hi"? (and this is nothing compared to the seemingly mandatory Monday morning elevator "how was your weekend" question)
  • igouy 5y ago
    Not just English. https://www.fluentu.com/blog/french/ca-va/ https://www.fluentu.com/blog/french/ca-va/
  • electroly 5y ago
    It's fine to treat "hihowareyou" or "heyhowsitgoing" as a word that literally just means "hi". It's never a real question; it's an automatic fixed expression for us. "Good" is the customary response (doesn't matter if it's true), but ignoring the question and just saying something like "Hey, what's up?" or "Hey, how can I help?" is also a fine response that invites them to skip any other smalltalk they might have planned. This is especially a handy approach for typed chats.
  • penneyd 5y ago
    They are expecting - All good, what's up?
  • throw10920 5y ago
    It's not meant to be a sincere question, it's a phatic expression[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phatic_expression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phatic_expression
• josefrichter 5y ago
  Always add “I tried this and that already”.
• codingdave 5y ago
  We all have different personalities. Saying "hi" will frustrate some people. Not saying "hi" will tick off others. Same goes for leading into questions - most approaches can tick someone off. For the safest approach, I agree with the concept that all the info should be in the same message. To an individual, "Hi! If you have some time, could you let me know <question>". To a group, "Hi, if there are any <topic> experts here, I'm trying to figure out <question>. Any help would be appreciated."
• svilen_dobrev 5y ago
  These "preludes" are like tapping on the shoulder, except they are async and when you see/"feel" that "tap", there might be nobody there anymore... And then you start same thing backwards, with "hey you did have a question.." .. a forever ping- pong without any reasonable info in it..
• softwarebeware 5y ago
  It's definitely not just a problem on IRC, Slack, or Stack Overflow. In real life, if you go up to someone and say something like, "Hey can I talk to you for a second?" The following is almost always true: a) They do not want to talk to you for "just a second," it will take much longer. b) It is a serious conversation that will require a lot of emotional energy c) It will immediately pre-empt anything else that you are doing right now So that's why it's bad form. You don't take that same form to total strangers on the internet.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• MattGaiser 5y ago
  I often just ignore and wait for a follow up.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • mym1990 5y ago
    With you here, the weirdest part is that about 25% of the time the person doesn't say anything else if you just leave it.
    • IceMetalPunk 5y ago
      Yeah. They're waiting for you to confirm that your avatar status is actually correct and that you do in fact exist and can respond now. Which is like... "if I can't respond, you saying 'hi' won't change that, and if I can, then you may as well give me something to respond to beyond 'hi' anyway."
    • MattGaiser 5y ago
      Guess it didn't matter :) Saved myself some annoying request.
• locusofself 5y ago
  As much as I think this should just be common sense, when I see this URL in someone's status message/bio on a work messaging platform, it strikes me as condescending and unprofessional.
  • aix1 5y ago
    What are your thoughts on individuals publishing READMEs on how best to interact with them? Similar sort of thing or sufficiently different?
    • corndoge 5y ago
      While I like the concept from one angle, on another angle I'm not reading a fucking manual every time I want to talk to someone, it's just not happening. Especially since we know people will just start adding shit to it every time something happens they don't like and we'll end up with pages of interaction rules. No thanks.
      • aiisjustanif 5y ago
        We do this for forums. We read and make comments here just fine.
        • quelltext 5y ago
          Not for each user's own rules. There's one set of rules. You don't need to read my own personal rules on some dedicated page before you are entitled to reply to this comment.
    • totony 5y ago
      I have no seen that yet. Is that prevalent somewhere? Seems like a lot of effort to talk to someone as sibling says.
      • aix1 5y ago
        This sort of thing: https://polyfecta.com/personal-readme/ https://polyfecta.com/personal-readme/
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• debo_ 5y ago
  Hello
  • espositocode 5y ago
    World
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • dylan604 5y ago
      , World FTFY
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  • mym1990 5y ago
    ,
  • skilled 5y ago
    ...?
  • john_fushi 5y ago
    Hey! What's up?
• dbreunig 5y ago
  People aren't APIs.
  • grenoire 5y ago
    Please follow up with MAIL, RCPT and DATA after your HELOs to me.
  • IceMetalPunk 5y ago
    This makes me want to respond to all the hi-only messages with "ACK" from now on.
  • standardUser 5y ago
    A chatbot could act as an API to handle most of the small talk people use before asking the actual question.
• black_13 5y ago
• Pxtl 5y ago
  In terms of IM etiquette this feels so far down the list of my complaints, way behind "stop sending me screenshots to things that are available live on URLs or UNC shares". Or like "it would be literally less work for you to copy/paste the hyperlink to the ticket than it was for you to type in the ticket ID manually".
  • Pooge 5y ago
    Yes! I'm with you there. I didn't see it much in IM services, but Reddit is a pro in terms of "Let me post the screenshot of the Tweet instead of linking to it".
    • bena 5y ago
      I think in that case it's because the author of the tweet could delete it. Or maybe some users are blocked by the author.
    • forbiddenvoid 5y ago
      Twitter itself is a pro at this. So many times someone just posts a screenshot of a tweet instead of, you know, sub-retweet or replying to the tweet itself.
      • Pxtl 5y ago
        So many users habitually delete tweets, or block people who quote-tweet them, or have mobs of fans that will harass people talking about them, that screenshot-tweeting has become a reasonable workaround to problems with quote-tweets.
  • aidenn0 5y ago
    > Or like "it would be literally less work for you to copy/paste the hyperlink to the ticket than it was for you to type in the ticket ID manually". Not necessarily. When you've been spending a couple hours per day on a ticket, the ID starts to stay in your head. I can still remember the ID of a couple of the more annoying ones from several years ago Also, with Mattermost at least (and I assume others) it's pretty easy to configure it to change "Ticket 12345" into a link to the ticket server side
• IceMetalPunk 5y ago
  Yes, this, 100%. I find it very annoying to get a notification popping up on my screen for you to say "hi" when obviously you want to ask me for something...and then you don't ask or say anything else until I stop what I'm doing and say "Hi! What's up?" back to you. After another 5-10 minutes of waiting for you to see me ask "what's up?" and then type out what is up, which we all knew you were going to end up doing anyway. Like, come on. It's a chat app, you can see whether I'm available or not without probing. If you have something to ask/talk about, then ask/talk about it, don't wait for me to prove that my chat status is accurate. You can be friendly by saying "Hi" or whatever at the start of your message, but then include the message after. It's not hard. Sorry... this is a huge pet peeve of mine.
  • Pooge 5y ago
    Bonus points if the greeting is included in the same message as the inquiry, so as to not be notified multiple times for the same thing.
    • laurent92 5y ago
      Isn’t it a bug of the chat app, notifying someone for each message despite having a UX which incentivizes sending a message each time you type Enter?
      • arkitaip 5y ago
        It's a dark pattern designed to drive fake engagement.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
      • benhurmarcel 5y ago
        I wish chat apps (or mobile OSes) could skip the notification if that same contact has gotten one in the previous seconds.
  • 5y ago
• MAGZine 5y ago
  If someone hits me with a "hello" and nothing else, I may opt to respond with a waving emoji reaction. Not all of the time, but sometimes for sure (depending who the recipient is). It gently encourages people to include something actionable in their first response, as it is likely they won't get a notification (or see the UI cue) that I reacted to their message. So they go about their day and will eventually come back to the dialog to see that I did indeed acknowledge them. I like the idea of nohello.net, but in practice, it's a little crass to actually deploy effectively to colleagues. Really the solution is to move all non-urgent communication back to email so that when someone DOES hit you with a hello, you know it's something that needs addressing ASAP, and you can entertain the conversation knowing you're unblocking something important vs. being distracted for no good reason.
• newaccount2021 5y ago
• kevinherron 5y ago
  This was a problem long before we all got sent home and the proliferation Slack. Instead, someone would just pop their head into your office: “Hey, hi, how ya doing? Can I ask you question?” Bro, you just did. Get on with it.
  • dylan604 5y ago
    No, you can always just not even look up and say, "I'm super into this, so come back in 15" or something less condescending than whatever attitude your body expression has with "Bro, you just did. Get on with it" floating in your mind. Don't bro me dude! ;-) If we're all devs, we all understand when you've got 12 layers of vars in your head in a mental traceback that all goes poof when you just reply with a "not now". If it's a marketing type person making the interruption, you're just perceived as an asshole. That's on them. They're in marketing so they have no soul anyways ;-)
• Aaargh20318 5y ago
  I don’t think people do this because they want to be polite. The ‘hello’ is basically the start of what is the human equivalent of the TCP three way handshake. - Hello (SYN) > Hi (ACK) - How are you doing ? (SYN, ACK) Basically, they are trying to set up a synchronous channel over what is essentially an asynchronous medium. This is even more annoying than just slowing down the answer, they are demanding your undivided attention during the conversation.
  • abnercoimbre 5y ago
    Paying proper attention was always core to effective human communication. Will we ever adapt to being async all the time?
    • closeparen 5y ago
      There is no amount of attention that it is "proper" to pay someone who interrupts you while working. Any such attention is a favor, a gift. If you want to create a venue where attention is obligatory, schedule a meeting. Then we can also have a look at the meeting agenda relative to is duration and our total meeting load, and make reasonable tradeoffs.
  • Lio 5y ago
    The worst thing though is when the SYN,ACK has 10 minutes of latency on it and the receiving end is blocked waiting for it. It's a bit like going up to someone in the office and saying "Hi", they reply "What's up" and then the first person just stares at you... Somehow I always fall for it when really I should just go off and make a cup of tea.
    • cyberpunk 5y ago
      My favourite is just mashing keys for a few minutes, then deleting it all and writing 'hey' or just turning my phone off ;) It's a good way to encourage patience with your audience...
  • fouronnes3 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• _jal 5y ago
  It is just part of a human-centric session initiation protocol. A major reason people do it is to query presence-at-keyboard before continuing. Maybe the matter is time sensitive, maybe they don't want to disclose something immediately without setting context, finding something out first, whatever.
  • saurik 5y ago
    Right: I think everyone gets that; but it is that very concept that is irksome, as the entire reason to use chat apps for many people is to NOT have presence-at-keyboard EVER. Like, the answer to "are you there?" is, an hour later, "no", followed by immediately task switching away from the window again. The "no" is honest: I wasn't there when you asked, and I also am not really there now either. It is akin to trying to obtain synchronous communication with someone by sending them a letter with "hey, you there?" and a month later getting back "yo! what's up!"... you didn't really achieve much other than "this communication mechanism worked once"; and, if you want to do that in a way that makes it clear you aren't trying to establish synchronous communication--•I am sorry, but I am new to chat: are you actually seeing this message?"--I am more OK playing along. The goal here--and I think a better way to present it than just trying to say "don't say hello" or trying to point out that someone else is being rude (which is a subjective way of analyzing things that I think people should avoid without empathy)--is in some sense to teach people what asynchronous communication means and how to achieve it, as I honestly don't want to and kind of can't have synchronous communication with anyone whom I don't really really really care about at the level of "a close personal friend or loved one" (and then if you find that rude, I guess you will have to deal with synchronously talking to someone else, at best my assistant, as I just really don't have time to synchronously talk with random people; but that's the problem: I know "hi; you there?" is a trap to try to make me feel bad for not staying synchronous once you pounce on my answer later).
    • _jal 5y ago
      Yeah, it is tricky. Chat sits in this in-between semi-synchronous zone that different people want to treat as slightly more or slightly less synced. And that's where the disconnect happens. "Helloers" want more sync, it appears many here want less.
• flashgordon 5y ago
  I will respect a no-hello but I personally welcome hellos. I've even put it in a yes-hello on my chat bio. Some people just cannot robotically start a conv and get to the point. I am ok indulging them. If I am busy il just ask "so how can I help". I am glad we have not turned into complete APIs yet!!
• Pxtl 5y ago
  Usually the implication of "hello" is "hello, is now a good time, I got a complex issue that's in your area of expertise?"... Which, I mean, is what I actually type out when I need to bug somebody.
  • luizfzs 5y ago
    I usually go for: I'm trying to do X but I'm facing issue Y. I tried Z and W but to no help. Could you give me a hand when you have some minutes? It shortens the conversation and if the person doesn't know how to solve, they can point to someone else right away.
• asiachick 5y ago
  i want to scream when someone types their thoughts as several separate messages and seems unaware that every message is another notification
  • spoonjim 5y ago
    That's a flaw with the notification logic.
  • IceMetalPunk 5y ago
    Also this. "hi can you talk? i had a question about this ticket let me get the number ticket DSD-342 can you help me out?" My brain: "...that could have been ONE NOTIFICATION instead of a barrage. And you could have answered your own question about my availability by looking at my status in the app. God ffs." What I type: "Yeah, sure, let me look at it. What's up?"
    • IYasha 5y ago
      And, "thanks" to modern messenger UI designers (was it Apple who started it?), these messages take up the WHOLE SCREEN!
  • swarnie 5y ago
    I do this, i think its a hold over from WhatsApp. Its easier to divide statements by hitting enter then using punctuation.
  • ativzzz 5y ago
    I think it's fine if you're actively chatting with someone but obviously not if you're starting a conversation with some kind of request.
• micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Just add hello before whatever you have to say! also, no “have a minute” or anything like that, the beauty of text communication is that I can respond to it whenever I want! If you want my undivided attention schedule a call. Send me a couple of preferred times before asking mine. You will get what you want faster.
• twoodfin 5y ago
  IMO, it depends what kind of communication you’re trying to initiate. Chat can be used for both “one-shot” asynchronous queries or notifications (the example in the link) and for synchronous, interactive discussions—chats! If we could reach cultural consensus, it’d be great if a bare “Hello” / “Hi” / “Hey” let me know you’re attempting to initiate the latter.
• robbrown451 5y ago
  I often will say "you there?" or "you busy?" This means I don't have a single question, it means I want to have a synchronous conversation. There are lots of reasons for the latter. This is what I would prefer people do with me as well, and if I am busy, I feel like I can ignore the message until I have a few minutes to talk (often with voice/phone) I say this as someone working from home, thousands of miles from most people I work with and also far from most people I communicate with socially online (such as family). I find this approach of "just send a question and they can answer asynchronously" to be one of the reasons that working from home can be damaging to mental health. Natural human interactions, where there can be a real time back and forth, are positive things. Not necessarily always, but especially if I haven't communicated with a person in weeks, I'd much prefer this sort of thing. If there is a specific topic I want to talk about, that can be expressed in a few words, sure, I'll say that. And if it really is just a simple question that can be answered directly, I'll just ask. But the point is that those are not always the case, and depending on the job each of us has and our relationship, it might be unlikely for that to be the case.
  • allknowingfrog 5y ago
    This still seems like an example where you could directly state your request and avoid some unnecessary ceremony. When I want to have a synchronous conversation, I don't send "you there?", I send "Could you call me when you have a minute? I want to chat about <some topic>."
    • robbrown451 5y ago
      Yeah, it depends on who I am talking to. If it is someone I am fairly friendly with, or family, I'm less likely to do that. If there is a single topic that is why I am reaching out, sure.
  • sfteus 5y ago
    I've been working remote for ~7 years. The way I would handle this is simply saying something like "You available? Wanted to get a few minutes to discuss X/Y/Z" When you're attempting to set up synchronous communication, it's essential to let the other person know what the communication is about, and what level of focus you need from them, so they have time to prepare and ensure they have enough time for a proper dialogue. Can't count the number of times someone has said "you there?" while I'm in a meeting, which in my mind is "I'm available to answer simple questions" but not available to jump on a voice call, which is what they wanted originally.
• endisneigh 5y ago
  seems kind of dumb - the author is presupposing what the intent was. Not to mention that it's important to have the other person actually acknowledge a conversation is happening. how about: A: Hi! B: What's up...? A: Nothing just wanted to say hi! B: Oh, haha. How's it going? A: I was just realizing we haven't spoke in forever. Where are you these days? ===================================================== Let's say people didn't say hi. A: Hey we haven't spoken in forever! Where are you these days? << Message failed to send >> No conversation happens.
  • Johnny555 5y ago
    What's the difference between: Hi! << Message failed to send >> and Hi! We haven't spoken in forever, what's up? << Message failed to send >> What would you do different in the first case that you wouldn't do in the second case?
    • endisneigh 5y ago
      The difference is that if you want to have the conversation in real time you want to see if they're there first. It's the the same difference between leaving a voice mail and repeatedly calling.
      • Johnny555 5y ago
        But it doesn't really tell you if I'm available to chat -- my availability depends on context. If a coworker texts me "Hi" at 7pm, I'm probably not going to respond until work hours. If he texts me "Hi, haven't spoken in a while, let's catch up", then I probably will respond. Or, if I'm in a meeting and someone texts "Hi", I'm probably not going to answer since I don't know if they have a quick question or want a 30 minute chat, but if they say "Hey, what's the name of that guy in engineering that you said I should see?" then I'll probably just send a quick answer.
  • closeparen 5y ago
    This is a great kind of conversation to have when you are e.g. both in the micro-kitchen milling around for snacks. The problem is Slack is not equivalent to the micro-kitchen, but to the whole office.
• throwaway5752 5y ago
  Either one is fine. I wish that people messaging me "hello" and their inquiry together vs separately were one of my top 500 problems.
  • commandlinefan 5y ago
    I've been fascinated by just how passionately enraged the people who do have a problem with this seem to be whenever it comes up on here. I've stopped doing it out of deference to them (it literally never occurred to me that it could possibly bother anybody), but there are people who seem to go into monitor-smashing rages when it happens.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • popularonion 5y ago
      Plenty of normal people have a pet peeve about getting texted out of the blue with just “wyd” or “U there?” That would be the normie equivalent of sending a “hello” on Slack or Teams.
    • sgc 5y ago
      I hope they add value instead of just saying hello when they see people irl. Because turning don't say hi into a crusade is sure wasting more of my time than just accepting an awkward hi from time to time. I passionately hate the syntactical police! I thought tolerance of peoples' differences was supposed to be all the rage these days.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• paulcole 5y ago
  Are people building these single serving sites (there’s also https://dontasktoask.com/ https://dontasktoask.com/ on the HN front page right now) as part of some SEO backlink scheme? Get a couple URLs linked a bunch of places then start linking out to sites from them?
• dekhn 5y ago
  My managers did this, and I realized it was because people stopped using status icons any more and just appear busy or idle all the time. They didn't want to type a long request unless they had previously established contact. I also changed to not include the entire request until the person was at least responding in real time, although I always include enough context information in the first message.
• jwithington 5y ago
  thank you for making this
• nickysielicki 5y ago
  Dude, chill out, they’re literally just saying hi. Not every communication in the workplace has to get right down to brass tacks.
  • closeparen 5y ago
    Walking up to say "hi" and have a casual chat with someone who's deep in focus work at the office is just as unreasonable. You don't know whether people are "available" on Slack because they're open to a casual chat (as at the water cooler) or because they want to be not totally unavailable should something urgent come up (like being at their desk). Since you don't know, it behooves you to treat it as the latter.
  • rockbruno 5y ago
    I'm guessing you never worked with support of any kind. When you're working with something important, having to stop what you're doing to "say hi" to 10 people is such a colossal waste of your time that at one point you decide it's easier to just ignore people who don't know how to communicate asynchronously.
• kixiQu 5y ago
  I really feel like none of you work in an environment where people ignore inconvenient requests, which must be really nice, link your /careers page, whatever, but -- if you lead with the thing they don't want to deal with, you will be ignored more. I am intentionally spending the time to go through a round of SYN-ACK. That puts the social pressure of an ongoing conversation on the recipient to explicitly decline instead of reading the thing they don't want to hear and just ignoring it. This is more efficient than for me to try getting answers from four people, all of whom ignore messages and hope it will be someone else's problem. (I am also guessing this is less of an issue when you're not trying to coordinate across timezones)
• Nathanael_M 5y ago
  On one hand, this is a valuable rule that can improve communication. On the other hand, if any one has the time to share this, they have time to say "Hey, what's up?". For a site about improving communication, it has a surprisingly irritating and condescending tone.
• dfboyd 5y ago
  46 points by dfboyd on Jan 23, 2021 | parent | context | prev | next [–] | on: Please don't say just hello in chat (2013) 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".
  • cyberpunk 5y ago
    Yeah, kinda makes sense a SRE at google would get annoyed at people even saying hi. Did you manage to fix your stress levels or are you now bouncing around working massively hardcore jobs and burning out once a year, then taking a few months off and repeating? I took a pay cut, got out of that game. And holy shit, life is more relaxed doing security incident response than SRE ;)
  • jeffbee 5y ago
    When I was at Google I just disabled chat. Not worth it at all. SRE comms for people who are actually on-call happen on IRC anyway.
• spyspy 5y ago
  What I want to know is why someone would buy a domain and build this fancy website just to make this one simple point. Same thing also on the front page rn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225
  • dang 5y ago
    This comment was originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30642052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30642052 (before we merged the threads), but I suppose it applies just as well here.
  • FabHK 5y ago
    So if people encounter a repeat offender, they don't have to write it up and explain it in detail, but can just send a link.
• bilater 5y ago
  I find this super annoying in the context of getting help via chat from the support staff. They always say hi and then wait for you to reply (all this could take minutes sometimes cause they're handling multiple tickets at the same time and won't respond right away). Could just ask 'hi - what seems to be the issue?'
• mmaunder 5y ago
  This comes up from time to time on HN. Humans aren't machines. As self-important and busy as you think you are, why not take a beat and respond with 'Hey' and ask them how they are. Humans are more than just social creatures - we actually NEED social interaction to stay healthy. Remote work is hard enough. Being alone in a room for days is hard enough. Don't be afraid to remove the stick from your behind and add a little social padding to your conversations. It's good for you, and it's good for the person this site is telling you to get cranky at.
  • jdrc 5y ago
    > Being alone in a room for days is hard enough Why do we still do this? Shouldn't we adapt to partial remote as permanent reality? The urban way of life was completely transformed by the office
• notindexed 5y ago
  gm
• synergyS 5y ago
  Definitely hate when someone delivers the only hello and then just nothing for next 30mins...
• jimmytucson 5y ago
  Wanna hear something really annoying? My nephew calls me and says "hello" when I pick up the phone. Even worse, he says it like it's a question. "Hello?" We usually end up saying it at the same time. Then he waits for me to say it again, like he didn't hear me the first time. I find it kinda funny. It's like a power move, or a troll move, or he's just a knucklehead.
• pavlov 5y ago
  Slack and other chat platforms could easily filter these messages and only send when the initiator has added context. I type: “Hi”. The chat platform shows a message bubble: “Alice won’t see your message until you add some content.” This should probably be an opt-in feature for the recipient, not a global behavior.
• lwhi 5y ago
  I find this rule annoying itself. Take the freedom you have to communicate in any way you want, and use it.
• BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Technically, yes. But this is forgetting how much of this is related to social contracts. It's not necessarly: > I have a question about Java but I'm too lazy to actually formalize it in words unless there's someone on the channel who might be able to answer it But it could be: "I have a question about Java, but nobody knows me around here, so instead of flooding the chan with a wall of text, interrupting the flaw of all the discussions around, I'm doing to introduce my interruption progressively"
  • dinkleberg 5y ago
    This can be done much more effectively than just “hey does anyone know Java?” Something like “Hey I’m having trouble with X. Is anyone able to take a look?” is much better since you’re actually describing your ask. Sure, I may know Java, but I may not know the answer to your problem.
• jdrc 5y ago
  We just need chat script: If (helloGoesWell()) ask('when is that thing')
• mkl95 5y ago
  Unless you want to tell me something that is hard or awkward to express in writing, send me a single wall of text. One topic / one initial message should be a given.
• reggegg 5y ago
  Also something that goes very well with this is the age old saying, "just ask, don't ask to ask". I always find it a bit annoying when people approach in chats just to ask if they can ask something. Especially back in the days (yes) of IRC it was annoying because messages on a channel tend to easily drown in other messages
• galgot 5y ago
  When peoples find annoying to be just saluted... strange times. But I'm an old fart...
• caymanjim 5y ago
  In my experience, this is almost entirely a regional cultural problem. I've never had an American or European coworker do the extended "hello" handshake. I've had a lot of East Asian and South American coworkers do it. I'm talking about fresh-off-the-boat (or still living there) people of other cultures. There's a strong culture of exchanging greetings and smalltalk in some places before getting to the point, especially if they're going to ask for a favor. It drives me nuts and completely backfires, because I'm less-inclined to engage with or help someone who makes me perform a social ritual before we get to the topic they're reaching out for. I tend to ignore them until content worth reacting to arrives in a message, but even ignoring a "hello" is a time-wasting distraction. By all means engage in smalltalk face-to-face if you haven't met up in a while, or even electronically if it's truly just a social call, but if we're coworkers, get to the damn point already.
• guenthert 5y ago
  Part of the problem is proliferation of Slack. Don't get me started on using a central server of a 3rd for-profit party, but here I just refer to asynchronous messages, e.g. inquiries, on a synchronous medium. Unless you need my attention right now, why use Slack, IRC, telephone or walk by my desk? Just send me an e-mail and be as courteous or curt as you please.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• moralestapia 5y ago
  yeshello.net Thank you for making me feel happy about something I never realized I had. None of the people I interact with regularly would get even minimally annoyed by getting a hello in their inbox. I can only imagine how hellish your existence may be when you have to deal with people that are so finicky to the point that they even made a website to tell others how they may start conversations with them. What a big PITA to have them close to you ...
  • FabHK 5y ago
• notyourwork 5y ago
  People are so grumpy. If you don't want notifications turn them off. If I approach you in person I don't say hi and spill out a paragraph. So saying hello to start a conversation is a low friction way to have a conversation in the same we humans do in real life. edit: Are people really so unfriendly and impersonable that a simple hello is considered offensive? For the same reason I disable most mobile apps notifications on my phone, you can do same with instant messaging. Stop blaming other people's personalities.
  • Smaug123 5y ago
    I'm regularly on a support rota as first-line triage for things which have just started going wrong. I need to be interrupted for important things, but I would strongly prefer not to be interrupted for unimportant things, because undivided attention is very scarce on such a rota; doubling the number of messages while we perform the SYN-ACK dance doubles the number of interruptions. Setting my status to "does not receive notifications" forces everyone to read my personal how-to-interact-with-me user manual to discover whether I'm temporarily muted for some good reason, whether I just happen to be away from my desk and would prefer not to be interrupted but can easily come back if required, or whether I'm muted on general principles. > If I approach you in person, I don't say hi and spill out a paragraph. I don't know how you interact with shopkeepers or other such people who are there to help you, but I certainly do precisely that; I would consider it rather odd to start such a conversation with a "hi" that waits for a response. Surely, surely, the natural thing to say is "Hi, I'm looking for these shoes in size 10", rather than "Hi". Surely?
    • notyourwork 5y ago
      Sorry my teammates, peers and coworkers are not shopkeepers. If that is how you interact with your co-workers I don't want to work on your team.
      • Smaug123 5y ago
        I feel like this is supposed to be an insult, but I really don't know what the difference is between "someone wants me to do something for them" and "someone wants me to do something for them in a shop". There are plenty of opportunities for socialising that aren't "when everyone is trying to get stuff done".
• _8j50 5y ago
  I completley disagree with this. It depends on the person you are talking to. If this is a support chat or you are dealing with someone who is only there to take questions then yes... just state your question. In every other scenario, when someone says hello, greet them back. Exchange small talk if you must. That is just basic human pleasentries which for some reason is not allowed when you're using a keyboard? It's politeness, don't be an ass about someone hitting you up on slack with a greeting. You are a person like any other not a support robot. Chat rooms made for support with a "no hello" rule should be designated at work or for a n open source project when technical requests and discussions happen. PM/DMs should have the same etiquette as a person walking up to your cubicle or office. They will knock/greet first. They won't just show up and start blurting out code snippets and urls.
  • denimnerd42 5y ago
    no because an in person convo doesn't have a 2-10minute delay of complete silence between the hello and what they are asking for. example just from yesterday: them 10:10am Hello me 10:10am hey what's up them 10:20am hey do you remember me? I used to work with so and so me 10:20am yeah I can help you with any questions now them 10:45am nvm I figured it out by reading the error message. I'm not full time support, I'm a dev on a team. So that kind of interruption without any context at all derailed my work believe it or not. Fine for a legitimate issue, not that great when you didn't even read the error message. when someone comes up to you in person they probably have their full question formulated. online they can just say hi without embarrassment apparently.
    • _8j50 5y ago
      Does your chat client not have a do not disturb mode? That's why i said have a chatroom for support. It's not just devs that use computers. This is how any office worker or random discord community talk. You can also ignore the interruption. I use to think like you until I jumped to security where people sometimes avoid responding when you bring up a task they need to implement (like patching something). I just drop a Hi and wait for them to respond then drop the question on them so they are forced to respond. Sometimes I would have a technical matter to ask about and there are multiple people to ask. I am not copy pasting the same question and having 5 people waste time answering. I will drop a Hi and ask the first person who responds. You do not have to drop everything and reply to every Hello or Hi. You are free to ignore until a more pertinent question is dropped because the person may also be asking others who may be free.
• ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Feels like you could build an auto-responder that detects this, like a low tech version of that Google feature where it screens your calls and asks them why they are calling before giving you the option to answer.
• swarnie 5y ago
  My company is new to messaging, only getting teams fully set up two months in to lockdown/WFH v1. People still write messages like this... ------------------------------------------- Hello <Name>, <General bullshit they want to talk about> Thanks, <Senders name> ------------------------------------------- I know who its to and from, its a two way chatting application... it bogles the mind sometimes.
  • MattGaiser 5y ago
    This is far superior to the opposite problem of too little info.
• delecti 5y ago
  I use this link often. I'll respond to a "hi" with "hey, what's up", and turn the text into a link to this site, like [hey, what's up?](https://nohello.net/en/ https://nohello.net/en/) (I know markup links don't work here, but that's even better as an example). I've "trained" most people who do this to just keep going and ask their questions, rather than waiting for me to respond. Though unfortunately they mostly still break that up into several messages, so it's still more annoying than it could be.
  • gtirloni 5y ago
    It works but probably comes out as rude in a lot of cultures.
    • delecti 5y ago
      Which is unfortunate, but I don't feel that bad about coming across as rude while telling someone that I found what they did rude.
• aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  "got a sec?" "sure" [3 minutes pass] "so, what do you think about..."
• rascul 5y ago
  I've found that saying hi in a tech related chat just adds noise, but in a social chat there's no issue and can lead to conversation.
• inpdx 5y ago
  I've always instinctively done this, although I'm generally the exzception.
• _greim_ 5y ago
  Corollary: In online chat, do this: Quick question, does the foo widget support splines? ...instead of: Quick question.
• pjerem 5y ago
  I do exactly follow the no-hello "rules" but I frankly don’t care about how my colleagues reach me. We are humans, they can just say hello. I’ll answer or not depending on my availability but even if I answer and they don’t follow up, it will not ruin my day. If I don’t want to be disturbed, I just switch the notifications off. Magic, no more hellos. I really don’t understand why it bother people so much. And I’m saying this having strong ADHD and applying no-hello myself. There are so much more important reasons to be upset in life and at work.
• Tagbert 5y ago
  I find this particularly frustrating when the person saying “Hello” is in a different time zone. I regularly work with people who are offset by several hours and we have little to no work time overlap. That may mean that it takes 24 hours to get to the next step in the conversation.
• rrauenza 5y ago
  I'm guilty of the occasional "ping" -- but often its after what I think are their normal hours (whatever that is anymore!) and its someone I've interacted with before. I don't necessarily ask the question immediately because I don't want to make them feel like they have to answer it if they're not actually working. Often it's a question that will only save me ~15 mins of time. Or there is someone else I can ask if they're not immediately available. I personally find the anonymous "Hi $name" really annoying and it often comes on slack from a random IT person from a support ticket I've filed. Why they can't start with, "Hi $name, I'm following up on ticket XYZ. ..." But I don't find 'ping' annoying. Weird.
• samanator 5y ago
  My slack status has been the following for 2 years with great results: (Please ask your question :slightly_smiling_face: - I won't respond to "Hi")
• rplnt 5y ago
  I've just learned to ignore those messages. It might not be nice, but if a stranger (although colleague) just says hi, what am I supposed to answer? Just say what you want. Saves time of both of us.
• jonathanlydall 5y ago
  On the topic of good communication, I have a huge pet peeve with something that I find super common with phone calls, at least over here in South Africa (I don't know what it might be like elsewhere). Almost any time I get a call from any business, almost always from numbers don't recognize, 99% of the time the first thing the other person says to me is "Hello, how are you?". When this happens, my first internal thought is "Excuse me, but do I know you?". I don't think it's some deliberate sales strategy of cold callers, I suspect it's that they think of it like an in person conversation where this is perfectly acceptable with a stranger, except they fail to consider that I as the caller recipient have absolutely zero context of who I'm talking to and it's likely to piss off someone who is in a meeting or otherwise has a lot of work to do. The professional way for someone from a business to phone you is to announce where they are calling from and what the call is in regards to, something like "Hello, I'm calling from Acme in regards to...", or "Hi, I'm Bob from Acme and I'm calling in regards to ..., how are you today?". This way, I can instantly know whether or not it is someone from a business I have a pre-existing relationship with that I actually do probably want to talk to, as opposed to the more common caller who is cold calling me in an attempt to get me to buy something from them. So when I get a call with "Hello, how are you?", I've now taken to responding with "Sorry, would you please first tell me where you're calling from?". Then I'm either very friendly if it's a company I know, or for other companies I don't know I just state plainly "I don't have a pre-existing relationship with your company so I suspect this is a sales call and I don't have time calls such as these. Goodbye." and I hang up before the person even has a chance to respond.
• drblast 5y ago
  I used to have this problem with our triage call center in India. I'm in the U.S. It was like pulling teeth trying to get to the point. Most annoying were the delays between pleasantries... You've interrupted what I was doing three times and then ghosted. Them: hi Me: Hello, how can I help you? [Two minute wait] Them: How are you? Me: Great, what do you need? [Ten minutes later] Them: Do you have a few minutes? Me: Am I on candid camera or something?
• bregma 5y ago
  Too many extroverts invading our nice safe online spaces ever since public health measures shut down their usual channels for in-your-face satisfaction.
• bigphishy 5y ago
  GM
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• dang 5y ago
  Related (are there others?): No Hello (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29978860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29978860 - Jan 2022 (67 comments) Please don't say just hello in chat (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25881800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25881800 - Jan 2021 (350 comments) Don't ask to ask, just ask - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24259156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24259156 - Aug 2020 (101 comments) No Hello (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24239880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24239880 - Aug 2020 (210 comments) Please Don't Say Just Hello In Chat (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19648415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19648415 - April 2019 (265 comments) Please Don't Say Just Hello in Chat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868294 - July 2017 (46 comments)
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• warent 5y ago
  These things always come across as people being surprised humans aren't just super smart chat bots. Who cares if a friendly greeting adds 2 minutes
  • dinkleberg 5y ago
    It isn’t just 2 minutes. I’ll have people ping me “Hi” and I could be busy on calls for a few hours and they won’t have added any context in the interval. I reply “Hey, what’s up?” and by the time I respond they are busy and take a few hours to respond with their ask. If they had the ask in the initial message I could’ve had the answer in my first response. There is nothing wrong with pleasantries. Nobody is saying that is the problem. The problem is requiring a response before making your ask. If you’re just chatting to chat that is another matter.
    • warent 5y ago
      Hmm this is fair, I was thinking about saying "hi" before the ask being the problem. But the problem is really making it a blocking factor in the communication. People should definitely proceed after "hi" even without a response
• teeray 5y ago
  I feel like this is a carryover from text messaging, where people ask things like “Hey! What’s new?” Personally, I also hate that kind of text interaction. I vastly prefer a phone call for catching up, because at least each party’s attention is fully on each other and there’s a defined end to the conversation. I’m probably in a shrinking minority with that opinion, having grown up in a time when phone calls were ubiquitous. But when someone’s glued to their phone because they don’t want to be perceived as replying too slowly, what’s the point of texting?
• anyfactor 5y ago
  I think when it comes to any communication, the best method is the reverse hamburger method: Meat, bun, meat. Start with exactly what you want, no fillers. Then some fillers. Then do call to action.
• ChrisArchitect 5y ago
  See also https://nohello.net/en/ https://nohello.net/en/ which has been posted/discussed multiple times this month and earlier nohello.com (2013) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29978860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29978860 Not a new problem, same old thing happens despite the platform. Cultural/people issue as are many.
• lamontcg 5y ago
  Also don't use "Hey Team" as a lead-in when doing this. I've seen "Hey Team, <asking to ask a question>" probably a thousand times now in slack channels at work to the point where it drives me completely nuts and is the best way to make me ignore you. If I'm not actually on your team where we have daily standups then unfortunately this tickles the same neurons that I have which reacts negatively to employer cheerleading nonsense about how we're all a "family" or whatever, along with reading like trolling to want to waste someone's time.
• timwis 5y ago
  This sort of attitude always made me feel like an outsider and a newb in communities. Looking back, it seems it’s just a pet peeve that has the consequence of raising the barrier to entry. There are just way more constructive and welcoming ways to say this stuff…
• meken 5y ago
  Regarding the “hi” ping, it would be funny to create a bot to auto respond with “hi”. And auto respond to “how are you doing” with “good”. The sender can now type their question.