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

nohello.net

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

#51

Post by JulianMorrison »

jasode wrote: post #33

>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 do…

Wanting a synchronous conversation is a pretty arrogant grab of someone else's time.

This is also why phoning me is bad and please use texts like a civilised person.

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

#52

Post by hedora »

jethro_tell wrote: post #44
jasode wrote: post #33

>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 do…

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.

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.

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

#53

Post by BrandoElFollito »

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.

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

#55

Post by todd_t »

jasode wrote: post #33

>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 do…

> 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.

Then send it in an email.

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

#56

Post by piinbinary »

jethro_tell wrote: post #44
jasode wrote: post #33

>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 do…

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.

The fact that the following messages shouldn't be shown publicly is useful information to convey, and I feel like conveying that avoids wasting the first message -- If it explicitly says that what follows needs to be private.

(The recipient needs more than "hi" to know that what follows is private)

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

#57

Post by eganist »

todd_t wrote: post #55
jasode wrote: post #33

>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 do…

> 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. Then send it in an email.

Depends on the mode of communication that's been determined to be most reliable with the person in question. I've resorted to synchronous comms when the other party is notoriously bad at responding async.

...which would likely persist regardless of whether the request is emailed or messaged.

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

#58

Post by 11235813213455 »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #53

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.

It's fine to say Hello, as long as it's immediately followed by something consistent, preferably in the same message

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

#59

Post by watwut »

todd_t wrote: post #55
jasode wrote: post #33

>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 do…

> 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. Then send it in an email.

So that answer returns in few days if ever? Perfect plan.

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

#60

Post by shiftpgdn »

dfboyd wrote: post #39

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 link…

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.
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