381–390 of 391 posts
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 a…
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Slightly more annoying is someone who you do not know giving you a "Hey, how are you doing?". Try, "Hey Bob, this is Alice, I work on the QA team in Dublin. I'm looking at an issue I think you might be able to help me with http://jira.yourcorp.org/browse/ORDERS-1234 . Would you have a minute to discuss this?"
> how are you doing? I’m so annoyed by the abuse of this phrase that I’ve taken to giving entirely inappropriate responses (based on context) when folks ask.
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Hi, in my case, it's not for the reasons you imply. I'm perfectly comfortable with and appreciate the importance of the "small-talk handshake", which is more critical in person. That said, avoiding "naked pings"[1] online is a matter of reducing the amount of mental drain for me. This is especially important for your sanity if you're actively helping out folks on a chat channel (community, or internal). As noted in m…
So I had to click through a link to find out you’re ok with, but prefer not to get, naked pings. Naked pings I had to click through a further link to find the full definition assuming I didn’t know what you were talking about And I’m not even trying to ask you a question! See how much faff this sort of thing is? If people doing that is non-facetiously testing your sanity, don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone el…
Second, I don't know what's your experience dealing with community IRC. I've been doing this open source thing for ~13 years now. In real-life IRC, it's no more of a "faff" than a 2-second gentle reminder—that too only when someone repeats the egregious behaviour. (Even this "reminder", I let it slide most of the times.)
Also, don't worry, I have a high threshold for frustration (critical to stay sane in this industry). I'm happy to help (and learn from) people; that's one the joys of working with open source communities!
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So I had to click through a link to find out you’re ok with, but prefer not to get, naked pings. Naked pings I had to click through a further link to find the full definition assuming I didn’t know what you were talking about And I’m not even trying to ask you a question! See how much faff this sort of thing is? If people doing that is non-facetiously testing your sanity, don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone el…
Please don't be needlessly upset. First, the "link" is referring to a comment in this thread, and the fuller "definition" in the linked comment is a URL to a long email. This is how we link to things to keep messages relatively short, and avoid walls of text. Second, I don't know what's your experience dealing with community IRC. I've been doing this open source thing for ~13 years now. In real-life IRC, it's no more…
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> how are you doing? I’m so annoyed by the abuse of this phrase that I’ve taken to giving entirely inappropriate responses (based on context) when folks ask.
It's called an opener.
How was either this reply or yours actually helpful to the conversation?
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It's called an opener.
And what you just did is called “stating the obvious”. How was either this reply or yours actually helpful to the conversation?
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...so, if you think the person is reluctant to help you with something, your solution is to get them into a conversation unknowingly about the thing they can't/won't help you with?
Sometimes people are apprehensive to say that they don't know. They will start searching, trying to figure out if they should know, if they forgot something, etc. Plus, sometimes it takes other person's involvement (so we are on the same page) to get the right answer.
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I would 100% miss messages that way, so it's not an option. But honestly, the anxiety isn't about the notifications (although those are annoying). It's about how if someone says "hi" without any info, then I say "hi" back and now I have to wait for a response before I even know if I can help or not. The anxiety is about time management, not notification toasts.
You don't have to sit and watch the screen for a response. Reply with 'hi' and go back to whatever you were doing and ignore it until you're ready to answer it. Maybe you are in an environment where everyone needs a fast reply from you and your undivided attention, in which case, I don't think it'd be unreasonable to link them nohello.net as your first reply.
I would just ignore the hi, until it becomes an issue, which causes a problem. At that point, I would follow up with them saying, “hey, in the future, could you include your request with the initial > message so I can get to it faster?”
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> Do you just run up to people and ask them a question in person, or do some kind of greeting first? The problem is not whether you're greeting or not. Nobody complained about having a greeting in their messages. The problem is that chats are very asynchronous; by the time I read your message you could've solved it already. There is absolutely nothing wrong in writing "Hey, I need help with . I already tried and . If…
I'd take it one step further. If the opening message doesn't have enough information for an immediate action to be taken, it doesn't have enough information. A message "Hey, I need help with x" is just as frustrating as "Hello" because it results in the same back and forth. "What problem are you having with x?" "Well, I want to do y" "Why are you doing y?" "Well, for z purpose". Your chats should be of the form "Hey,…
…but it occurs to me that I could include all that additional context as well as to how I am feeling.
And auto respond to “how are you doing” with “good”.
The sender can now type their question.