I beg you to follow Crocker's Rules, even if you will be rude to me

Now I think I see why some American-dominated FOSS communities object to my writing, and why I get hatemail, blogs and comments attacking me online, and entire threads of abuse here on HN. A light has dawned. I am not planning to change, though. Deal with it.

What it is saying in pointlessly flowery language is: "Please just be direct."

Spelled out: "cut the crap, don't waste my time and your words. Say what you mean."

In England, where there is a strong north/south cultural divide, being very direct is seen as a stereotypically Northern attribute. In the south, especially the south-east (around the capital), people are more flowery.

I'm from Lancashire, although I left young. Half my family is Irish.

In my culture, speaking directly is seen as a virtue. It's a good thing. Burying your message in pointless verbiage is not polite: it's wasting time. We'd call it a "load of hot air".

The expression is embedded in the title of this book:

https://www.withouthotair.com/

The author was from Newcastle, in the heard of the north-east.

I regard being blunt and direct as respectful. It implies: "I think you are an adult. I appreciate that your time is valuable, so I will not waste it."

I think this is the default cultural position of where I'm from.

Blather, hot air, floweriness, excess verbiage: this is the stuff of professional liars, like salespeople and politicians. If someone wraps how they speak in layers of pointless drivel it means they are trying to hide what they have to say, and if they fell the need to do that, you should not trust what they say, and indeed, trust them.

I am shocked and amazed that there needs to be a phrase for this in American discourse. I am nearly 60 and I never knew.

I spent 3 a lot of time for 2 years in Norway, where this is normal: Norwegians are even more blunt than Northern Brits. I liked it a lot.

(I recently did a very brief interview with a Norwegian senior civil servant for work and he was full of praise for my Norwegian.) I like the people, I like the place, I like the manners.

Example here:

https://nlsnorwayrelocation.no/the-unwritten-rules-of-norweg...

Czechs are even more blunt. I like it. As a beginner in their formidably complex language, brevity is helpful. I walk into a bar and people to go:

"How many?"

"Just you?"

"For one?"

It's great. Gets to the point, easy to understand, easy to answer.

The Finns even more so.

There is a Finnish comic book about this:

https://yle.fi/a/3-8406344

It's also a recurrent theme of the excellent Scandinavia and the World. Apparently Chinese people admire Finnish brevity.

https://satwcomic.com/manners-are-important

So this is not just Europe.

It's just you, America.

If you need a polite way to say "cut the crap", this is a hint: you have a problem.

TL;DR.

Talking takes time and effort. So does listening. Be brief. Get to the point.

The most ridiculous thing about the "hello" senders is that they end up sitting there waiting for you to reply.

People are responsible for their emotional responses. But you also will be impacted by their reaction. It's unrealistic to assume that people will always act unemotional - they are not Spocks. It makes sense to do some padding / emotional prework. If you don't you will end up actually spending MORE time getting what you want.

Example: you are giving feedback to a peer

Direct: this is a poor user experience. Our customers tell us they want xyz, but this experience is doing the opposite. Can you change it?

Padded: hey can I share some feedback on this experience? (Yes) ok our customers tell us they want xyz, but the experience seems to be doing the opposite. Can you help me understand?

Most people would feel more defensive and closed with the first approach than the second, which will make it less likely they will want to help, listen to you, or take you seriously. They'll just be focused on defending themselves. Whereas with the second, you can start to have an actual discussion.

And it's not just the opener, it's throughout.

Words have power. Two sentences can mean the same thing but can lead to different reactions from people.

Or you might not mention something that significantly influences how something is interpreted.

I just gave this feedback yesterday to a team member. The problem was in a presentation she presented a strong conclusion based on a shaky methodology and people tore into it. She basically was attributing an effect to a change pre/post, not with a holdout.

Her underlying data was sound, she had diligently collected the timing of events and such, but she didn't realize how pre/post methodology could be perceived as shaky.

The whole thing could have been avoided had she said something like "we didn't have a hold out, and all of this effect likely isn't from the cause, but directionally there's smoke - our campaigns performed x before, and y after. So this is worth testing to help validate this hypothesis"

Now their message goes from "This big bad thing happened so I'm going to fix it" to "I don't know exactly what happened, but there's one factor that directionally had an impact so I'm going to test it to validate and can scale from there".

Both essentially say the same thing: there's an opportunity for upside and that's why this is worth testing. But the reaction will be different, so it behooves all of us to be mindful of that.

I ask not to insult, but to understand. I can't help but wonder if a lot of this demand for terse language comes from a simple inability to read well? Reading is really not supposed to feel like work to the educated, and it does not to me. For me its just a state of consciousness, and doesnt require any more effort than being awake does.

I am genuinely surprised to hear otherwise educated people imply that simply reading something a coworker wrote significantly slows down their work.