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Very Short Reply Expected

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201–210 of 232 posts

Re: Very Short Reply Expected

#201

Post by corin_ »

kyro wrote: post #144

I think people tend to grossly exaggerate how many emails they really do get. Are you really that damn busy that you can't spend a minute or less writing a more natural and conversational reply that indicates to the other person that you're reciprocating the amount of thought and effort they invested in their message? I agree with some others here in saying that this is awkward. You don't strive for efficiency in soc…

> I think people tend to grossly exaggerate how many emails they really do get.

For some people it is a real problem... I get 100-300 emails a day and I know people who get a lot more. And these people aren't "well he's pg, of course everyone emails him for advice" these are just general day-to-day emails.

Personally I'm with you in valuing politeness over efficiency, but I do spend a lot of time reading and responding to emails, and sometimes I get a couple of days behind in doing so.

(Maybe my experience differs to that of many HN readers as I'm not a hacker, I work in advertising and publishing.)

Re: Very Short Reply Expected

#202

Post by phryk »

IMHO "Very Short Reply Expected" makes it sound like an answer longer than ~5 words is not welcome. I think it ought to be more inclusive so that in case there is more to say you still feel welcome to do so. Maybe something like SRW for "Short response welcome"…?

Re: Very Short Reply Expected

#203

Post by slig »

robryan wrote: post #197
chmike wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to hide that you red the message ? Is it when you would like to ignore the sender but are too curious and would like to know what message he sent you ?

Also because people that know you have read the message will sometimes expect a reply straight away or will think you are ignoring them.

Exactly. Facebook knows that, and I imagine that's why they implemented this "receiver has read the message" as a way to pressure everyone to keep replying right away.

Re: Very Short Reply Expected

#204

Post by JohnLBevan »

Should there be an RSVW (welcome) as well as an RWVE (expected)? i.e. RSVE I'd interpret as "I don't have time to read long replies" whilst RSVW I'd read as "I'm happy for your response to be brief, but if you prefer verbose knock yourself out".

Re: Very Short Reply Expected

#205

Post by antonyme »

minikomi wrote: post #15
xnxn wrote: post #4

I like this idea, but I wonder about the phrasing. I wouldn't want my more... loquacious colleagues to misinterpret it as an imperative ("please do not send me a wall of text").

I immediately felt the same way and though NLRN - no long reply needed - or something along those lines might be more polite. Good idea though!

Aha! I've been trying to introduce people to the abbreviation "NRN - No Reply Needed" for text messages. It seems such a waste for someone to just text back with a reply of "ok" and pay 25c or whatever for the privilege when you don't really need to know they received it. These 3 characters at the end of a message could save a great deal over time.

Re: Very Short Reply Expected

#206

Post by joetech »

kyro wrote: post #144

I think people tend to grossly exaggerate how many emails they really do get. Are you really that damn busy that you can't spend a minute or less writing a more natural and conversational reply that indicates to the other person that you're reciprocating the amount of thought and effort they invested in their message? I agree with some others here in saying that this is awkward. You don't strive for efficiency in soc…

The difference is that not everyone who sends an email is a personal friend and not every email truly deserves that much time, either. I've found myself with the same problem, resulting in many emails not getting a response for over a week. I'm hoping this catches on. Anyone who thinks its too impersonal should simply not indicate VSRE in their email and not worry about brevity in their replies.

Is this really something worth making an argument AGAINST?

Re: Very Short Reply Expected

#207

Post by maffydub »

At work, where everyone uses Outlook, I often just set up a "poll" for this (even for only 1 recipient - it's only a couple of clicks). It does rely on me being able to guess what their answer will be, but for things like "Please confirm you'll meet deadline X", it's fine.

Obviously, this doesn't work in non-homogeneous environments.

Re: Very Short Reply Expected

#209

Post by qeorge »

sgpl wrote: post #104
qeorge wrote: post #101

I love this. I'm also extremely fond of EOM (short for End Of Message. An email with a short subject and no body). Often I send EOMs to imply a VSRE. For example, "Grill tonight? Have burgers. Off work @ 6. EOM" Very interested in learning others.

NNTR: 'no need to reply' is another common abbreviation. Pro-tip: Use them as TextExpander snippets to avoid getting another message asking you to clarify what EOM/NNTR means as only a subset of people are familiar with & use these abbreviations.

NNTR is great! Thank you!

Re: Very Short Reply Expected

#210

Post by awkward_silence »

While I understand the spirit of this proposal, I vehemently oppose it.

In social interactions you DO NOT tell the recipient how to answer. You are talking to another sentient being, not a computer. VSRE comes across as an imperative, which is simply not work well for healthy communication. It basically tells the recipient (or recipients) reply my way or the highway.

It also depends on the question or how it was understood. With VSRE you are working under the assumption that your phraseology and verbiage is flawless and universally understood. Specially in a field such software development with tons of people from a ton of different cultures, VSRE will invariably cause more harm than good.

In fact, you could even suggest to your recipient, in a more amicable way to answer briefly.

VSRE, in my opinion, is the antithesis of what communication and technology should be about.

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