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I don't read your email threads

loganmarek.com

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Re: I don't read your email threads

#11

Post by skydhash »

chacha102 wrote: post #6

> Save a vibe today and send an IM instead of an email thread. I would rather the email honestly. IMs usually have the expectation that I'm going to respond to you "soon", which is an interruption/distraction. And they don't contain enough information so I have to start going back and forth with the other person. At least with email, most people recognize that you will respond in your own timing in the next 24-48 hou…

Unless it's a close collaborator (we're working on the same project daily and interacts often, as in decisions are taken together), email is a much better medium for conversation.

Re: I don't read your email threads

#12

Post by skydhash »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #9

> IM (Teams, Slack, etc.): Actual communication lol good luck doing Slack Thread archeology instead then. (I'm not experienced with Teams but since its Microsoft, it's likely worse.)

IM (if not a dialogue) is best treated as a room full of people. Anything that spans more than two back and forth should better happen somewhere else.

Re: I don't read your email threads

#13

Post by benliong78 »

A email thread, to me, is much preferable to any IM, unless participants knows to send those IMs in a thread as well.

All the context are in there in the rawest of forms, you a run through them with your eyeballs or have your tools do the summarisation there and then. Most of the IMs I received didn't even quote the original message they were responding to, and I end up spending time jumping up and down the channel or group to get the whole context. Not to mention folks sending me link to a slack, which, depending on the mood of the almighty slack god, can or cannot be opened in the app / current slack session.

But you do you. :)

Re: I don't read your email threads

#14

Post by nottorp »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #9

> IM (Teams, Slack, etc.): Actual communication lol good luck doing Slack Thread archeology instead then. (I'm not experienced with Teams but since its Microsoft, it's likely worse.)

> lol good luck doing Slack Thread archeology instead then.

The OP pretends they're actually placing all info into organized documentation in ... Confluence or something. I suppose in real time as the slack thread develops, because they aren't going to find anything a week later...

> (I'm not experienced with Teams but since its Microsoft, it's likely worse.)

Slack is a paragon of usability compared to Teams.

My guess is no one in the OPs organization remembers email etiquette. In theory with proper quoting you won't need to review all messages in a thread because the most recent one already has all the info.

Tbh i use email style indenting even when replying to Slack messages.

Re: I don't read your email threads

#15

Post by nkrisc »

The same can be said about Slack threads.

If you’re including someone new into an already running conversation, take the time to write a summary for them and why you’re now involving them in the conversation, and what you expect from them. No, don’t use AI to do it, that’s more offensive than “see below”.

Re: I don't read your email threads

#16

Post by elric »

Is this intentional ragebait? Calling IMs "actual communication" is .... odd. Email all but guarantees more thoughtful replies than IM.

I'll agree that the example of simply tagging someone in a long quoted thread is not the way to go. The sender should have included a summary and an explanation of why the new recipient is suddenly added.

Re: I don't read your email threads

#17

Post by nytesky »

I wish people would make shared white papers for discussions. People basically collaborate on the collected notes and decisions; with modern tools you can have history and attribution easily.

Some threads become difficult to unravel.

Re: I don't read your email threads

#18

Post by johnecheck »

nkrisc wrote: post #15

The same can be said about Slack threads. If you’re including someone new into an already running conversation, take the time to write a summary for them and why you’re now involving them in the conversation, and what you expect from them. No, don’t use AI to do it, that’s more offensive than “see below”.

If you generate an AI summary and it's garbage, obviously that's wrong.

But assuming you take the time to make sure it's actually good, this seems like a fine use for an LLM.

Re: I don't read your email threads

#19

Post by pm215 »

I feel like the problem here is the "see below" part, rather than the email thread part -- that is where the sender has done zero effort to contextualise or summarise the situation or explain why suddenly you are the person to pull into this, and is instead putting the burden on you to do all that work from scratch.

Re: I don't read your email threads

#20

Post by rwmj »

scrapheap wrote: post #8

Personally I prefer to be sent a full email thread over a message in chat, because a) I can ignore it until I have time to look at it b) You can see who else has already been involved in the conversation - seeing a fellow team member being involved can help avoid falling for situations where someone is trying to work around one of your colleagues who's already told them they can't have what they're asking for. c) The…

and for a well-written email:

d) Someone spent some time forming and writing down their thoughts, which seems to be an increasingly rare skill these days.

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