I think the title should be more general. This advice should not be scoped only to "in slack". It should be for any written communication that you actually care about.
A case for using punctuation in Slack
141–150 of 274 posts
Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack
#142Indeed, real-time chats are a horror. A blight that should be removed from the organized collaboration world.
I would rather use E-mail, if only there was a FidoNet-like culture of using it properly among the users and the E-mail client software authors (that would enable proper threading and include quoting only the particular parts you answer).
IMHO the best communication format is a HN-like comments thread.
Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've come across the period-as-negative idea before. I communicate in text media to audiences ranging from people in their early twenties to several decades my senior. I strive to communicate similarly to all. This includes capitalization and punctuation. I've discussed the negative period with several folks in this range, and none indicate that they view my communication as abrupt, brief, or negative, but that they…
> I ultimately come to this conclusion. A period is a tiny piece of a message. If something so small makes your message seem in some way negative, then your communication is already on the margin. You should look at other areas of your communication to improve. You're taking it all the way to an extreme where kids these days must be getting upset over periods in messages and wincing with tender emotions (which was a…
If a one-word response would seem more negative or less enthusiastic with a period, then I posit it was not carrying a positive or enthusiastic message in the first place. If I want someone to interpret a one-word answer as enthusiastic, I'll put a bloody exclamation point on it.
And you get back to the real core of my point (though I could probably have been clearer).
> Sounds pretty reasonable to me for SMS/WhatsApp texting, and definitely something I agree with since ending a one-word statement with a period when you otherwise never use periods is clearly a statement no matter how small.
I punctuate fastidiously. In my un-blinded, anecdotal data, my interlocutors do not interpret my punctuation negatively. Sometimes they say my vocabulary makes it seem like I'm too big for my britches ... and that I use archaic idioms.
Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've come across the period-as-negative idea before. I communicate in text media to audiences ranging from people in their early twenties to several decades my senior. I strive to communicate similarly to all. This includes capitalization and punctuation. I've discussed the negative period with several folks in this range, and none indicate that they view my communication as abrupt, brief, or negative, but that they…
I think calling it a negative is overstating it, but it's what people go to because we don't really have a word for it. It's more like, an "I'm-putting-my-foot-down", don't argue with me, extra bit of finality. Kind of like a parent telling something to their kid with an air of authority, or the kid shutting down when the parent isn't accepting what they're saying. For me, this started in the early 2000s with SMS, an…
Or it's like you're ending a sentence the way you always do. I think it's like that.
Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
And how is real-time chat “supposed to” work? It presents a text box to type into. The text that I type in there is proper English, with correct punctuation and sentence structure. I don’t see how it being real-time suddenly means you need to abandon that. In the same way, face to face communication doesn’t suddenly abandon inflection or tone simply because it is real-time.
And again, I think it comes down to culture. In your workplace, you're in a room with your coworkers: do you ask "Excuse me everyone, could I have a moment of your time? Does anyone know the status on the internal project Crusade Against Initialisms? Thanks in advance!" or do you say "yo what's the latest on CAI?". In our org, Slack is the same as talking in person (since we, you know, can't do that anymore thanks to…
I don't think it's so much a corporate culture thing as a context thing. There are certainly channels in my work Slack that I feel compelled to add more kindness phrases to when engaging.
Following your metaphor: if I were in a room with a couple hundred other people I _probably would_ say "excuse me" before shouting a question.
Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I ultimately come to this conclusion. A period is a tiny piece of a message. If something so small makes your message seem in some way negative, then your communication is already on the margin. You should look at other areas of your communication to improve. You're taking it all the way to an extreme where kids these days must be getting upset over periods in messages and wincing with tender emotions (which was a…
If a one-word response would seem more negative or less enthusiastic with a period, then I posit it was not carrying a positive or enthusiastic message in the first place. If I want someone to interpret a one-word answer as enthusiastic, I'll put a bloody exclamation point on it. And you get back to the real core of my point (though I could probably have been clearer). > Sounds pretty reasonable to me for SMS/WhatsAp…
Cool.
Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack
#147The message beyond the HN title actually has potential. However, the author focuses in some odd places for me. As far as punctuation, ending periods actually have negative emotion in text vernacular now for younger audiences and should almost never be used in 1-1 messaging. Exclamation points, commas, and question marks, great! For abbreviations, it's simply know your audience. You should use them when everyone in th…
I guess that is how I know I am getting old? I have never even heard of anyone thinking a sentence ending in a period is anything but normal. And I actually detest the use of exclamation points. They are almost always unnecessary. And I probably read too much into them, as opposed to others doing the same on periods. It is interesting though. Looking back at chat history. If I am not writing multiple sentences, and e…
Hah! Well, I'm so old, I remember having two spaces after every period. And, I, too, hate waking up to 12 notifications, of which 3-4 are usually pings to my team alias, and then seeing a bunch of DM notifications. It makes me feel like I missed something urgent, when, often, it's just people who hate putting periods after the end of their thoughts. Maddening!
Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess that is how I know I am getting old? I have never even heard of anyone thinking a sentence ending in a period is anything but normal. And I actually detest the use of exclamation points. They are almost always unnecessary. And I probably read too much into them, as opposed to others doing the same on periods. It is interesting though. Looking back at chat history. If I am not writing multiple sentences, and e…
When you're writing small, short sentences, there is something off putting about periods. It's just part of the how text based communication has become. Emojis are good because words can be interpreted with a tone that was unintended, and can lead to all sorts of communication problems. It's small and simple, but an appropriate emoji helps convey our emotions in a way that is more difficult to in short, text based me…
> When you're writing small, short sentences, there is something off putting about periods.
Well, that may be the case for some people, but I am not convinced it's the general case.
Also, how do you write (delineate, identify, etc) small, short sentences without periods?
I'm assuming people in a hurry - that don't have time for punctuation - do have time for tautological constructs? (small, short) ; )
Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack
#149As someone of the younger generation who grew up always using mostly proper punctuation over texts, and avoided abbreviations for common terms this hits home. I'm 28 for reference, and I get VERY different vibes from those younger than me who join slack, and those older (40+ or so). The difference in meaning for different punctuation for these crowds is SO evident, I feel like I'm always playing translator for even t…
I'm 20 and I've noticed how true this is. I find myself "code switching" depending on who I'm messaging at work. I've had a few profs that would the ellipsis for every single sentence, and my brain subconsciously treated his emails as mysterious. It's not too bad once you get used to it. There's also the weird thing of younger people like myself avoiding proper punctuation/capitalization for the aesthetic. Mainly bec…
>There's also the weird thing of younger people like myself avoiding proper punctuation/capitalization for the aesthetic. Mainly because a lack of proper writing can make certain messages feel more "relaxed" and casual, if that makes sense.
I don't think it's weird at all, and I don't think it's simply aesthetic. All these things (punctuation, capitalization, emoji/emoticons, representations of non-verbal communication like "lol" and "hmm", message boundaries, message send times) are ways of conveying tone, nuance, and a personal voice in an otherwise sterile, flat medium.
These nuances have been around as long as we've had instant messaging, but the specifics have changed over time. Representations of laughter are a good example: over the years we've had (in no order) "lol", "Lol", "LOL", "rofl", "ROFL", "lmao", "lmfao", "LMAO", "LMFAO", "hah", "haha", "hahaha", "HAHAHAHA", "roflmao", "roflcopter", and others. Over time the nuances of these options have changed, with some no longer au courant (the rofl family is currently outmoded), just as spoken slang and language rapidly evolve. Punctuation choices and so on follow similar patterns.
I do roll my eyes a little bit at some of the wild prescriptivism that can be found in this thread, which I think completely misses the point. The footnote from the original post I find especially infuriating:
>sloppy with their written communication, which is to say "careless and unsystematic; excessively casual".
Casual speech is not sloppy! Choices of punctuation, capitalization, and so on are deliberate.
Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack
#150The message beyond the HN title actually has potential. However, the author focuses in some odd places for me. As far as punctuation, ending periods actually have negative emotion in text vernacular now for younger audiences and should almost never be used in 1-1 messaging. Exclamation points, commas, and question marks, great! For abbreviations, it's simply know your audience. You should use them when everyone in th…
I guess that is how I know I am getting old? I have never even heard of anyone thinking a sentence ending in a period is anything but normal. And I actually detest the use of exclamation points. They are almost always unnecessary. And I probably read too much into them, as opposed to others doing the same on periods. It is interesting though. Looking back at chat history. If I am not writing multiple sentences, and e…
Tom Scott has a nice intro video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS4X1JfX6_Q
The book he mentions, Because Internet, goes into more detail. But to over-simplify, there were a few major generations of people joining the internet as well as a generation that never fully joined, and each one developed its own conventions for casual writing on their own. Some used the same mechanism to mean different things.