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A case for using punctuation in Slack

blog.mitchjlee.com

201–210 of 274 posts

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#201
> this [this fast and loose style] interrupts more productive work and deters deep thinking

This doesn't mesh with how I feel toward Slack. Slack itself is the thing that's disrupting my productivity and deterring deeper thinking by pinging me all the time. When I open Slack, the vast majority of the time, I'm looking to express my point as clearly AND concisely as possible so I can get back to doing whatever it was, which is 99% of time more important. As a result I use (or don't use) grammatical conventions, capitalization, and emoji depending on the context of my message and what will allow me to get my entire message across the fastest, and hopefully correctly.

If I'm messaging the person I've pairing with all day, or if I'm coordinating with my team about who will pick up a story, I'm much less likely to give my message all the proper formatting. These people what I'm like and how I tend to communicate, and so I can rely on that prior knowledge to "cut corners" here and there. I'm also much, much more likely to use emoji because I can communicate my intentions and my "intonation" nearly instantly, without having to sit there and worry about wordsmithing my whole message.

That being said, if I'm message in a large public channel that perhaps has multiple teams or belongs to a team I don't normally interact with, I'll spend much more time wordsmithing and editing to make sure I'm following proper conventions - mostly for the sake of clarity.

It does make some very salient points (think about how others could misinterpret your message, expand acronyms/use them sparingly, write to your audience, etc.) but I think they bought a little bit too much into the "Slack has replaced email" argument. For me, the main benefit of Slack over email is the lowered barrier to entry to starting a conversation and the ability to keeping it flowing, and part of achieving that is being okay with lowering the standards of communication.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#202

Earlier 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…

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!

Fun aside, on most mobile platforms, hitting the space key twice will generally enter a period followed by a space.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#203
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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) ; )

> Also, how do you write (delineate, identify, etc) small, short sentences without periods? oh that's easy you just write one short sentence at a time like this :-)

Aha - so you're using CR's to denote end of sentences rather than periods, which would be an interesting evolution for the (written) language.

Grouping related thoughts / points as sentences within a single paragraph still feels more right to me than trying to over-succinctify potentially complex concepts into tiny paragraphs.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#204
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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) ; )

In my experience this is pretty much a universal norm for all Americans below 30. Putting a period at the end of a sentence may come across as curt or rude. Note: Rules are different for multi-sentence messages and single sentence messages. For messages with multiple sentences, its fine to insert periods between all sentences, but skip the last one. The above only applies to short messages with a single sentence.

I know that historically, newspaper headlines were lengthier, and quite likely to be a grammatically valid sentence.

However, periods were never used to end them, as absent a period it invited the reader to actually engage with the rest of the story. (This story may be apocryphal, but it sounds reasonable.)

Perhaps there's a little of that going on with people's communications where they wish to imply there exists more than they are saying (which may or may not ultimately be delivered to the reader).

For my part - as an over-30 non-American - I'll stick with standard punctuation.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you intepret those is absolutely a choice. If you do not have enough information to know 100% what the intention of the other person is, then wherever you land is a decision. If it's that the person is angry, that's your choice the same if you believe the person is not angry.

You sound like you have never worked in the business world before. Half of business is picking up on tone, ambiguous phrasing, and empty promises with smiles. Reading between the lines is a core part of interpreting meaning, and it why many people with autism spectrum disorders really struggle with things like sales, or people management (at least from the customer or employee's side). Nuance is everything here. If m…

You're talking about a completely different situation. In that situation, you should probably ask your boss for more information instead of assuming what he wants based on puncuation. I'm just saying that given the choice between applying malice to the punctuation, maybe do the opposite.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#207
> this [this fast and loose style] interrupts more productive work and deters deep thinking

This doesn't mesh with how I feel toward Slack. Slack itself is the thing that's disrupting my productivity and deterring deeper thinking by pinging me all the time. When I open Slack, the vast majority of the time, I'm looking to express my point as clearly AND concisely as possible so I can get back to doing whatever it was, which is 99% of time more important. As a result I use (or don't use) grammatical conventions, capitalization, and emoji depending on the context of my message and what will allow me to get my entire message across the fastest, and hopefully correctly.

If I'm messaging the person I've pairing with all day, or if I'm coordinating with my team about who will pick up a story, I'm much less likely to give my message all the proper formatting. These people what I'm like and how I tend to communicate, and so I can rely on that prior knowledge to "cut corners" here and there.

I'm also much, much more likely to use emoji because I can communicate my intentions and my "intonation" nearly instantly, without having to sit there and worry about wordsmithing my whole message. Sure, sending "I'm done for the day" and "I'm done for the day " mean the same thing, my hope is that by including the waving emoji it shows I'm not signing off out of frustration, but instead that I'm just at the end of my hours and it's time to log off. This is a bit of a contrived example, as I don't think hardly anyone would read the first message and think "they're mad", but I hope my argument is still clear.

That being said, if I'm message in a large public channel that perhaps has multiple teams or belongs to a team I don't normally interact with, I'll spend much more time wordsmithing and editing to make sure I'm following proper conventions - mostly for the sake of clarity.

The author does make some very salient points (think about how others could misinterpret your message, expand acronyms/use them sparingly, write to your audience, etc.), and as a whole I think erring on the side of more "professional" and "standardized" is always a safe bet, but I can't help but feel that they bought a little bit too much into the "Slack has replaced email" argument (not really his fault, that is how they like to market it). For me, the main benefit of Slack over email is the lowered barrier to entry to starting a conversation and the ability to keeping it flowing; part of achieving that is being okay with somwhat lowering the standards of communication.

Unrelated: I posted this comment and then tried to correct a typo, and the edit didn't go through. After I hit "Update" the page would just refresh and the text stayed the same. Anyone seen that before?

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#208
post #41

The 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…

> But don't feel people should be adding faces into the actual content of on topic work messages

Not in the content. But after the content of the whole message to indicate tone? I do that pretty much all the time, as there are generally multiple ways a message can be interpreted.

We can’t do facial expressions on chat, and we don’t have the length of content that comes with email (at least, I’d rather use one emoji than 50 extra words).

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#209
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think with just the shear amount of messaging that is occurring in todays age combined with the lines being blurred between work and home makes communication rapidly evolve. What one things is clear communication with no ambiguity, another might disagree. An example is responding back to a message with "Ok.". I see many over, say, 50 do this much more often, but to many under, say 30, this is taken as very passive…

> An example is responding back to a message with "Ok.". I see many over, say, 50 do this much more often, but to many under, say 30, this is taken as very passive aggressive. Definitely have experienced this. > shear sheer > What one things is clear communication with no ambiguity, another might disagree. thinks > todays today's > age combined with the lines being blurred between work and home makes age, combined wi…

Sorry, the last few corrections didn’t make any sense even after correction.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#210
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An example is responding back to a message with "Ok.". I see many over, say, 50 do this much more often, but to many under, say 30, this is taken as very passive aggressive. Definitely have experienced this. > shear sheer > What one things is clear communication with no ambiguity, another might disagree. thinks > todays today's > age combined with the lines being blurred between work and home makes age, combined wi…

Correcting someone’s English is usually seen as a sign of social posturing, because higher education is often related to someone’s self-perception of social status ranking. It takes a extremely skilled approach to do it without causing offence. It is especially poor form on HN, because you cannot know whether English is their second language, or whether there are other reasons for mistakes (such as being in a hurry,…

Depends on what you are correcting I think. Correcting shear to sheer was the immediate thing I mentally did when reading the message, because if you don’t, people will keep doing this wrong in more important settings too.

All the punctuation is less important and I wouldn’t really bother with it.

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