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No Hello

nohello.net

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Re: No Hello

#221

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

andelink wrote: post #185
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's better because X might take a while to write correctly, and you might want some assurance that you have the other person's full attention first before you even send that message. It's a commitment mechanism of sorts.

This doesn’t make sense to me. What does it matter if you have their attention first? It’s asynchronous communication. I find it so damn rude to demand my attention first before you begin typing out a long message. Like do you want me to watch the chat bubble animation while you type or something?

Yes, I do. Sometimes people want (more) synchronous communication despite the asynchronous medium. Among other things that helps guarantee a speedy response. A lot of people use asynchronicity as a way to simply avoid answering in a timely fashion, so framing it like this can make sense if you can't afford that.

In addition, seeing the chat bubbles appear moments after you finish your round is a good sign the other person isn't multitasking and letting their own attention get fractured.

I never found it rude to begin with, just not using the medium to its strengths. But this has me realizing maybe it's a deliberate way to eschew those strengths, for some purpose or another.

Re: No Hello

#222

Post by CGMthrowaway »

int_19h wrote: post #216
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK about you but I get chats from 30+ different people and I usually miss at least one person's message a day as it falls off the "front page" so to speak

I don't see how "hello?" helps with that. If anything, it makes things worse if everybody does that, because now half of those chats from 30+ different people are that, drowning out the useful messages.

It doesnt help the recipient. It helps the sender.

Re: No Hello

#223

Post by krisoft »

danaris wrote: post #96
krisoft wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It opens a synchronous channel, setting social expectations for somewhat realtime responses. But do you see how that is your choice? You can just type "hello", or a longer form of the same, and then go back to work. You can then check back in about an hour to see if they managed to describe what they are looking for. You can always change yourself, while it is so much harder to change others that it is almost futil…

> You can always change yourself, while it is so much harder to change others that it is almost futile. This is a defeatist attitude. Sure, there are some people who will refuse to change no matter what. But many—probably even most—people, if you explain that this is your preferred method of communication when they have a question for you to answer, will at least try to operate that way.

> This is a defeatist attitude.

It is not a defeatist attitude. It is a winning attitude.

You told people how you operate and you simply stick to it.

The thing you change about yourself is that you stop caring about the supposed “social expectation” that by writing “hello” they “opened a a synchronous channel“ with “expectations for somewhat realtime responses”.

Now imagine that someone heard that you use messaging asyncronously and yet they still send you a simple “hello” with nothing else. You have two choices here. You can play their game, write a “hello” back and patiently wait as they type out what they need from you. OR you can type to them “hello. long time no see, how can I help you today?” And then immediately forget about them and return back to your work. In due time when you check again your messages (maybe in an hour, maybe in half an hour) you will see if they messaged you. Maybe they will say what they want by then, maybe not.

My point is that while you can tell politely to people the benefits of getting to the point you can’t force them to do so. On the other hand you have full control over your reaction to them not following your prefered communication style.

You can get angry, and waste your time waiting for them. Or you can stay cool, keep on working, and answer them on your schedule and on your terms politely and to the best of your abilities.

If you think what i say is defeatist attitude then probably you are misunderstanding my point. It is not about changing how you communicate, but changing about how much you care about the “expectation of realtime responses”.

Re: No Hello

#224

Post by noahjk »

NackerHughes wrote: post #184
cogogo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first startup I worked at used IRC - well before slack etc. I hadn’t touched it since I was a teenager and think I managed to violate just about every internal channel guideline. Took me a minute to understand what “echan” meant.

For the rest of us, what does “echan” mean? Searching online for “irc echan” wasn’t much good. edit: some wider-range searching suggests it might be Spanish for “kicked”.

"Echan" = "empty channel" - IRC slang for joining a channel, seeing no recent activity, and immediately leaving.

It's considered bad etiquette because IRC channels are often quiet but still active - you're supposed to stick around and just ask your question directly rather than bailing when you don't see instant chatter.

Re: No Hello

#225

Post by fc417fc802 »

cxr wrote: post #162
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The selfish point (there are other points too) of "hi" is to confirm you have their attention and to remove plausible deniability of "oops I missed your message."

Weird subthread. > The selfish point (there are other points too) of "hi" is to confirm you have their attention No one is unsure of the selfish/self-serving motivation behind the lone "hello". The singleminded self-centeredness at the expense of others is the _entire_ basis of the criticism. This response is like encountering in a thread about lunch theft in the workplace, "Some people take food that isn't theirs be…

This is such a ridiculously cynical interpretation. I'm sure there at least a few people out there who behave as you describe but that is not normal. Greeting people before launching into a topic is a social norm. Even if you make a reasonable case that it is outdated in the context of instant messaging that doesn't change the reality of it.

Someone doing something that you consider outdated or inefficient does not imply that he is malicious.

Re: No Hello

#226

Post by fc417fc802 »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #222
int_19h wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how "hello?" helps with that. If anything, it makes things worse if everybody does that, because now half of those chats from 30+ different people are that, drowning out the useful messages.

It doesnt help the recipient. It helps the sender.

In the described scenario (chats falling off the front page) it doesn't help either party.

In the case where you want an immediate discussion, don't trust the status indicator, and there are multiple different people you could contact, a quick confirmation that the selected party is online and available is not unreasonable.

Re: No Hello

#227

Post by fc417fc802 »

benberryjam wrote: post #220
yusina wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And thats why you guys are working with computers and not people, cause that's pretty rude. What they are doing is only rude if they are aware that it annoys people. You response is rude nonetheless since it's a version of "that'll teach them" which is a pretty immature way of handling disagreements or conflicts. A more mature way would be for "first offenders" to politely reply hi and help them with whatever they ne…

I’m actually very good with people. But this is chat. Would you email someone and just say hi?

If I were using email as a realtime chat service, sure. I mean personally I probably wouldn't but it's certainly not unreasonable.

Intentionally ignoring people or otherwise being difficult out of spite is immature and disrespectful. That said, I see no reason to sit and wait for a response. Wait until I'm free (if it was urgent he should have specified that), reply "hi", tab out, and the thread goes back on the stack with all the others. No special treatment one way or the other.

Is tab-h-i-CR-tab really so onerous? Personally it doesn't even interrupt my line of thought.

Re: No Hello

#228

Post by CGMthrowaway »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #226
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesnt help the recipient. It helps the sender.

In the described scenario (chats falling off the front page) it doesn't help either party. In the case where you want an immediate discussion, don't trust the status indicator, and there are multiple different people you could contact, a quick confirmation that the selected party is online and available is not unreasonable.

The two scenarios are not mutually exclusive

Re: No Hello

#229

Post by quietbritishjim »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #221
andelink wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn’t make sense to me. What does it matter if you have their attention first? It’s asynchronous communication. I find it so damn rude to demand my attention first before you begin typing out a long message. Like do you want me to watch the chat bubble animation while you type or something?

Yes, I do. Sometimes people want (more) synchronous communication despite the asynchronous medium. Among other things that helps guarantee a speedy response. A lot of people use asynchronicity as a way to simply avoid answering in a timely fashion, so framing it like this can make sense if you can't afford that. In addition, seeing the chat bubbles appear moments after you finish your round is a good sign the other p…

Seems like you might be looking for a phone call

Re: No Hello

#230

Post by nunorbatista »

newdee wrote: post #210
nunorbatista wrote: post #57

This is not the first time I see this here and to be honest, I was in total agreement a few years ago. In principle, I still am. Then I became a manager, I had to start dealing with more people, to navigate the enterprise environment and I understood that one of my strengths is to be understand people and to accommodate their ways of working. In this context, being hard with people that just say hello just doesn't ma…

You’re not helping people by neglecting to point out errant use of messaging platforms. It harms productivity and is something that a manager should be treating. You don’t need to be “hard” about it, but not guiding people is arguably more harmful than maybe a couple of hurt feelings. Make things better.

On the efforts to guide people, I added small things like this to the rules of engagement. But there's just so many more things to frame in the context of team management that this becomes just a foot note.

What really harms productivity is lack of leadership, vision and organization. I try to avoid micromanaging this sort of thing.

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