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A case for using punctuation in Slack

blog.mitchjlee.com

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Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#231

Post by Phrodo_00 »

robocat wrote: post #193
elwell wrote: 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,…

As an ESL speaker, I appreciate people who make an effort to correct me.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#233

Post by bccdee »

Jedd wrote: post #203
jlokier wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Language actually changes like this a lot, and it's really interesting ... Back a good 70 years ago, ellipses were commonly used for this in informal mediums such as postcards ... It leads to a very different-feeling messages ... Heard it on a podcast about how the internet has changed grammar [1]

[1]: https://www.earwolf.com/episode/how-the-internet-is-transfor...

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#234

Post by bccdee »

iamdbtoo wrote: post #68
soggybutter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree about ending periods. I always read those messages as being irritated or overly firm. Potentially worse, though, are people who have a habit of abusing ellipses (...) in weird places. My boss does this in virtually every sentence, sometimes multiple times, and it always comes off like he can't believe you'd say something so stupid

I find this odd because, to me, attributing malice because of the presence of a period is something you do in your own mind. You don't know the emotional state of the person who sent it, so you think of the worst possible outcome, but both are equally likely in the moment. You're just as free to give them the benefit of the doubt.

ATTRIBUTING ANGER TO ME JUST BECAUSE I'M WRITING IN ALL CAPS IS SOMETHING YOU'RE DOING IN YOUR HEAD, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN I SHOULDN'T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE FACT THAT MY WRITING THIS WAY WILL PROVOKE THAT REACTION FROM OTHERS.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#235

Post by bccdee »

soggybutter wrote: post #59
adjkant wrote: 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…

100% agree about ending periods. I always read those messages as being irritated or overly firm. Potentially worse, though, are people who have a habit of abusing ellipses (...) in weird places. My boss does this in virtually every sentence, sometimes multiple times, and it always comes off like he can't believe you'd say something so stupid

I actually just posted about the ellipses elsewhere in this thread ... Much in the same way that carriage returns are used to signify new sentences instead of periods in certain internet environments, ellipses used to be common sentence-separators in other mediums during the mid-20th century ... Specifically, if you dig up old postcards from that time, you'll find them littered with ellipses

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#236

Post by bccdee »

userbinator wrote: post #199
adjkant wrote: 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…

ending periods actually have negative emotion in text vernacular now for younger audiences and should almost never be used in 1-1 messaging That is extremely problematic, since I've already lost track of how many misparses (and resulting conflict over misunderstanding the meaning) have happened because of someone who wrote what should be multiple .-separated sentences as a single long and unpunctuated stream of text.…

Yeah, the original poster is grossly exaggerating. "Never use periods in instant messaging" is a really strange thing to say. However, it's true that the messages

> sure

and

> sure.

will be interpreted slightly differently from each other.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#237

Post by bccdee »

abacadaba wrote: post #200
userbinator wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ending periods actually have negative emotion in text vernacular now for younger audiences and should almost never be used in 1-1 messaging That is extremely problematic, since I've already lost track of how many misparses (and resulting conflict over misunderstanding the meaning) have happened because of someone who wrote what should be multiple .-separated sentences as a single long and unpunctuated stream of text.…

Correct Form: I didn't know that. He did it

Once multiple sentences are on the table, it matters a lot less. The real significant line is between "zero periods; none needed" and "one redundant period at the end."

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#238

Post by pertymcpert »

greggyb wrote: post #143
hombre_fatal wrote: post #114

Earlier 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…

You've utterly missed the point. There are subtleties here that are completely lost on you. Just give up.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#239

Post by bccdee »

jhayward wrote: post #188
adjkant wrote: 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 am astounded that anyone thinks that adding emojis can solve anything related to clarity of communication. We might as well be interpreting Egyptian cartoushes, for the lack of clarity involved.

Ok, but how do you feel about this?

A laughing emoji would let us know that you think it's funny that people are this inarticulate, although it'd be a touch condescending.

An eye-roll emoji would indicate a frustration with the problem, suggesting that it personally affects you in some way — perhaps your relatives are using too many emojis and it irritates you personally.

A frown emoji, meanwhile, would suggest a more sincere concern for the state of written communication in our culture, and would imply that you think something important is being lost.

Explaining the meaning of those three unicode characters in context took an additional 480 characters. Can you see why people use them? They're very efficient.

Re: A case for using punctuation in Slack

#240

Post by pertymcpert »

greggyb wrote: post #144
Izkata wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Someone explained to you something you don't know, and you respond like this. Shameful.
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