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Don't paste the AI, please

dontpastetheai.com

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Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#481

Post by prepend »

catlifeonmars wrote: post #417
john_strinlai wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is true 100% I would even say: "Never reply on anything instantly that is not an absolute emergency, ever" you can shorten this to "never reply instantly", because an "absolute emergency" will never be communicated by email.

Also, email delivery in general can be delayed for hours. It’s not common, but there are no delivery guarantees around email. You could reply immediately, and it could arrive in their inbox much later.

This doesn’t happen enough to me that I consider it.

Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#482

Post by tayo42 »

biztos wrote: post #287
blensor wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially I also hate if someone answers with a voice message. I can understand that there are situations where you just can't type out the answer and those exceptions are of course fine, but if you post a voice message or god forbid a video message in a group chat you are forcing everyone to take the time and sit through it.

The WhatsApp voice message is very common in Spain. I always find it jarring when I'm there, mostly because I'm not used to it, but also because it seems to defeat the purpose of the messaging app: I can't listen to your voice message on the bus, for instance. It's so normalized there that I wonder whether this is a particularly Spanish habit. Maybe there are a bunch of countries where people routinely leave each oth…

Are the messages in Spanish or English?

Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#483

Post by hliyan »

sixtyj wrote: post #414
mhaberl wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Back in the day I learned the hard way that sending a long reply to an email just ensures the other side won't read it. You can't assume that you dealt with their request effectively that way Then I guess you didn't deal with much of the empty-headed-managment type much. I learned a different lesson: Write a long email that took time to reason and write, precise and complete text. You get a short reply that is a re…

Mail is async by nature. Read them 2-3 times a day only (you don’t check mailbox 100 times a day :) and you get things done… I prefer to reply to an e-mail immediately. Or never. If so than archive it or delete it. If you don’t answer immediately, you carry it as opened mind window and probability to have your mind being unable to concentrate increases over time.

Long ago, I heard this advice on some ancient management tape: "never let a piece of paper cross your desk twice". It stuck with me and I've got into the habit of immediately answering, archiving or on occasion setting a snooze timer (in GMail). If the recipient takes my promptness for granted, then I might adjust my policies for just that person. (Un)fortunately, it helps to be a manager -- then you can give feedback to people who don't read emails properly.

Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#484

Post by pixl97 »

bluecheese452 wrote: post #399
NateEag wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, what it taught people was to describe others who want to help them ask better questions as "gatekeepers". Maybe SO really is full of rude, condescending gatekeepers - I haven't asked questions there much. I haven't personally seen much evidence of it, though, despite decades of winding up there when searching for programming information.

If you haven’t asked questions how would you know? A question that gets incorrectly closed as a duplicate would never get seen by you.

Perception is reality.

If everyone thinks their question will get closed, it might as well be reality because no one is going to ask and they are going to go elsewhere. Which is exactly what happened.

Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#485

Post by prepend »

conductr wrote: post #403
chrisweekly wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Write a long email that took time to reason and write, precise and complete text." Respectful hard disagree. Emails should be limited to five sentences. "I didn't have time to make a shorter reply" as an apology / disclaimer for rare exceptions. In virtually every case, anything longer belongs somewhere better than email (Slack, wiki / knowledgebase, docs site) or merits a realtime conversation. My PoV is shaped b…

Hard disagree back. Email has multiple contexts when I would say that short form is ideal and should be the default but at times a thoroughly long form email is needed. Or, honestly, you just need to create a document at this point. It could be a slide deck or word/markdown/excel/etc (depends on context) and this should be in the email. But email is key. My experience is that people search subject lines, conversation…

I’ve found that a two-prong approach works best.

Detail in the email, expect people to read it or fail. And include a reference to a wiki or some more detailed version that can be collaborated on and extended.

So the email isn’t the primary source, the wiki is (really some markdown in git). But the email is the thing that people organize and find over time.

Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#486

Post by tzs »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #280
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #257

Had an offshore dev respond to me with copy pasted Claude response for the first time the other day. My reaction was of immediate visceral disgust. I can say in no uncertain terms that I do not care if your English is completely broken. I prefer that over AI slop. You will not improve your writing and language proficiency if you do not practice them! If you do not care about your language proficiency then you have ze…

The "good" news is you won't have to deal with this much longer. Claude, which this person basically admitted through their behavior, will replace 99% of the offshore devs in the next couple years. Then you won't have to get the ick from talking to them and they can go back to having no real economic prospects in a 3rd world country, and most likely lose the social and economic standing they had from having a good jo…

Or you’ve got it backwards. Claude et al. with offshore developers to fix hallucinations and verify answers will replace onshore developers.

Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#487

Post by prepend »

john_strinlai wrote: post #420
chrisweekly wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Write a long email that took time to reason and write, precise and complete text." Respectful hard disagree. Emails should be limited to five sentences. "I didn't have time to make a shorter reply" as an apology / disclaimer for rare exceptions. In virtually every case, anything longer belongs somewhere better than email (Slack, wiki / knowledgebase, docs site) or merits a realtime conversation. My PoV is shaped b…

> anything longer belongs somewhere better than email (Slack, wiki / knowledgebase, docs site) wiki/kb or docs site, sure, depending what the topic is. but... slack? for your long-form communications? please email me your long stuff, don't slack it to me. email is perfectly fine for longer text when longer text is required. (opinion also shaped over a long time in various roles at companies of various size)

Oddly, I find the search in Slack, Teams, and Discord to be so horrible I don’t create any “knowledge there.” It’s like trying to write a paper on the telephone.

Anyone putting long form stuff into an IM system is taking the way of pain.

Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#488

Post by prepend »

john_strinlai wrote: post #376
jillesvangurp wrote: post #308

The complaint here is about lazy answers. But what about all the lazy questions? What's the equivalent of "Google it yourself" these days? When you ask something of somebody, the expectation of the other side to drop everything and do work for you isn't always appropriate/balanced/appreciated. The underlying problem here is that communication is hard; especially if it's not face to face. People can't read your mind o…

> 3) that talking to people is almost always the better choice when you get tempted to write a long reply. indeed! but i would add (in corporate environments): 4) follow up your phone call/face-to-face chat with a brief email summary, so you have something in writing. it has saved me countless times over my career.

I like to go straight to #4 and skip the phone call or face to face.

Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#489

Post by starky »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #308

The complaint here is about lazy answers. But what about all the lazy questions? What's the equivalent of "Google it yourself" these days? When you ask something of somebody, the expectation of the other side to drop everything and do work for you isn't always appropriate/balanced/appreciated. The underlying problem here is that communication is hard; especially if it's not face to face. People can't read your mind o…

>The complaint here is about lazy answers. But what about all the lazy questions?

>What's the equivalent of "Google it yourself" these days? When you ask something of somebody, the expectation of the other side to drop everything and do work for you isn't always appropriate/balanced/appreciated.

One of the hardest things about taking on any sort of leadership role (even unofficially) is that you need to allow others to do things. It feels incredibly stupid when you have to ask someone to do something you are more than capable of doing better/faster than the other person, but if you did that all the time you wouldn't have time to do your other work. Sometimes that includes questions that seem lazy, but part of asking the question is for the other person to acknowledge that they have thought about it and/or to ensure you aren't stealing ownership from someone.

Re: Don't paste the AI, please

#490

Post by nativeit »

jimmaswell wrote: post #469
the_af wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Usually a clear sign that you are not communicating effectively Agreed. I learned that in emails, a multi-paragraph, multi-item text means the recipient will randomly reply to only one of the points (often the least important one). So an effective email will make a single point, in as brief a manner as possible.

I wish this were simply a fireable offense and we were expected to read. These kind of people who act like reading 3 paragraphs is being asked to swallow glass make me blindingly mad. They should be unemployed.

I’m usually very tolerant of others’ varying capacities, but 100% this. High-school level reading and comprehension shouldn’t be a hard ask for professionals.
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