How To Ask Questions The Smart Way Eric Steven Raymond http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
I wonder how this comes across to younger members of the hacker or scientific dev communities today. The tone, while perhaps aligned with older norms of bluntness, might now be seen as needlessly harsh or even toxic by some. It raises the question of how values around communication and community have shifted over time.
No Hello
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Re: No Hello
#72This 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…
It's not about interruption really, it's about a style of using chat apps that wastes peoples' attention and is easily avoided.
> they receive hundreds of notifications
okay, so this nohello thing is good advice to help reduce the noise.
Re: No Hello
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but it’s still silly. “Hey, I’m having some trouble figuring this thing out, here’s where I’m confused: … . It’s absurd to expect someone to play 20 questions with you to figure out what your problem is.
They probably need handholding to go through the issue and aren't good at putting into words explicitly what their issue is. Especially nontechnical and nonprogrammer people have problems around structuring and breaking down an issue into explicit parts, with a clearly formulated goal and required inputs and expected outputs etc. Most people's problem-solving relies on a collaborative thinking process where short sen…
I expect that from students and children, sure. But professionals?
> Especially nontechnical and nonprogrammer people have problems around structuring and breaking down an issue into explicit parts, with a clearly formulated goal and required inputs and expected outputs etc.
Ah, they were failed by their school system. I remember being taught to think this way in my math and writing classes as a child.
Re: No Hello
#74What a non issue? If a solution is needed, software should not notify user about mere greetings
Re: No Hello
#75"You still say hello!" - Uncle Leo I agree with the website. It's even worse when you have to do the "how are you?" back and forth before getting to the actual request.
Phatic communication is about establishing social connection rather than conveying explicit information.
Both "Hi" and "How are you?" serve in these cases* to eatablish "this is a friendly, casual interaction" by way of social ritual. If you fail to signal non-aggression in this way then, at least neurotypical people, will be more likely to consider you an aggressor.
I don't struggle or feel bothered by "Hi" or "How are you?". But I do struggle with threading enough phatic praise and appreciation into conversation to maintain the "friendly, casual" status and can get easily start being treated as an aggressor.
* America in particular has "How are you?" as one of these phatic rituals. Different parts of the world have different rituals in different areas of interaction. This can be a cause of friction when moving to a new country and you interpret an unfamiliar ritual literally instead of phatically or misunderstand another's intent because a ritual you expect was missing.
Re: No Hello
#76How To Ask Questions The Smart Way Eric Steven Raymond http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
This section should be required reading to get on the internet http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#not_losin...
Re: No Hello
#77My wife, god bless her, is really good with people. I try very hard to mimic her, but this multi-round interaction has completely permeated how she interacts over tech, even with tech. I cannot manage it. Her: "Alexa, add to shopping list". "OK, what should I add for you". "Peanut butter". "OK, peanut butter added, what else?". . Me: "Alexa add peanut butter to shopping list". "Peanut butter added". Some people are T…
Re: No Hello
#78My wife, god bless her, is really good with people. I try very hard to mimic her, but this multi-round interaction has completely permeated how she interacts over tech, even with tech. I cannot manage it. Her: "Alexa, add to shopping list". "OK, what should I add for you". "Peanut butter". "OK, peanut butter added, what else?". . Me: "Alexa add peanut butter to shopping list". "Peanut butter added". Some people are T…
"Alexa add peanut butter to shopping list" "OK, what should list should I add to?" "shopping list" "Ok, what should I add for you" "Peanut butter" "Ok, playing Peanut Butter by the Royal Guardsmen on a HomePod you forgot you had"
Re: No Hello
#79My wife, god bless her, is really good with people. I try very hard to mimic her, but this multi-round interaction has completely permeated how she interacts over tech, even with tech. I cannot manage it. Her: "Alexa, add to shopping list". "OK, what should I add for you". "Peanut butter". "OK, peanut butter added, what else?". . Me: "Alexa add peanut butter to shopping list". "Peanut butter added". Some people are T…
“Alexa add peanut butter to shopping list"
“Alexa add peanut butter to shopping list". “Peanut butter added. Peanut butter added. Peanut butter added.”
Re: No Hello
#80I see this more often when someone desires synchronous, multi-turn interaction, not simply "when is that thing starting again?". Things where they aren't exactly sure how to ask the question so they want to rely on you asking questions back and then together zeroing in on the solution of some issue.