Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)
dontasktoask.com
dontasktoask.com
Like, come on. It's a chat app, you can see whether I'm available or not without probing. If you have something to ask/talk about, then ask/talk about it, don't wait for me to prove that my chat status is accurate. You can be friendly by saying "Hi" or whatever at the start of your message, but then include the message after. It's not hard.
Sorry... this is a huge pet peeve of mine.
The problem is that the answer to this is heavily dependent on what it is, especially because "got a sec" doesn't meaningfully time box the activity. I need something more to know whether this is something I can engage in immediately.
This is not a reasonable expectation, and is why people ignore your attempts to initiate a real-time exchange.
It's 2022, chat app statuses are more sophisticated than just "online/offline" indicators. It will tell you if I'm busy, if I'm in a call, if I'm presenting, if I've been AFK, etc. If I'm online and none of those statuses are true, I can probably engage now.
"If I want to leave a message for someone with a response accepted at their convenience, then I send an email. If I reach out via chat, it's because I expect a realtime exchange. Again, because the little green dot appears next to user's name does not mean they are not deep in the tall grass and readily available to chat."
Saying "hello" before asking a question doesn't somehow increase the chances that I will be more available. You can ask what you need in the first message, and if I can't respond despite my chat status, I will get to it when I can, at which point we can have the realtime discussion. You don't get a realtime exchange by saying "hello" and then waiting for an answer.
"To me, chat is just like walking up to someone at the cubicle to have a conversation."
Except it's not. There is a distinct difference in the mode of communication here. You wouldn't walk up to someone's desk, hand them a letter, and then leave, but that's exactly what you can do with a chat. While chat is more real-time than email, it is still a written record and it's slower than an actual conversation; as a result, it comes with its own set of pros and cons that facilitate things differently.
"If I walk up to someone and notice they are deep in it, I don't bother them. Chat doesn't allow for that kind of signaling, so a "got a sec?" isn't a wast of time as it allows for them to not reply indicating "no" without stopping to type "no"."
Again, it does signal that, with status icons. And even if my status is green but I happen to still be busy for some reason, a chat notification is a chat notification. Saying "hello" is as much an intrusion as saying "hello, I have this problem with <x>, can you help me?" -- except if you just say "hello", then I have to respond and then wait more time for a second intrusive notification to find out what you need.
>And even if my status is green but I happen to still be busy for some reason, a chat notification is a chat notification. Saying "hello" is as much an intrusion as saying "hello, I have this problem with <x>, can you help me?" -- except if you just say "hello", then I have to respond and then wait more time for a second intrusive notification to find out what you need.
Yup, that's the key. The cost per distracting notification is _vastly_ higher than the cost per word read, so chat notifications should be crafted to minimise individual notifications more than words.
I don’t make that assumption. My company is distributed across the globe. Some teams are offset by 12.5 hours. For someone not collocated, chat (via Slack) is closer to email except more focused.
I expect people to response to chats “at their earliest convenience”. If they are in different time zones, we try to pack as much into each response to maximize the communications. If they are collocated, once we start a conversation it usually continues in realtime.
That is what “busy” statuses are for, most good IM solutions support this. If I message someone while they are set that way I accept they will ignore me until a later time. Even if not set to busy, I and accept a non-immediate response. For me in a professional context IM has become short-form email, with the advantage very-low priority cruft¹, and external comms², are not mixed in with local conversations.
[1] HR updates & other periodicals, mailing lists, unsolicited junk, alerts that I'm 2nd-or-plus-line contact for, ...
[2] which for me are not usually a priority as I'm not supposed to be client facing, if I'm contacted directly instead of the client using a proper support channel they'll get a slower response than via the proper channel³⁴, anything else encourages the incorrect behaviour!
[3] officially, direct comms like that are not covered by any SLA even if the same request via proper channels would get the “grade A, class 1, priority 0, emergency, all hands to their stations” treatment
[4] unless, of course, I'm expecting their contact as part of an ongoing issue I've been drafted in to deal with
Do you just run up to people and ask them a question in person, or do some kind of greeting first?
I don't think it's a bad thing that people share some mannerisms in IM that they do in person. Are you really stressed out? Either way, looking at the world at the moment, what a great thing to have as a huge problem.
The problem is not whether you're greeting or not. Nobody complained about having a greeting in their messages. The problem is that chats are very asynchronous; by the time I read your message you could've solved it already. There is absolutely nothing wrong in writing "Hey, I need help with <x>. I already tried <y> and <z>. If you have a few moments I'd appreciate the help". Then the answer would be "Hello! Oh, of course, the answer is <a>".
This is especially important if you're getting a lot of messages every day. At the end of the day, that amounts to a non-negligible amount of time lost, just because the person didn't write their problem right after their greeting - which they would've done anyway after your greeting.
A message "Hey, I need help with x" is just as frustrating as "Hello" because it results in the same back and forth. "What problem are you having with x?" "Well, I want to do y" "Why are you doing y?" "Well, for z purpose".
Your chats should be of the form "Hey, I'm doing x y z because of p d q. I've tried a b c, do you know what I'm missing?"
Enough info that the person on the other side is able to answer the question with minimal followups.
You do this, because you have all the time in the world to craft the opening message, so why not do a good one so you are requiring minimal sync points.
Even if the chat is about setting up a face to face meeting, it should be the same.
"Hey, I need to talk to you about x y z. Can we setup a face to face meeting? I'm available at these times".
What's frustrating is "Got a sec" or "can we talk?" as openers. Yes? No? What's the is about?
Indeed, this is what I wanted to convey in the pseudo-conversation in my previous comment.
…but it occurs to me that I could include all that additional context as well as to how I am feeling.
Try, "Hey Bob, this is Alice, I work on the QA team in Dublin. I'm looking at an issue I think you might be able to help me with http://jira.yourcorp.org/browse/ORDERS-1234. Would you have a minute to discuss this?"
Besides, not every culture uses phatic expressions all the time and somehow their civilizations don't collapse. It's a matter of taste, and I'm not a fan.
Reminds me of the "How To Talk Minnesotan" video. [0]
I'm a Midwestern transplant to SoCal and getting hit with "How's it going?" or the equivalent still gives me anxiety, 15 years later...
"Well, my Lumbago is acting up and I have this new cat who won't use the litter box. His name is Sammy because he looks kind of like Sammy Davis Jr. I'll post some pictures later. Of Sammy, not the litter box failure. Also I have this nephew I think is on pot. My sister is really worried but she's always worrying about stuff. It's probably because Mom seemed to like me better but that's hardly my fault."
After a round or two that people stop and think if they _really_ need to ask you anything at all, much less implicitly get in your personal business with a impertinent "How are you doing?".
Just begin the discussion.
I think a lot of people do this because they are bad/slow at typing and don't want to bother leveling up.
When I have to talk to someone whom I don't have an existing relationship with and maybe only have a tenuous recommendation to talk to them about an issue I think it's a reasonable place to start. They might actually not know about the thing I'm asking about and have a better idea of who to speak to.
Imagine somebody responded to that message with “Sure, what’s up?” Now imagine what you would write in response to that. Then just send that along with the original message.
So instead of:
> Hey Bob, this is Alice, I work on the QA team in Dublin. I'm looking at an issue I think you might be able to help me with http://jira.yourcorp.org/browse/ORDERS-1234. Would you have a minute to discuss this?
…you might write something like this:
> Hey Bob, this is Alice, I work on the QA team in Dublin. I'm looking at an issue I think you might be able to help me with http://jira.yourcorp.org/browse/ORDERS-1234. I’m following the steps, but I can’t reproduce the problem. I see it’s a couple of weeks old, is it possible this is fixed already? Can you still reproduce this?
In fact, normally a question like this is a sign something is wrong elsewhere anyway. Why isn’t the discussion about the issue taking place in the issue tracker? If anybody else has to pick this up, they will be missing all the info from the discussion that took place elsewhere.
Issue trackers are poor at back and forth discussion in my experience. Yes, you need to make sure that any important information or the conclusion of a separate discussion is recorded in the ticket but it would take all day to have a short conversation about an item, the whole time every person who'd ever looked at the ticket in the wrong tone of voice gets an email alert.
I’m so annoyed by the abuse of this phrase that I’ve taken to giving entirely inappropriate responses (based on context) when folks ask.
How was either this reply or yours actually helpful to the conversation?
This is a cultural thing - some cultures value small talk as a requisite step in person to person interactions, including in business. Americans do have a reputation of wanting to get straight to business and of dispensing with small talk though.
Speaking from experience in France, one can call the same business and make the same request with small talk (polite) and without small talk (impolite) and get vastly different outcomes. If one jumps straight to "I would like to schedule a tour of the winery today", one is more likely to hit a no than if one went in with "Hello, how are you? I was wondering if it would be possible to schedule a tour of the winery today?"
This is perfectly fine and valid, and in fact is usually the format of my messages to others. It's entirely different from:
"Hello, how are you?"
...
...
...
"I'm fine; what's up?"
"Oh, I was wondering if it would be possible to schedule a tour of the winery today?"
Maybe you are in an environment where everyone needs a fast reply from you and your undivided attention, in which case, I don't think it'd be unreasonable to link them nohello.net as your first reply.
I'm fine with a hello-only message if you're just chatting to talk, but at work, 90% of chat messages are for collaboration; I can't collaborate with you if you still haven't told me what you need collaboration on.
I would just ignore the hi, until it becomes an issue, which causes a problem. At that point, I would follow up with them saying, “hey, in the future, could you include your request with the initial <<hi>> message so I can get to it faster?”
I think it is better to just say it, or be ready to be ignored if the other end just don't know who are you.
I think from now on I'm just going to ignore it from the people who do it all the time. They won't get a response unless they actually tell me what they want.
Neurotypical people use this sort of social foreplay as a way to handshake a conversation[1], where the tech types want an input/output process devoid of mood and feeling
It is silly and quite time wasting online too, but it's what they need to feel comfortable asking you questions. I figure if they need to adapt to some of my quirks I'll do likewise for theirs
Majority of "tech types" are neurotypical. Neurodiverse are minority in tech. There is more of them in tech then among teachers or something like that, but still.
And even neuroatypical use elaborate rituals before they ask question. Even autists in tech.
I am not a psychologist or therapist or anything, lets just assume I'm using the words wrong and grouping people inaccurately. I'm talking about the people who make internet rules like don't ask to ask vs the people that don't do that
In large channel, asking to ask just straight up spam the channel.
In small channel, the communication is mostly async. And by the time someone saw your “Can I ask something” message, you are probably offline.
If I reply "I'm fine thanks how are you" then you know I'm here and looking, you've forced me to into a synchronous conversation and now I will appear rude if I don't immediately answer your "I just have a quick question"
If you just post your question upfront, I can read it and prioritize it myself based on what I am currently doing.
Hey, Jo! I just have a quick question for when you have a moment: <question for Jo>
And leave it. I'll ping Jo again at a time interval depending on urgency - sometime this sprint? I'll remind about the message in a couple days. Need it today? I indicate that when I ask, and about 4hrs later I'll poke a bit to see where we are.
Expectation setting is the missing key in a lot of these conversations. Asking to ask is about not being rude. There are better ways to do this in an asynchronous conversation. It's right up there with "we need to talk" in texts. The anxiety it causes is completely unnecessary, and easily avoided with a little detail and priority.
There are countless socially defined, implicit hammers looking for nails. Most can be improved upon or swapped out for different tools.
Please just ask questions. Pinging someone about a mysterious question that you'll reveal later is annoying. It certainly doesn't go on my list of things to do re: "Sometime later this sprint be sure to get back to that person who won't tell me what they want from me". It goes on the list "Ignore this person"
But, suppose you switch to sync. They ask a question. It indeed isn't important to you right now. Tell them you're busy with other tasks, and you'll reply later. It isn't rude, we all frequently work with others that have a lot on their plate.
It can be sometimes easier to shift your own perspective than it is to change the behavior of others.
In the context of an IRC chat room, isn’t all conversation assumed to be synchronous? (Forgive me if this has an obvious answer, as I’m not too familiar with IRC culture.)
In either case, skipping the chitchat is beneficial. In a busy room, ask the question and if someone catches it they can respond right away. Any attempt at a "hello how are you" will likely be lost in the noise.
In slower rooms, treat it as asynchronous.
And in 1-1 chats, treat it as asynchronous.
"can you pick me up from the airport?" (forcing me to quickly reply yes even if I might not want to, because he already knows I'm not working and I don't want to seem rude—why can't he just take the train?),
or "im in town, wanna hang out tonight? (sure, sounds like fun).
Wish he'd skip the leading question and not put me in a corner.
https://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-bet...
Meaning: I totally agree with the article that asking to ask is a complete waste of time on Internet forums, especially technical ones. Those intro questions usually go unanswered, as they should IMO.
OTOH, what I thought the article might be about before I read it, is when people in RL say something like, "May I you ask a question?" before asking a potentially sensitive question. There are valid psychology reasons to do that in certain situations.
It's common for people to mimic conversation patterns, mostly unconsciously. They can get copied into situations where it is just a waste of time.
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/NetEtiquette#Just_ask_the_questio...
Also famed for the “XY problem” that nerds always assume now wanting to look clever, often used incorrectly
I’m guessing a bit here from what I’ve seen. I don’t think this stuff is conscious. But I don’t feel like the authors of stuff like this are even trying to have empathy for why people do this.
No necessarily. Asking "Any Java experts around?" takes little effort, while formulating a question for a Java expert could take significant effort. A "no" response for the first question could save everyone from wasting their time with the second.
It turns out that, a significant percentage of the time, the "preconditions" for the question are either: - Way too specific (i.e. yes, even a non java expert knows what "nullpointerexception" means) - Not nearly specific enough (i.e. no, I know Java but your issue is from a specific library with 1 page of documentation from the 90's)
This, in my opinion, is exactly what makes the 'asking to ask' so frustrating. It's impossible to know if I can answer your question without actually knowing what the question is. And if I ask what the question is, now I'm the one uncomfortable with the situation when it turns out to be something I can't help with.
edit: I also feel like it's worth noting, I'm aware that formulating a good question takes time and effort; however, in the "asking for help" / "giving help" scenario, it's very much common courtesy to do the most you can to enable people to help you. We want to help! But please ask a good question. (I do totally understand that asking good questions is a hard thing to learn, though! I started out asking very poor questions and slowly learned over time.)
For example, I once helped a co-worker who was having trouble with a toy webserver written in Go as a learning exercise. It wasn't recognizing url paths that it should have. I don't know Go, but did recognize the problem from our apache/wsgi django setup - path prefixes being stripped. Knowing the right keywords to search for, I was able to find the fix for a config file and we got it working.
which is precisely why this is annoying: it's asking for a social commitment without putting any effort in. It also reaches for the top shelf for no reason. Does the person's question really need a Java "expert"? Probably not.
> A "no" response for the first question could save you from wasting your time with the second.
Arguably if they were to find help _anywhere_ they would benefit from articulating their question in a clear and concise way. Let alone the high probability that through writing the question they might answer their own question, because we're all humans.
That “no” is never going to happen though. Every individual might know that they aren’t a Java expert, but they don’t know that every other individual is also not an expert. So there is nobody in a position to answer “no”.
A lack of response is equivalent to a "no." I suppose I could have phrased it more clearly, but my though is the asker would wait for an affirmative response to proceed with investing more into asking the question.
It’s not though. I routinely ignore questions like this for questions where I am one of the experts, but I would quite often reply to a real question in the same situation.
If I have a question that takes time to write up, I'll need to spend that time either way. Better to write the question up front so I can copy/paste it wherever I need until I get the help I need than to ask "any Java experts around" and proceed to waste anyone who responds' time while they wait for me to actually compose the question.
Polling people with non-informative questions is a good way to distract them for no reason if they can't help you. I think that's impolite. As someone with ADHD, that can be disruptive and at times gets extremely frustrating because I can easily lose half an hour to a 1 minute distraction if it demands my attention. Give me some initial information to work with and I will be able to respond without losing my focus.
I had spent several weeks on an extremely technical problem when I realized Mother’s Day was coming up. Saw a giant oversized Winnie the Pooh bear that I knew she would like.
So in my extreme logical state I was thinking I would just slice off the arms legs and heads put them in separate boxes and mail them to her for reassembly. Very elegant solution.
A bit later when my mind wasn’t so analytical I realized my mistake. Clearly her house didn’t have room for a giant bear. So I sent her a Winnie the Pooh lamp instead. She was happy, and I didn’t need to disassemble her beloved childhood icon.
Also ADHD (inattentive) for what it’s worth. I understand the problem, I’m saying this solution is ineffective and just comes off a bit bellendary
You’re just gonna come off as some Big Bang Theory Sheldon-type asshat by giving people a massive document to read before they can besmirch your presence. Do they also have to read the XY problem article first or do you wait for them to ask a question before springing that trap card?
It’s not good optics for nerd kind and it’s way more hassle on both parties than is needed
As for prompts, it's not like you need to write a novel about what you want to discuss, just include something.
For example, when asking for help:
Bad: "Hi" -- This demands my attention because I don't know what it's about, forcing me to respond and wait for the other person. Distraction and annoyance are practically guaranteed if I ignore it. I consider this kind of opener extremely rude, because to my brain it can be functionally equivalent to screaming "GIVE ME YOUR ATTENTION NOW".
Better: "Hi! I need help with X, can you help?" -- This is a request for attention, but I can at least decide if I'm interested and if I'm too busy I can respond with "No" or "Probably, but not right now.", which is satisfactory for my brain and doesn't distract me.
Best: "Hi! X is doing A when I try to do Y and I need B, can you help?" -- I may be able to solve the problem right away, which is the best outcome.
What genre of classification is this?
Anecdotally, I started encountering this terminology about 5 years ago I think. The linked wikipedia says it was coined in 1999.
ADHD inattentive for context, I just know you’re gonna come off looking like an ass if you force this sort of thing on anyone outside of a 2004 IRC channel
That said, avoiding "naked pings"[1] online is a matter of reducing the amount of mental drain for me. This is especially important for your sanity if you're actively helping out folks on a chat channel (community, or internal). As noted in my comment[1], I don't insist on this, as it doesn't help being dogmatic about it.
And I’m not even trying to ask you a question! See how much faff this sort of thing is?
If people doing that is non-facetiously testing your sanity, don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm, stop helping people!
Second, I don't know what's your experience dealing with community IRC. I've been doing this open source thing for ~13 years now. In real-life IRC, it's no more of a "faff" than a 2-second gentle reminder—that too only when someone repeats the egregious behaviour. (Even this "reminder", I let it slide most of the times.)
Also, don't worry, I have a high threshold for frustration (critical to stay sane in this industry). I'm happy to help (and learn from) people; that's one the joys of working with open source communities!
I'm going to ignore a greeting with nothing following if I'm doing something else but if you say "Hi, we're unable to connect to the network shares, can you help?" You now have my attention.
- Hello (SYN)
> Hi (ACK)
- How are you doing ? (SYN, ACK)
Basically, they are trying to set up a synchronous channel over what is essentially an asynchronous medium. This is even more annoying than just slowing down the answer, they are demanding your undivided attention during the conversation.
It's a bit like going up to someone in the office and saying "Hi", they reply "What's up" and then the first person just stares at you...
Somehow I always fall for it when really I should just go off and make a cup of tea.
It's a good way to encourage patience with your audience...
> In linguistics, a phatic expression is communication which serves to establish or maintain social relationships rather than to impart information. Phatic expressions are a socio-pragmatic function and are used in everyday conversational exchange typically expressed in situational instances that call for social cues [1]
Actually, yes, we really are (were). I don't have a problem with it, but the people who do have a problem with it seem to have a problem with it with the intense burning passion of a thousand suns so I've stopped doing it, but don't attribute malice to people who were just trying to follow social conventions.
It might be just my ADHD talking, but getting interrupted by a "Hi" can be seriously disruptive because my brain wants to respond to it, but I then have to wait for the other person, and they might not respond immediately, and by then I've already lost focus on whatever I was doing which is immensely frustrating.
If instead I'm prompted with a "Hi, can you chat about X?" I can immediately respond in a way that satisfies my brain without losing focus on my ongoing activity.
If you want to create a venue where attention is obligatory, schedule a meeting. Then we can also have a look at the meeting agenda relative to is duration and our total meeting load, and make reasonable tradeoffs.
Receiving the SYN message already distracted the programmer who received it. If the sender had included the entire question or opening message all at once, then the receiver could decide if it was worth their time to answer at that moment.
Instead the receiver of the message needed to break away from their thought process and devote time to determining the scope of the question.
Do not recommend.
Yes, it is just a workaround for missing features of explicit seession begin/end that are in other mediums.
> This is even more annoying than just slowing down the answer, they are demanding your undivided attention during the conversation.
Why is that annoying? IMHO it is a sensible trade - i offer my undivided attention and expect an undivided attention from the other side. As long as such conversation is beneficial to both sides then it is advantageous to giving it full attention instead of continuously task-switching on-and-off with each reply.
There's one set of rules. You don't need to read my own personal rules on some dedicated page before you are entitled to reply to this comment.
"In our work environment, synchronous communication is important! If you were intending to set up synchronous communication, please mention why, along with your greeting!"
Which is trap.
Because if you say "no" then you don't have a polite excuse to decline to help someone move houses, troubleshoot a fiber install, or go for a hike.
The polite way to ask is "hey, can you help me move on Saturday? I have a truck and 3 others already."
This is a completely normal day-to-day conversation topic I have with my buddies via text.
> Friend: What're you getting into tomorrow?
> Me: Not much man, doing some chores around the house. Got a pork butt I need to butcher. Typical Saturday.
> Me: What about you?
At which point my friend will either directly ask or otherwise mention that he is moving. At this point I may volunteer all, some, or none of my time depending on what life has.
This means I don't have a single question, it means I want to have a synchronous conversation. There are lots of reasons for the latter. This is what I would prefer people do with me as well, and if I am busy, I feel like I can ignore the message until I have a few minutes to talk (often with voice/phone)
I say this as someone working from home, thousands of miles from most people I work with and also far from most people I communicate with socially online (such as family). I find this approach of "just send a question and they can answer asynchronously" to be one of the reasons that working from home can be damaging to mental health. Natural human interactions, where there can be a real time back and forth, are positive things. Not necessarily always, but especially if I haven't communicated with a person in weeks, I'd much prefer this sort of thing.
If there is a specific topic I want to talk about, that can be expressed in a few words, sure, I'll say that. And if it really is just a simple question that can be answered directly, I'll just ask. But the point is that those are not always the case, and depending on the job each of us has and our relationship, it might be unlikely for that to be the case.
When you're attempting to set up synchronous communication, it's essential to let the other person know what the communication is about, and what level of focus you need from them, so they have time to prepare and ensure they have enough time for a proper dialogue. Can't count the number of times someone has said "you there?" while I'm in a meeting, which in my mind is "I'm available to answer simple questions" but not available to jump on a voice call, which is what they wanted originally.
Instead of saying "You there?" I would prefer "You have 5 minutes to discuss X?" or "Do you have a moment to hop on a call to chat about ?". That way I can make a decision on if I have time for it or not, instead of having to reply with "I'm here, what do you need?" only for it to end up being something that I didn't want to be disturbed for.
The people that I would send a "you there?" message understand that my message is shorthand for that. They might respond with "in a meeting" or "gimme a few minutes" or if they are available for a synchronous conversation, "hey" or "what's up?"
I have a couple contacts that are "on the spectrum" and I deal with them a little differently. They seem to need things spelled out a bit more explicitly. But those people tend to get left out of many discussions, and don't seem to do as well careerwise in the long term, because they don't really connect on a human level with people.
However, there are people who I work closely with who understand that if I do some sort of "are you there?" it's because I want to have a fairly synchronous conversation over the phone or over chat.
i.e. "Are you busy? Could you help me with blah blah"
If you're getting bombarded with "you there?" from 20 people because some service they use has gone and right now you're trying to fix it for them all, well that can be stressful too.
If you just "Hi." with nothing else they might never know to get back to you on a completely different issue.
Well it depend one what your job is and what your relationship to that person is. I wouldn't send a "you there?" to someone in IT when I need something fixed. But I would to someone I've had an ongoing working relationship with and when we communicate, there is typically more that one single issue to discuss.
Are you available to answer some questions about Docker?
Would you have time to help me with this nginx config?
Do you have time for our 1-on-1?
I try not to say "have a minute" because conversations rarely last a minute or two if we're going to do it voice.
As a manager, I try really hard never to say, "Can we talk?" without context.
That way the person knows I want something synchronous, and they have the option to say no and give me a time when they can be synchronous.
"Are you there?" This phrase makes me feel like I'm being accused of not being available if I don't reply and I find it rude and inconsiderate of other's time.
You busy? Of course I am...?
I would leave both of these on unread until the end of time.
It gently encourages people to include something actionable in their first response, as it is likely they won't get a notification (or see the UI cue) that I reacted to their message. So they go about their day and will eventually come back to the dialog to see that I did indeed acknowledge them.
I like the idea of nohello.net, but in practice, it's a little crass to actually deploy effectively to colleagues.
Really the solution is to move all non-urgent communication back to email so that when someone DOES hit you with a hello, you know it's something that needs addressing ASAP, and you can entertain the conversation knowing you're unblocking something important vs. being distracted for no good reason.
<Bob> Alice: Ping
<Alice> Bob: Pong?
<Bob> Alice: Can I talk to you now? I have a question.
[LONG SILENCE...]
<Alice> Bob: Sure. (Inside Alice's head: "Sigh, please ask the question, already!")
[Again, in some cases, this is followed by a LONG SILENCE...]
<Bob> Alice: A vague question with not much details.
Note, though: I don't mind "naked pings" myself; they don't bother me much. But I of course appreciate "fully dressed up pings".
In either case, it's like "yes, you have my attention. I cannot focus on anything at all until you hit enter, and I also can't reply because I have nothing to reply to".
I also can't complain like "hey if you're going to interrupt me can you just say the whole message so I can actually reply instead of being held in absolute suspense for many seconds of my life?" because that would be, frankly, even worse than what they're doing, which was done out of a kind of ignorance of etiquette.
It really only works if there's a typing indicator and they've already started the next message, otherwise you're just giving them what they want and reinforcing the bad habit.
No Hello (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29978860 - Jan 2022 (67 comments)
Please don't say just hello in chat (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25881800 - Jan 2021 (350 comments)
Don't ask to ask, just ask - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24259156 - Aug 2020 (101 comments)
No Hello (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24239880 - Aug 2020 (210 comments)
Please Don't Say Just Hello In Chat (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19648415 - April 2019 (265 comments)
Please Don't Say Just Hello in Chat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868294 - July 2017 (46 comments)
I'm a huge fan of no hello & "just ask" in our future world of async work.
“Hey John can I ask you about your ex Gina? If now is not a good time, let me know when.”
John might not want to talk about Gina. Or he might not want to talk about an emotional issue before a big meeting at work. Or he might want to know what exactly you want to know and establish parameters of the conversation before diving into it.
That is just a conflict between people who prefer async and who prefer sync communication. For sync communication, "hello" and "bye" are just markers for begin and end of a session, with implicit expectation that people focus on the session in between.
Bob: Hi
Me: hey Bob. What can I do for you?
(Five minutes later)
Bob: how are you?
Me: I’m ok Bob. What do you need?
(Five minutes later)
Bob: Do you know much about the daily Foo sync task?
That “how are you” gets me because its meant to be polite but it has the exact opposite effect. It’s funny because developers are often characterised as lacking social skills, but it’s usually the non-developers (analyst, PM etc) who do this.
Maybe also one for good old:
Bob: <screenshot of blank page, address bar omitted>
Bob: Do you know what's going on here?
I am the original author of the document this document was based on. It was an internal Wiki page at Google written when I was an SRE. After I wrote the original page, someone put up an internal shortlink at "go/nohello". After I left Google, someone took the Wiki page content and [illegally, since it was Google confidential, simply from being on the internal Wiki], and put it up on the net at "nohello.com".
Did you manage to fix your stress levels or are you now bouncing around working massively hardcore jobs and burning out once a year, then taking a few months off and repeating?
I took a pay cut, got out of that game. And holy shit, life is more relaxed doing security incident response than SRE ;)
a) They do not want to talk to you for "just a second," it will take much longer. b) It is a serious conversation that will require a lot of emotional energy c) It will immediately pre-empt anything else that you are doing right now
So that's why it's bad form. You don't take that same form to total strangers on the internet.
It sounds like a fairly typical StackOverflow Meta posting. I read stuff like this constantly. There's a lot of SO folks that won't answer any question, unless it has already been solved, by the asker, in their question, so they can criticize it. The place is a lot less useful, for me, these days, than it used to be. I ask excellent questions, and I don't need to have someone call me "lazy," because I didn't throw the seed into the nest.
It's not wrong, but it's also not gonna change anything. Askers gonna ask.
That would be the normie equivalent of sending a “hello” on Slack or Teams.
It takes time to formulate a good tech question. "Why isn't my API getting called" is a easy question to ask but not likely to get much feedback. "Why isn't my API getting called I'm using library <X> and callback <Y> and routing framework <Z> and I've already read the documentation which says <XX> should work?" is a better question but harder to formulate. It's not surprising that someone wants to check to see if there's anyone in the void willing to answer first.
I think it very much relates to the sentiment of Nardwuar's TEDx talk: [0]. He's an interviewer. He's interviewed practically everyone alive with music, from Nicky Minaj to Kurt Cobain and back! almost every genre !
And you know what the message is from his talk ? Just ask.
You wanna do an interview with X person ? Just ask, do it!
He doesn't wait for anyone to push him, he wants to do something, he does it. He interviewed Billie Eilish and even interviewed Cobain before the 2000s !
refs
Them: hi
Me: Hello, how can I help you?
[Two minute wait]
Them: How are you?
Me: Great, what do you need?
[Ten minutes later]
Them: Do you have a few minutes?
Me: Am I on candid camera or something?
Eh, don't think I agree here. The initial ask is low-effort but so is the initial response expected ("I could help, what's up?"). It seems fair to want to aim for something like:
A: low effort ask
B: low effort response
A: high effort ask now that you know someone's listening
B: high effort response
A: high effort ask
(no one's around, effort wasted) A: high effort ask
Just like you don't email someone saying "Hey" waiting for a reply before you ask your question.
Just because no-one's around now doesn't mean someone won't be around later. And writing down your thoughts can often be enough to crystalise your thinking to the point of having a new idea about a solution. So, you've either solved your problem for yourself, or you can share it with the person that does help in the end.
If you're asking for help it's useful to show where you're up to in your thinking and giving details on what you've tried already.
I type: “Hi”. The chat platform shows a message bubble: “Alice won’t see your message until you add some content.”
This should probably be an opt-in feature for the recipient, not a global behavior.
This makes a totally valid point in online communications.
If you want my undivided attention schedule a call. Send me a couple of preferred times before asking mine. You will get what you want faster.
Almost any time I get a call from any business, almost always from numbers don't recognize, 99% of the time the first thing the other person says to me is "Hello, how are you?".
When this happens, my first internal thought is "Excuse me, but do I know you?".
I don't think it's some deliberate sales strategy of cold callers, I suspect it's that they think of it like an in person conversation where this is perfectly acceptable with a stranger, except they fail to consider that I as the caller recipient have absolutely zero context of who I'm talking to and it's likely to piss off someone who is in a meeting or otherwise has a lot of work to do.
The professional way for someone from a business to phone you is to announce where they are calling from and what the call is in regards to, something like "Hello, I'm calling from Acme in regards to...", or "Hi, I'm Bob from Acme and I'm calling in regards to ..., how are you today?".
This way, I can instantly know whether or not it is someone from a business I have a pre-existing relationship with that I actually do probably want to talk to, as opposed to the more common caller who is cold calling me in an attempt to get me to buy something from them.
So when I get a call with "Hello, how are you?", I've now taken to responding with "Sorry, would you please first tell me where you're calling from?".
Then I'm either very friendly if it's a company I know, or for other companies I don't know I just state plainly "I don't have a pre-existing relationship with your company so I suspect this is a sales call and I don't have time calls such as these. Goodbye." and I hang up before the person even has a chance to respond.
Many inexperienced users- the kind who often need help the most- are coming from a place of low confidence. They don't even know if this is the right place to ask this question. They don't even know if they're asking the right question. That's the nature of being inexperienced. I'm glad they're cautious and trying to be polite!
If you don't want to help such people, don't lurk in channels designed for helping people.
and where do i go to not get these questions from senior engineers?
Instead, someone would just pop their head into your office: “Hey, hi, how ya doing? Can I ask you question?”
Bro, you just did. Get on with it.
Don't bro me dude! ;-)
If we're all devs, we all understand when you've got 12 layers of vars in your head in a mental traceback that all goes poof when you just reply with a "not now". If it's a marketing type person making the interruption, you're just perceived as an asshole. That's on them. They're in marketing so they have no soul anyways ;-)
Tell me what you did so far, actual behavior and expected behavior. Pragmatically speaking, I get a lot of coworkers asking questions (like several per day) so if your question is formulated poorly, it has a very high chance of slipping through the cracks simply because the easier to answer questions will take priority.
Why? These "hi" or "are you there" or "can I ask a question" are useless to me. Also in the reverse role I find it useful to just type up my whole problem. Sometimes in the middle of typing it all up I will figure out a good solution and then just not send the message. Even if the person is not there to help you, you can always copy paste your message to someone else.
(With dropping a bomb I also mean something like a larger/tedious amount of work)
If we could reach cultural consensus, it’d be great if a bare “Hello” / “Hi” / “Hey” let me know you’re attempting to initiate the latter.
In every other scenario, when someone says hello, greet them back. Exchange small talk if you must. That is just basic human pleasentries which for some reason is not allowed when you're using a keyboard? It's politeness, don't be an ass about someone hitting you up on slack with a greeting. You are a person like any other not a support robot.
Chat rooms made for support with a "no hello" rule should be designated at work or for a n open source project when technical requests and discussions happen.
PM/DMs should have the same etiquette as a person walking up to your cubicle or office. They will knock/greet first. They won't just show up and start blurting out code snippets and urls.
example just from yesterday:
them 10:10am Hello
me 10:10am hey what's up
them 10:20am hey do you remember me? I used to work with so and so
me 10:20am yeah I can help you with any questions now
them 10:45am nvm I figured it out by reading the error message.
I'm not full time support, I'm a dev on a team. So that kind of interruption without any context at all derailed my work believe it or not. Fine for a legitimate issue, not that great when you didn't even read the error message.
when someone comes up to you in person they probably have their full question formulated. online they can just say hi without embarrassment apparently.
It's not just devs that use computers. This is how any office worker or random discord community talk. You can also ignore the interruption.
I use to think like you until I jumped to security where people sometimes avoid responding when you bring up a task they need to implement (like patching something). I just drop a Hi and wait for them to respond then drop the question on them so they are forced to respond.
Sometimes I would have a technical matter to ask about and there are multiple people to ask. I am not copy pasting the same question and having 5 people waste time answering. I will drop a Hi and ask the first person who responds.
You do not have to drop everything and reply to every Hello or Hi. You are free to ignore until a more pertinent question is dropped because the person may also be asking others who may be free.
That is exactly why it is an asshole move. You are starting off with the assumption that they will behave unprofessionally before they've done anything to warrant it.
> Sometimes I would have a technical matter to ask about and there are multiple people to ask. I am not copy pasting the same question and having 5 people waste time answering. I will drop a Hi and ask the first person who responds.
So instead you waste five people's time because they don't know someone else already answered your question. If there are five people who might answer, ask the question where all five can see it so they know when it has been answered.
No, that's just how conversation happens IRL. If you think someone will ignore a phone call you show up to their office in person where they can't ignore you. All of your complaint also applies to people walking up to you and greeting you before asking questions except in chat you can delay your response.
> So instead you waste five people's time because they don't know someone else already answered your question
Did you read what I said? It's the opposite of that. How can it waste their time when there is still no question. Are you referring to having to reply with a "Hi" as a time waste??
I personally find the anonymous "Hi $name" really annoying and it often comes on slack from a random IT person from a support ticket I've filed. Why they can't start with, "Hi $name, I'm following up on ticket XYZ. ..."
But I don't find 'ping' annoying. Weird.
(I am also guessing this is less of an issue when you're not trying to coordinate across timezones)
Intro, yes. Asking permission, no.
Use the set up to frame the discussion. Only ask questions you know the answer to. Make them answer in the affirmative repeatedly. Why give an opening for rejection at all?
Being interrupted by a sales call is bad enough. Being interrupted by someone who botches the pitch on a product I would never want and will never hear about due to ineptitude is a face palm. Humans never cease to amaze me. Not only will I marvel at the fail, but I'll write useless comments about it later.
I've "trained" most people who do this to just keep going and ask their questions, rather than waiting for me to respond. Though unfortunately they mostly still break that up into several messages, so it's still more annoying than it could be.
I've seen "Hey Team, <asking to ask a question>" probably a thousand times now in slack channels at work to the point where it drives me completely nuts and is the best way to make me ignore you. If I'm not actually on your team where we have daily standups then unfortunately this tickles the same neurons that I have which reacts negatively to employer cheerleading nonsense about how we're all a "family" or whatever, along with reading like trolling to want to waste someone's time.
In the replies, you will find many answers to your question.
Personally, I also hate that kind of text interaction. I vastly prefer a phone call for catching up, because at least each party’s attention is fully on each other and there’s a defined end to the conversation. I’m probably in a shrinking minority with that opinion, having grown up in a time when phone calls were ubiquitous. But when someone’s glued to their phone because they don’t want to be perceived as replying too slowly, what’s the point of texting?
For the safest approach, I agree with the concept that all the info should be in the same message. To an individual, "Hi! If you have some time, could you let me know <question>". To a group, "Hi, if there are any <topic> experts here, I'm trying to figure out <question>. Any help would be appreciated."
If I don’t want to be disturbed, I just switch the notifications off. Magic, no more hellos.
I really don’t understand why it bother people so much. And I’m saying this having strong ADHD and applying no-hello myself. There are so much more important reasons to be upset in life and at work.
edit: Are people really so unfriendly and impersonable that a simple hello is considered offensive? For the same reason I disable most mobile apps notifications on my phone, you can do same with instant messaging. Stop blaming other people's personalities.
> If I approach you in person, I don't say hi and spill out a paragraph.
I don't know how you interact with shopkeepers or other such people who are there to help you, but I certainly do precisely that; I would consider it rather odd to start such a conversation with a "hi" that waits for a response. Surely, surely, the natural thing to say is "Hi, I'm looking for these shoes in size 10", rather than "Hi". Surely?
It's not necessarly:
> I have a question about Java but I'm too lazy to actually formalize it in words unless there's someone on the channel who might be able to answer it
But it could be:
"I have a question about Java, but nobody knows me around here, so instead of flooding the chan with a wall of text, interrupting the flaw of all the discussions around, I'm doing to introduce my interruption progressively"
Something like “Hey I’m having trouble with X. Is anyone able to take a look?” is much better since you’re actually describing your ask.
Sure, I may know Java, but I may not know the answer to your problem.
Not a new problem, same old thing happens despite the platform. Cultural/people issue as are many.
Thank you for making me feel happy about something I never realized I had. None of the people I interact with regularly would get even minimally annoyed by getting a hello in their inbox.
I can only imagine how hellish your existence may be when you have to deal with people that are so finicky to the point that they even made a website to tell others how they may start conversations with them. What a big PITA to have them close to you ...
how about:
A: Hi!
B: What's up...?
A: Nothing just wanted to say hi!
B: Oh, haha. How's it going?
A: I was just realizing we haven't spoke in forever. Where are you these days?
=====================================================
Let's say people didn't say hi.
A: Hey we haven't spoken in forever! Where are you these days?
<< Message failed to send >>
No conversation happens.
Hi!
<< Message failed to send >>
Hi! We haven't spoken in forever, what's up?
<< Message failed to send >>
If a coworker texts me "Hi" at 7pm, I'm probably not going to respond until work hours. If he texts me "Hi, haven't spoken in a while, let's catch up", then I probably will respond.
Or, if I'm in a meeting and someone texts "Hi", I'm probably not going to answer since I don't know if they have a quick question or want a 30 minute chat, but if they say "Hey, what's the name of that guy in engineering that you said I should see?" then I'll probably just send a quick answer.
This is a good example that what people do isn't necessarily what they appreciate or like. It's just a norm. Whether it's positive or not is quite a different aspect.
(and this is nothing compared to the seemingly mandatory Monday morning elevator "how was your weekend" question)
We usually end up saying it at the same time. Then he waits for me to say it again, like he didn't hear me the first time.
I find it kinda funny. It's like a power move, or a troll move, or he's just a knucklehead.
Or like "it would be literally less work for you to copy/paste the hyperlink to the ticket than it was for you to type in the ticket ID manually".
Not necessarily. When you've been spending a couple hours per day on a ticket, the ID starts to stay in your head. I can still remember the ID of a couple of the more annoying ones from several years ago
Also, with Mattermost at least (and I assume others) it's pretty easy to configure it to change "Ticket 12345" into a link to the ticket server side
We get it, you're a super mega busy person and I am just one of the many people you will interact with today, and therefore I shouldn't expect common courtesy. No worries. I'll make sure to communicate with you as little as possible from now on.
We have french and indian companies here in Sweden with their own culture of saying hi to everyone "good morning sir" "good morning madam", every damn morning.
They are the same ones who say "Hello how are you?" in chats now that people are working remotely more.
I always find it a bit annoying when people approach in chats just to ask if they can ask something.
Especially back in the days (yes) of IRC it was annoying because messages on a channel tend to easily drown in other messages
Same thing also on the front page rn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30639225
A major reason people do it is to query presence-at-keyboard before continuing. Maybe the matter is time sensitive, maybe they don't want to disclose something immediately without setting context, finding something out first, whatever.
The goal here--and I think a better way to present it than just trying to say "don't say hello" or trying to point out that someone else is being rude (which is a subjective way of analyzing things that I think people should avoid without empathy)--is in some sense to teach people what asynchronous communication means and how to achieve it, as I honestly don't want to and kind of can't have synchronous communication with anyone whom I don't really really really care about at the level of "a close personal friend or loved one" (and then if you find that rude, I guess you will have to deal with synchronously talking to someone else, at best my assistant, as I just really don't have time to synchronously talk with random people; but that's the problem: I know "hi; you there?" is a trap to try to make me feel bad for not staying synchronous once you pounce on my answer later).
Chat sits in this in-between semi-synchronous zone that different people want to treat as slightly more or slightly less synced.
And that's where the disconnect happens. "Helloers" want more sync, it appears many here want less.
"Maybe the matter is time sensitive." Asking whether I'm there and waiting for a response before continuing takes longer. If it's time-sensitive, they can just ask what they need in the first message, and then move on if I don't reply within a decent enough timeframe.
"Maybe they don't want to disclose something immediately without setting context, finding something out first, whatever." Context? "Hello" is not context for anything other than the existence of the person, which I hope I'm capable of inferring on my own. Similarly. what could they possibly find out from "hello"?
It is the session initiation protocol for face-to-face communication. If you straight approach someone off in their own la-la land with a question, chances are they won't even hear it. "Hello" attracts their attention first.
Chat does not have that problem. If they are not paying attention at the time, they can read the question later. It does not disappear after it is stated.
Different tools for different jobs.
> Maybe the matter is time sensitive, maybe they don't want to disclose something immediately without setting context, finding something out first, whatever.
Still no reason to not provide some kind of meaningful background,
* "My computer won't turn on and I have a presentation in a few minutes. Can you help me with it? If I don't hear from you soon I will try Joe."
* "I have a sensitive matter to discuss with you that I cannot divulge until you have read the email from Mary. Please let me know when you've had a chance to do that."
* "What do you think about X? After you let me know I'll fill you in on Y."
People still write messages like this...
-------------------------------------------
Hello <Name>,
<General bullshit they want to talk about>
Thanks,
<Senders name>
-------------------------------------------
I know who its to and from, its a two way chatting application... it bogles the mind sometimes.
On the other hand, if any one has the time to share this, they have time to say "Hey, what's up?". For a site about improving communication, it has a surprisingly irritating and condescending tone.
This is a vital design and engineering skill. Clients come to you with solutions they themselves came up with, but you're supposed to query their underlying problem and offer a better solution.
Which, I mean, is what I actually type out when I need to bug somebody.
It shortens the conversation and if the person doesn't know how to solve, they can point to someone else right away.
FTFY
Start with exactly what you want, no fillers. Then some fillers. Then do call to action.
Humans are more than just social creatures - we actually NEED social interaction to stay healthy. Remote work is hard enough. Being alone in a room for days is hard enough. Don't be afraid to remove the stick from your behind and add a little social padding to your conversations. It's good for you, and it's good for the person this site is telling you to get cranky at.
Why do we still do this? Shouldn't we adapt to partial remote as permanent reality? The urban way of life was completely transformed by the office
I reply “Hey, what’s up?” and by the time I respond they are busy and take a few hours to respond with their ask.
If they had the ask in the initial message I could’ve had the answer in my first response.
There is nothing wrong with pleasantries. Nobody is saying that is the problem. The problem is requiring a response before making your ask.
If you’re just chatting to chat that is another matter.
And auto respond to “how are you doing” with “good”.
The sender can now type their question.
(Please ask your question :slightly_smiling_face: - I won't respond to "Hi")
Quick question, does the foo widget support splines?
Quick question.Y: "You just did."
I think many of us are still scared shitless we are going to be verbally abused for asking for help in the wrong room so we hide behind conversational formality- like asking for permission to be heard.
You are correct. Your comment was mean. Not even sure why you responded aggressively.
Hostile is perfectly correct word to describe some online communities. Do you think the word "hostile" only applies when you meet people physically?
Not literally, no. But if someone is mean to you in a chat channel you just close it and poof it's gone. It's as hostile as someone just not liking you. That's what I meant. In a busy chat channel asking to ask or testing the waters is just spammy and most people will just ignore a vague, pointless question like "is anyone around?"
Just ask your question. Worst case scenario people say mean stuff and you just leave and try somewhere else. I've done that when people just ignore my question or give glib replies. Then I go ask somewhere else.
FWIW I didn't think I was being aggressive, but thought it might be interpreted that way since disagreement online often is. Maybe I'm showing my hand here but I really can't tell what was mean about it.
"sure"
[3 minutes pass]
"so, what do you think about..."
Take the freedom you have to communicate in any way you want, and use it.
want to
scream
when
someone
types
their
thoughts
as several
separate
messages
and seems
unaware
that
every
message
is another
notification
"hi
can you talk?
i had a question
about this ticket
let me get the number
ticket DSD-342
can you help me out?"
My brain: "...that could have been ONE NOTIFICATION instead of a barrage. And you could have answered your own question about my availability by looking at my status in the app. God ffs."
What I type: "Yeah, sure, let me look at it. What's up?"
Its easier to divide statements by hitting enter then using punctuation.