No Hello (2013) | Hacker News Reader

No Hello (2013)

nohello.com

90 pointsemreb67 comments

Don't ask to ask, just ask

Every now and then, in online chat rooms I hang around in, someone pops in and says something in the lines of,

    Foobar123:

    Any Java experts around?

This is bad form, for several reasons. What the person is actually asking here is,

    Foobar123:

    Any Java experts around who are willing to commit into looking into my problem, whatever that may turn out to be, even if it's not actually related to Java or if someone who doesn't know anything about Java could actually answer my question?

And if you want a fast response, you write something like this "I coded XYZ in Java and Java is absolute shit because ABC is bad."

Cunningham's Law! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#%22Cunningham'...

The blog post misunderstand that many people that do that are simply using "hello" as a "ping" to see if someone's really there for immediate synchronous communication. They want to type just 1 word first ... and then wait for a human-style-TCP-ACKnowledgement ... before typing a bunch of extra words of the real question they had in mind. For receivers, it's annoying but I tried to explain in the previous thread that many deliberately avoid indeterminant async communication if possible: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25883095

The whole issue is that with "hi", the intent is entirely unknown to the recipient. The sender should signal their intent such that anyone responding knows roughly what they're getting into. It can be as simple as "hi, free to chat for ~N mins about X?" but anything more that just a greeting is better than none. That's the "educational" value of the post as far as I see it, and I totally agree with it.

It takes the sender a lot of time to type the question, so the communication is not immediate synchronous. What actually happens is that I go elsewhere after 5 seconds of waiting, then in 20 more seconds arrives the question, but I already switched to a different task and don't bother what another stupid hello I received there. The site provides a chat log with timestamps to better understand delays in communication.

TCP Fast Open was created for a reason.

I don’t want to take sides, but https://nohello.net/ is good too.

Yeah this seems like a copy

It is.

> Based on the wonderful nohello.com.

.net has way better UI, IMO

It is! the .com asks for me to accept cookies for some strange reason.

This was very common when working with teams from India. I see this merely as a cultural difference, a courtesy. You don't start talking until pleasantries have been exchanged. But I may be wrong, feel free to chime in.

That is what I was going to comment. This might be ok in the US where people are more "transactional" at work and go directly to the point. In other countries the "social dance" is sometimes expected and by going directly to the point you will start getting a bad rep (as a rude/cold person). So you need to have some personal interactions ("How's your son?" "Did you have nice vacations", etc...) before asking the "serious stuff".

Of course, you can keep things faster by putting the social dance right at the first message "Hello, how are you? Great game by your team last night congrats!", but it is still expected to lose some time on that...

Another great example is the "Thank you" email after someone does something for you. I know many countries where this is frown upon (because is an unnecessary email), but there are many where the inverse is true, people expect you to acknowledge gratitude (with the risk of being known as a rude/cold person if not).

To sum it up, be aware of the culture you're working with

Okay then, why won’t it ever work the other way around?

Same thing goes with the spoken language in US. It is way confusing to foreigners. Just like the silent letters in the words. There are many instances when Americans ask questions but don’t expect a real answer, for example “what’s up” “how’s it going?” “How you doing”

I’ll try to answer “how’s it going” with “elephants are marching north” next time, since this answer is as good as any.

I am from India and this was reasonably true for my vintage 80s (-1) :-) (BPO wave)

The next question was whatsup? how is it going? how was your weekend?

Our reaction was that the recipient (typically an overpaid US guy) actually wanted an answer. It took me a couple of years that they didn't really give a damn. It was actually a hallmark to ignore and move on to the objective topic. (It somewhat impressed those guys!)

Same experience. I always reply with Mr. Burns Ahoy Hoy https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q8UUrL0C4so.

In that case, the asker can still prepare their question text and be ready to copy/paste after exchanging hellos. The author reiterates several times that waiting for the other person to type is the pain point here.

People do it in the USA too, they're more likely to have learned not to although.

How do they write emails? Or even paper mails for that matter.

anecdotally I have noticed this too - when I work with a new team I always say just to ask :)

It's funny, I was just thinking the other day about a habit that I have when initiating an instant message conversation out of the blue, generally in the context of either work or an acquaintance that I rarely contact.

I find myself typing out the whole message, greeting included. However, as that might look a bit too much like a wall of text on WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack or the like, I tend to cut the question just before sending the greeting, and paste and send the question (or conversation context) immediately after.

So, my messages will look something like this:

    - Mordisquitos is typing -
    # Ctrl-X
    [20:12] Mordisquitos: Hi ${oldAquaintance}! How's it going?
    # Ctrl-V
    [20:12] Mordisquitos: Are you in ${homeTown} these days? I'm here till Sunday, so if you're here we could meet if you want!

Or like this:

    - Mordisquitos is typing -
    # Ctrl-X
    [10:03] Mordisquitos: Good morning ${coworkerName}!
    # Ctrl-V
    [10:03] Mordisquitos: Regarding the issue with cranking the widgets, I had some questions about the timing
    - Mordisquitos is typing - # The specifics of the question, may take a while

I think the reason I do it is out of empathy, assuming that other people might feel like I myself do. Be it out of social anxiety or ADHD, I really hate receiving unexpected contextless greetings and being expected to greet back before knowing what the hell you're writing to me about. Neither am I very happy about seeing an unexpected greeting followed by minutes of a "user is typing", during which my mind is already hopelessly hyperfocused on wondering what it will be.

I am well aware though that the time that I'm (perfectionistically) typing my initial message that I will later cut and send, if the user has the application open they may already be seeing the "Mordisquitos is typing" notification before I sent the initial hello, which could be even worse. I think sometimes I've even gone as far as typing out my greeting+message on a text editor beforehand.

Sometimes it's a trick to see if you're there so if you don't respond to the following question with similar speed, the sender (incorrectly?) assumes something's up

Precisely why I never respond to the initial "Hello" :p

It's particularly annoying when non-technical managers will ask "quick" questions that actually take a long time to answer.

Indeed! I say hello to our helpdesk all the time to make sure someone is there to answer before it times out :p

What about questions like “what’s up” “how’s it going?” “How you doing” etc in day to day conversation. Aren't they waste of time? As a person of Indian origin I always struggled to answer these questions when I was new in the US. Now after so many years I have learned that the answer to all these questions is "good" or the question itself. because most of the time the person asking it is actually least interested in knowing the real answer! I honestly feel starting any conversation with these questions is waste of time!

Prior to COVID my opinion on this was more or less that of the author's, but now I regularly chat "hello" to folks just to literally say "Hi"... as in - "I am a human working today, and you are a person working today, so Hello!". I've opted sometimes for the "Happy Monday!", but this often is received (not shockingly) as sarcasm...

I think the shift for me was (1) not being in the office physically, and realizing I was missing the simple "hello" conversations to acknowledge folks, and (2) I just care a lot less about productivity these days. Or rather, maybe, I've come to appreciate more how much productivity depends on healthy human interactions. I'm not a work robot, and I don't really need to "optimize my life" to the point of being one. My time isn't so valuable that replying with a "Hello back! How was your weekend?" kills me - and for an colleague who needs or wants to talk, a simple chat "hello" might be the open door they need. That endless todo list can, and will wait... And it will be as full on the day I wake for the last time as it was this morning.

Often I think the hello is actually a way to bait you into revealing that you are available. Sometimes the request that is about to come is something the requester knows you are likely to either ignore or at least putting off responding until later; the hello is innocuous enough that if you reply, then it has been established that you are present and so ignoring subsequent messages becomes a bigger challenge.

As a developer, I mostly agree with this. But I was talking about that with a friend that works in finance and he thinks just saying “hello” is ok in his context.

The difference in context is the length of the subsequent conversation. If it is a quick question, with a quick answer, just saying “hello” to start a conversation is a waste of time. But if it is the start of lengthy conversation that is technically async, but actually would be more productive if both parts are online to reply in minutes, just saying hello is useful. Also, polite, since this is closer to a real life conversation.

It is the short version of ”Hello, let me know when you are free for a async-but-not-so-much conversation”

I'd prefer the long version in that case: "Hi, do you have a few minutes to chat about X?" I might have the capacity to talk about X now, but Y would have to wait.

Sometimes I think that in timezone-distributed corporations it’s a not so subtle way to procrastinate at scale. You start with “Hello” when the other person has 4AM. When they answer with a hello of their own, it’s past working hours for you. Then you follow with “can I ask you a quick question”, and by the time you receive your answer it’s already weekend.

With skill, you can have not one but several concurrent conversations, each just like this one.

All the time you’re working hard and waiting for answers, of course, dreading to think just how difficult would the life be if all this got condensed into 15 minutes as it ought to.

Times change. Communication got so much quicker than it used to be. As the chatosphere is much more crowded than it used to be, you message has to go through quickly.

It used to be rude to greet and immediately start demanding.

Sheriff Andy Taylor would say hello first; Deputy Barney Fife wouldn't.

This is ignoring the fact that there are people who actually enjoy exchanging pleasantries. Make a list with 2 columns: 1) people that enjoy small talk 2) people that dislike small talk. Act accordingly.

I'm on team 'no hello' but I've been intrigued to learn over the years how some people interpret it as rude. I've had to reassure employees who complained about (potential) customers being rude where it turned out to merely be folks being direct and to the point. I've also seen people selling things on Facebook groups and the like complain about direct questions too, like they want to make some chitchat first. Different strokes, etc. so it pays to take context into account! :-)

Chit chat shows you’re at least trying to show interest in the other person, and is thus seen as polite by many.

The older I get the more I notice a lot of dichotomies where both sides have opposite qualitative judgments. Another recent one I learnt about was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aizuchi in Japanese where people sort of talk/interject over each other and it's seen as more polite than listening to someone in total silence. Again, all down to context, because if I tried that sort of conversational technique with my partner it would not go down well(!)

That reads like a bunch of equivalents to TCP ACK. Marvelous!

In political debate on TV here in NL, I noticed nodding is often used to indicate a listener is listening. It doesn't mean they agree. Its essentially a way to shut/calm down the active talker, akin to 'yeah yeah, get on with it, let me reply...'

Or perhaps you can stop asking others to adjust to your behaviors and not sit idly by waiting for someone else to type something to you?

Isn't that how async communication is supposed to work?

You haven't understood the problem.

A: Hi (expecting a response from person B before continuing) B: Hi A: proceeds with start of questions or comment

The first problem is that A may, as you say, sitting idly by waiting for B to say "hi" back. I.e. the first person may not understand how to effectively communicate in an async setting.

The second is that "hi", then waiting for a response, can signify to B that A wants an active, real-time conversation - not an async conversation. The ambiguity of "hi" may cause B to deliver complete attention, which has real costs. Unfortunately, A might just be being polite (in a misguided way) or they have jumped the gun and spoken before they have thought about what they want to say.

This is a very real communication issue that has causes a real productivity loss from high performers that have to unblock people frequently.

> This is a very real communication issue that has causes a real productivity loss from high performers that have to unblock people frequently.

[Citation needed]

In 12 years of working professionally, a "hi" nas never been a blocker, neither for myself nor any of my teammates.

I can’t easily switch contexts while waiting for something else to happen at an unknown, but likely soon time.

That's nobody's problem but your own.

All right, buddy.

PING Hi ... wait two minutes... PING How ya doing? ... wait two minutes PING Hey do you have a minute?

How much attention do you have to be reading brain farts all day?

If this is a time/attention suck for you, turn off notifications or adjust some other way. Or perhaps just learn not to let the incredibly miniscule things bother you.

That's good advice. It's also good advice to learn to communicate effectively and briefly.

While we're at it, let's also drop greetings and sign-offs from emails.

Not just for wasted time, but also because they're pointless, awkward, and anachronistic.

I disagree. I use the salutation and the "sign-offs" to indicate different levels of seriousness. If somethings not urgent or as serious I will, along with a suitable title of course, use a more casual greeting. I appreciate when others do the same for me.

Could have saved me a click by naming the domain donotsayhelloinchatitwastestime.com. But no, the site owner didn't care about wasting my time.

(Who cares? Just adapt to who you're talking to and stop whining about their preferred salutations)

Hi!

Hey what’s up?

I just reply by a Yo and get on with my life!! it's annoying but people are like that.... they would always start by a Hi, specially by juniors to your role

This is among my primary frustrations, but I cannot find a polite way to address it, especially with overseas employees. I don’t want to come off as rude.

I strongly disagree. Long, unbroken chains of "hi" have been a fixture of my IRC experience for as long as I can remember.

Similarly, https://dontasktoask.com/

Async communication, unless an emergency or maybe a project meeting... everything else can wait.

This is so smug.

It's like the old:

Can I ask you one question?

Yes, but that was it!

Not sure it's worth the domain name. OP should make a slack bot at least.

Dear Sir,

Hello.

I keenly await your reply.

Yours, etc

+999999999

OMG I hate this reasoning so much.

If you're brilliant enough that you think you can teach this piece of "netiquette" to non techies, then you are almost certainly smart enough to write a script to obsolete the need for the netiquette in this instance.

Make a damn bot that waits random(1, 3) seconds before responding, "Hi, what's up?"

This is one of the few social problems that is trivially solved by technology. To not solve it, and to then pretend we must do work to teach the world how to type chats to each other is to be the opposite of a hacker.

Seriously, where is the newbie_responder.pl module that passes the Turing test for introductory social pleasantries? Shame on you, Perl community.

In my imagined alternate reality, some Perlite got tired of multiple bot responses to the newbie and didn't want to do the boring work of electing a leader bot. And in their hacking fervor they accidentally created a novel solution to the Byzantine Generals problem.

Back in reality we get million dollar NFT monkey jpegs and a brilliant scheme to optimize out the word "Hello."

Hacker news? More like "hawker" news.

Hello!

./laughtrack.pl

Reply on news.ycombinator.com