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Comment by satisfice | Hacker News Reader

This is a stupid post. By stupid I mean it seems to me that the author of it is deliberately refusing to use his mind.

The purpose of saying “hi” is to check for presence in order to initiate a live conversation. It sends a message that the person wishes to speak live whenever that is convenient.

I’m sorry if the poster doesn’t understand the value of live conversation, but that’s not our problem.

Now people like me have to say “ignore that post from that idiot… go ahead and ping me with a ‘hi’”

Deliver me from clever control freaks who never studied human behavior.

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> The purpose of saying “hi” is to check for presence in order to initiate a live conversation.

This is exactly how I have always interpreted it, and exactly why I hate it. It's trying to force an async form of communication to be synchronous. Imagine how obnoxious it would be if someone just sent you an email with no subject and the text "Hi".

Don't do this. If you need to have a synchronous chat about something don't just go "Hi". Go with "Hi, when you have a few minutes can we chat about X?" So the other end can prioritize it. Better yet schedule an actual call of synchronous chats.

> The purpose of saying “hi” is to check for presence in order to initiate a live conversation. It sends a message that the person wishes to speak live whenever that is convenient.

No, it does not. If the person wants to do a call, you either call directly or - more polite these days - you send a message along the lines of "Can I call you about <x>?" or "Please call me whenever you're ready to talk about <x>". If you want to engage in synchronous (i.e. live) conversation, you don't engage it by just sending "hi" over a text chat, which is a very asynchronous medium.

A huge benefit of many (most?) chat apps is that communication can be async. If it requires a live conversation, then respectfully it probably warrants scheduling time.

The author is arguing that the “udp approach” to these conversations is less intrusive, and also alleviates doubt/anxiety about the nature of the conversation.

The author’s not wrong, he’s just an asshole.

People have different ways of communicating. I actually like getting to know my coworkers and appreciate a little fluff in my conversations. Heck, if you can make me laugh with a sassy story or a funny pun, you get brownie points and priority.

This author sounds like the type of asshole that says “I’m not here to make friends, I’m not here to be nice to you, I’m here to trade my time for money only, so go to hell.” AKA an entitled asshole.

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