Ask HN: Warm Welcomes a.k.a. Newbie Fingering | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Warm Welcomes a.k.a. Newbie Fingering

17 pointsrendaw48 comments

In some online forums there's a practice welcoming a new member when they make their first post (e.g. StackExchange). At face value it would seem... welcoming.

It always rubbed me the wrong way though, like the welcomer is trying to establish a hierarchy or draw attention away from the contents of my message itself.

Are welcomes a positive for some people? Or is this like starting Slack conversations with "Hey, how's it going?"

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I've never heard the term "Newbie Fingering", but it certainly would have a different connotation in the UK.

I believe fingering is what Americans would call getting to third base.

See also: https://xkcd.com/540/

What would be the equivalent of getting to third base in Cricket?

It's welcoming for the first N people. A small subset of the community that starts the community.

After a while it becomes an almost ritual hazing. Kind of like HR making you write a paragraph about yourself for an introduction email to a company. In spirit, it should help people find some common ground with you to spark a conversation. In reality no one actually cares, it's awkward for the person writing the introduction, and helps nothing except waste time.

On forums in particular I always hated these introductions because I don't really want people to know much about me on the internet anyway. So it became a tremendous effort to manufacture enough of a story it was consistent with my life (so I didn't forget), but different enough that I couldn't be identified.

Newbie fingering though...that's hilarious. I haven't heard a FINGER pun in a very long time.

Yeah I hate this. I had a boss who would get upset if I asked him something on slack before saying good morning/afternoon/whatever first. It was so silly. Just a waste of time.

Hi. I greet someone then ask the question in the same message. No extra messages, but no appearance of rudeness or inconsideration of the other person. If this is what you're doing and your boss was still upset, your boss was I think unreasonable. If you just jumped straight to the question, your boss from their point of view had a valid point.

No, boss was being unreasonable. There’s no need to e-greet someone you talk to every day over slack. It’s a weird power play from a superior.

There’s no need to post on this website either but we do it anyway. Greetings are just the polite thing to do. it recognizes that we’re not automatons and have lives outside of work.

We make the decision to post here, not our managers. Prescribing these sorts of rituals from a position of power is going to do a lot more to make automatons than forced greetings are going to undo.

If recognizing life outside work is really a cultural issue then encourage change around that and make it interactive instead of prescribing only your view. It'll come out better for everyone and it's exceedingly unlikely to come to exactly what one person was thinking it should be like.

I would imagine if you analyzed all HN comment replies, only a fraction of a percent would begin with a greeting of any sort. It is unreasonable for anyone to get upset for omission of such a rarity, especially in the context of Slack messages.

I agree except a forum is a different medium from Slack DMs. This is an ongoing exchange of specific, topical sorts of information. It's much closer to a Slack channel than to DMs.

DMs are a personal, often interruptive direct request for a particular person's attention and time. Some sort of interpersonal acknowledgement and appreciation of the other person's effort and time is pretty common in polite society.

Absolutely. It's very odd to great people online unless the thread is specifically for introductions or something like that.

Right. But what is hi worth? When the robot voice on the phone says hi before it gives me information I don't feel closer to that robot. I just want the information. The hi is a waste of time.

Why?

Hi. Can you forward me the email from X you mentioned last night?

Can you forward me the email from X you mentioned last night?

Is the first really ANY better? It just seems silly. If I was in the office I wouldnt say hi first.

Saying things like "hello" or "good morning" to colleagues the first time you talk to them in a day is in many places a social convention. If you find social conventions silly, they aren't necessarily any less real. Think of them as a protocol for communicating data with other carbon-based life forms of the human model range.

Right but what does Hi add?

Do you say bye at the end of the day? Some people do. I think its weird but some people do it. So at what level of saturation does some silly social convention like saying hi being required before sending an additional message become the expectation vs being something some people do and some people dont?

That's why I always start each day with a Good Morning to my co-workers, asking them how they are doing, etc., so I can get all the pleasantries out of the way for when there's something that needs prompt attention, like, say, a Production issue. Same with after lunch.

Blah. Such a waste of time. I used to do that with this boss after he got upset. I'd say good morning every morning. He'd say good morning back. Woo. It feels like a required check in rather than an exchange of pleasantries. If you're doing this as a manager I'd think about asking people how they feel about it. I would rather not receive messages like that. If I have a message it should be something that is worth pulling me away from my work. Someone saying hi so I can say hi back is just a distraction.

Funny enough I had a report that I had to put a ton of effort into breaking this habit. They'd message me with something like "Good morning!" And nothing else until I replied even if that meant waiting hours to ask whatever they wanted to ask.

That's like the people that text "Hello" but nothing else, until you respond. I don't get it. Just say what you're gonna say already!

I don't respond to those. If you have something to say, say it.

Are welcomes a positive for some people? Or is this like starting Slack conversations with "Hey, how's it going?"

They can be positive for me -- if they provide helpful information, explain -- briefly and courteously -- the expected etiquette of the group and set the tone.

That's the key: the tone. Is this group aiming for broad appeal and trying to be welcoming or is it a clique? Forget, for a second, how the users of the forum/group behave -- are the moderators, the sysadmin messaging and the like conveying the tone that is desired for the group? If a "welcoming newbies" is desired, then a welcoming tone should be used throughout messaging.

Unfortunately, being "welcoming" doesn't usually push away the less friendly/welcoming users. Being unwelcoming will certainly attract them and almost every forum site falls victim to it. It usually presents itself the first time you attempt to post something with a full page list of "WE KILL USERS WHO DO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:", many items in red, often with words that "outsiders" don't recognize so they can't be certain they're violating them. Most posts, then, are from insiders with many "pissing matches" (we get bored, I guess?). Outsiders get trampled on and people complain that "we need better forum software that solves trolls/jerks" :)

I find myself agreeing with you in the respect that "welcome messages" are at least pointless. Fix everything else that isn't user generated, replace moderators with people who have empathy for new users, if "noise" becomes an issue (as it would on larger sites), machine learning coupled with requiring moderation for "first posts"[0] goes a long way. Generally speaking, though, you can't fix dicks. Most of the dicks on the niche forum sites are also the most knowledgeable users and the reason the forum site is so popular ... smaller forums, they're the ones running things. :)

[0] I'm thinking of the bigger problems QA sites get into where new users post the same question, causing hundreds of identical answers because new users often don't figure out how to craft the perfect search query (depending on the kludgy-ness of the forum software) before they figure out the reply/post button and they're usually making that first post because they have a headache already.

> It always rubbed me the wrong way though, like the welcomer is trying to establish a hierarchy or draw attention away from the contents of my message itself.

I don't think that's how it's usually intended, and I don't think that's how most people interpret it. I'm sure there are examples where it is, but that's not normally why people do it.

I have moderated a couple forums, and I have welcomed new people. The underlying intent was always "I'm really glad you're here, I hope you stick around, and do not under any circumstances feel like there is a trial period where you should be afraid to speak up."

Exactly. The welcome message from the new user is to take the edge off of making that first post. Some people won’t have that anxiety but for those that do, it’s a nice ice breaker.

I used to work in a company where people would write a message in the Skype group saying they weren't coming in. Then the other thirty people in the company would reply with "take care".

It's interesting how the rational actions of a bunch of individuals seems to have led to a silly ritual. No one wants to be the jerk who doesn't express sympathy for their ill coworker, and they want to fit in as well. So, becoming just one more in the chorus spamming "take care" makes sense.

> It always rubbed me the wrong way though, like the welcomer is trying to establish a hierarchy or draw attention away from the contents of my message itself

You can get 100 "Welcome!" messages from 100 different people, and they could all have had subtly different tones and intentions, you would never know because it's text. So you're probably both right and wrong, depending on the person.

I think any social group will develop soft hierarchies, but on the internet they're particularly challenging because our previous experience is hidden to people when we join a community for the first time. I think that's particularly tough for people who are established in their existing communities, because on the internet our reputation rarely transfers over. We are all noobs until proven otherwise.

If a life long master carpenter joined a woodworking forum, there would be DIYers with 6 tools in their shed but a long time on the forum, who would talk down to them and question their advice. Everyone deserves the same level of respect and attention in discussion, but I feel a reputation for being knowledgeable on a specific topic is earned. This person might be "The Guy" for woodwork in his city, but online they are #WoodMan24 and no one cares.

>You can get 100 "Welcome!" messages from 100 different people, and they could all have had subtly different tones and intentions, you would never know because it's text.

I realise this wasn't the core point you were conveying, however, I feel like the type if miscommunication you describe is extremely uncommon. More often, people just say "oh I didn't mean that" as a retreat from criticism. Otherwise I agree with you.

I can see the reasons some advocate for an introductory post, I think the dreams are good but never translate into reality. It discourages quiet lurking and adds stress to the already exciting first post. "I don't want to sound like an idiot" is already bad enough when your first post is motivated by "oo I know something about this subject being discussed". It can only be worse if you're required to do the grade school stand up introduction.

For "old hands" where its just another forum it may just be an annoyance. Those who appreciate it as a chance to brag (guilty), often find more welcome opportunities for boasting in other contexts if they wait. Even then the perception of gatekeeping can negatively color the experience of the whole forum.

Some forums want to be limited in scope and membership, and this can be a useful tool for that. I tend to assume I will be among the unwelcome at any such division, so I don't participate in that kind of forum. Don't feel I'm missing much.

A private welcome message is nice, a public welcome message is at best uncomfortable. If it's private, I know it's meant for my benefit and any information provided does not distract from anything else. If it's public, maybe the poster/moderator has good intentions but it's still pointing out to everyone that I'm the new guy so I need to worry about how everyone on the forum might interpret it. And of course in those situations where the moderators actually are hazing, it's always public.

I always enjoyed forums that had "Newbie Corners" where newbies could go to introduce themselves if they wished, otherwise I rarely saw the newbie welcoming type of interaction outside of that corner. (Unless it was obvious the newbie had run afoul of one of the forum's rules but that's on the newbie at that point.)

This is the least of Stackoverflow's problems, although it does show the kind of people that operate there. "Welcome to our club. It is our club though so you have to obey our rules and we're in charge. So you're welcome to stay as long as you act exactly like us."

Basically the HOA of the internet.

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