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Comment by notyourwork | Hacker News Reader

I read a thumbs up in the same way I read "ok" which is affirming agreement.

    Me: "Want to goto the movies?" 

    You: "Ok".

We're going to the movies. I don't interpret this as you are acknowledging receipt of my message and will decide later whether or not you will attend.

I would apply the same rationale to a thumbs up. You are saying, ok. Others may disagree.

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This has tripped me up in stores. You bring 1 item and they tell you, "This thing is two for X (price)". If you then say "Ok" disinterestedly, will they sell you one or two of those?

You left out the rest of the sentence which makes it an incomplete sentence. Usually this is followed by "would you like another?" or something along the lines that becomes a yes or no question.

Merely saying "This is two for x." is a statement, not a question.

That's why it tripped me up, they didn't ask a question. I just mundanely said "Ok" to their statement and it was understood as an intention to buy

That's why I make it a point to say "I see", "uh-huh" instead of "OK" to such statements, given that it's so easy to be misunderstood even though technically "OK" is an acceptable response.

It’s more like

“I’ve attached a list of movies for you to go over. Do you want to go see any of them this weekend?”

“[thumbs up]”

If you message requires any kind of action to be taken rather than an immediate answer it becomes very ambiguous.

I'd caution against that. I'd read it as someone giving you a thumbs-up.

There's an "OK" emoji, which further disambiguates this.

That is you. Many use it as "I like your idea but not 100% agree with you yet....go on say more and let me think about what my next respond would be for your next comment". The judge is a boomer. Is like asking a gender studies grad student to evaluate AB testing effectiveness for a UI redesign of public survey written in Typescript. If one of the twins committed mass murder with tons of DNA evidence while the other twin is innocent. Both have been able to walk free in many cases. You simply cannot have such ambiquity in contracts offering/signing. You can have ambiguity in the clauses but not at acceptance. Anyway is Canadian. Expected that kind of low quality judgement....quite expected worldwide.

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