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Comment by nokya | Hacker News Reader

This could be specific to French speaking culture but I am often contacted by individuals who start online conversations with either:

"hi, I hope you're well."

"hi, what's up?"

These introductions clearly tend to trigger me as I interpret them as someone who wants to ask for something but isn't brave enough to simply ask for it so she/he keeps walking around you desperately looking for a sign of welcome.

When this happens, I usually just reply with:

"Hi."

Then I pull out my popcorn and watch the "X is typing a reply" prompt come up then disappear, repeatedly for the next minute or two.

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I often start a conversation with a colleague with "Hello, how are you?", to which they may answer "Good, thanks... just coming back from holiday, was nice". Then I can ask about their holidays, and have an actual social interaction with them.

They can also say "I'm good, how about you?", to which I can answer "I'm okay, it is a bit stressful these days", and maybe we get another social interaction from that.

You know... just like if I meet a colleague at the coffee machine. I don't come, say "Please review PR 1342 when you have time" and leave.

Of course, if I just had coffee with that colleague, then on the chat I may just say "oh btw, did you have a chance to look into PR 1342?".

I would assume those are the basics of social interactions.

I assume it depends on the person. I would rather have a single message.

Sure, I have no problem with that. I guess I just don't create a website called "pleasebepolite.net" where I explain how I like it better when people behave politely (for my definition of politeness).

Sounds a lot like cultural thing. In Scandinavian countries everyone will be much happier if you just get straight to the point. If you you want to have your PR reviewed, just ask `Hi, can you review PR 1342.` and the other person will answer `Sure, no problem`. There really is no point of fluffing up your request with random chitchat.

> Sounds a lot like cultural thing.

Yes, it could be. Maybe that is why I find this website a little bit offensive.

I would find it much more interesting to have a post about how different cultures deal with chats, rather than a website that basically says "Please do it my way. I even made a website for you to ask others to do it my way".

For instance, in my first job I was in contact with companies on the other side of the world, and would sometimes be pissed at them because of their "annoying" behavior. Until I realized that it was actually a different culture, and I was being a jerk to them. My solution was to try to be more open to different cultures, and not to publish a website explaining how people should just embrace mine.

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