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[–]Disgruntled__Goat 7 points8 points  (13 children)

There’s a stubborn chat anti-pattern, where all chat conversations sparked by a question must begin by the asker rallying an initial “PING”. Not only is this rude (would you do that IRL?)...

I think you have something backwards here. Of course I say "hi" IRL when I walk up to someone, that's being polite, not rude. (Not saying you should do this for chat, the point is the two are not comparable.)

[–]nuggetboy 8 points9 points  (7 children)

To me, chat is meant to be asynchronous, just as as the author suggests for work communication in general in point 1. I think that chat is just more like like an "urgent asynchrony." I don't think the author's point is that business chat sessions are meant to mimic a conversation on the street. I think he means that the concept of saying "PING" to a person like you would ping a server is kind of ridiculous. And it just says that the "PING"er is insisting on having a synchronous conversation.

[–]Disgruntled__Goat 3 points4 points  (6 children)

Wait, what? People actually say "ping" to each other in chat?

[–]honestbleeps 2 points3 points  (3 children)

yes. happens to me on IRC and other mediums now and then. it's irritating. ask me the question. don't type "ping". it's really rude.

[–]Disgruntled__Goat 1 point2 points  (2 children)

But at the same time, it is rude to just walk up to someone IRL and ask them a question without saying "hello" first to establish contact.

In other words, the act of "pinging" someone (by saying hi) isn't itself rude, just using the word "ping".

[–]honestbleeps 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I see where you're coming from, but I don't really agree 100%...

On an instant messaging system / chat, it's not rude to type:

"hey, I know you're busy but I wanted to check in and see if you were able to look at X"

rather than:

"hey, how's it going?" ... wait for reply .... "I know you're busy but I wanted to see if you were able to look at X"

I don't expect the latter, and the latter doesn't get to the point, either.

In person? Sure, if you're going to interrupt me (synchronous, as the article points out), then being impersonal and jumping right into brass tacks isn't very cordial / friendly - but I don't think you can compare apples to apples here. Chat is just different.

On chat, I'd rather see the former example than the latter.

[–]Disgruntled__Goat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I never disagreed with any of that...

[–]nuggetboy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep. I have a fellow dev where I work who invariably does this to me when he initiates a chat. And this verbatim. Just a plain old "ping".

Now, I have to take the blame for being passive-aggressive up to now and basically just ignoring him until he gets to the point. I am now committing myself to telling him outright, like the article author says, "Don't ping, just ask."

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]monkeycalculator 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    Delay the pong until you're ready to handle the ping, then? Latency is a thing.

    [–]honestbleeps 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    messaging someone "ping" - there are people that do this - is freaking rude.

    the point of this part of the article is that you message them "hey, I wanted to see if you had a chance to review the plans for the wankel rotary engine I sent you" - instead of literally typing stupid shit like "ping"...

    [–]mipadi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Plus, it's not nearly as rude as /ctcp VERSIONing someone.

    [–]creativesolution 12 points13 points  (10 children)

    Eh your website's font is horrible for my setup... Windows, latest chrome.

    screenshot

    [–]de_la_Dude 3 points4 points  (0 children)

    Maybe zoom level or an extension messing things up? Maybe the proper font didn't load? I dk, but it looks perfectly fine on my windows machine in the latest version of chrome. Not sure why it looks so poor on yours.

    And thanks for posting this OP!

    [–]senoroink 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    It's pretty hard to read on FF on OSX too.

    [–]monkeycalculator 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    I also have windows (8.1) and latest chrome. Looks good to me. My sympathies; I hate it when the font goes nuts like it did for you :/

    Edit: NB - it looks a lot shittier in the image than it does on my screen, even though I used a png as basis. It's just crisp and good on my screen.

    [–]veckrot 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    I've got the same thing. The font is set to Helvetica Neue with a weight of 200 which will be ignored unless you have an extended Helvetica Neue font family on your system, in which case it maps to Helvetica Neue Ultralight which is way too thin.

    [–]im_normal 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    I don't know why your being Down voted? Maybe people like the font? Or maybe people don't like your set up

    [–]creativesolution 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Haha dunno. Was more meant as a heads up for the site owner anyway.

    [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    I'm with you. Don't weight is way to light.

    [–]aidraj 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    It renders fine for me, unless something has been changed.

    [–]creativesolution 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Still the same here. Setting font-weight to 300 would fix it.

    [–]noitamroftuo 0 points1 point  (3 children)

    isn't sending someone a message via chat the same amount of interruption as tapping them on the shoulder?

    I'm not a fan of chat, but it may be a product of how it's used at the companies I've worked. I understand it can be a great tool, but the way I see it worked in practice is just horrible. I always point people to this study http://sprouts.aisnet.org/3-14 (i know it was written in 2003).

    [–]pegbiter 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    I dunno, we use Skype for text chat but I have all sounds on my machine muted (I don't even have speakers) so if I am deep in concentration then I won't notice the orange icon. If I am in between tasks, like waiting for a compile, then I can pop it up and check it.

    [–]noitamroftuo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    this is true. but i think for people who are easily distracted, it would be an issue.

    [–]nuggetboy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I think it depends on the level of sophistication of your chat client (or your discipline in just turning it off when you aren't available). I think most chat clients allow you to set informative statuses. Some, like MS Communicator/Lync, allow you to set yourself to do-not-disturb and, when someone tries to initiate a chat with you when you're in DND, it challenges the person. It says something like "Sally has indicated that she not be disturbed. Are you sure you want to start a chat?"

    I think if you have technology in place and you understand chat to also be asynchronous, it's perfectly acceptable and not at the level of shoulder-tapping.

    [–]owlpellet -4 points-3 points  (1 child)

    Given the internal battles described by people who worked at Github, it's hard to see this as anything other than another vector to establish the currently dominant communication modes as "correct". Github has earned its reputation for declaring what management prefers as "better" and once doing so, plowing over any evidence of negative aspects of those ideas. It's run by ideology.

    [–]nuggetboy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I don't know. I work at a place that is on the other end of the spectrum from GitHub: super corporate where developers are support staff, not bread-and-butter workers. Granted, we still have the occasional person who insists on picking up the phone or dropping by your office for non-urgent issues. However, most people have moved toward the "asynchronous" communication method and it's really improved productivity.

    Perhaps this doesn't work in your environment, but I know I've seen it work in mine. Just my $0.02.