[majewsky]

> 1. Only use private messages when you absolutely have to

Disagree. Private messages are the analog of walking over to someone and just talking to them, and one-on-one discussion has valid purposes (e.g. discussing user stories or parts of the design before writing a spec).

> 2. NEVER EVER do this: @ username can i ask you a question? Just ask the question.

YES YES YES. This is a huge problem, esp. with colleagues from cultures where this bullshit is considered polite.

> 5. Don’t stare at your chat client all day, it’s easy to fool yourself into thinking replying to chats is the same as being productive.

I have to work on this. I have three monitors, one of which is reserved for Slack (and Outlook). Maybe I should cut that out for a while.

[thedaniel]

> Disagree. Private messages are the analog of walking over to someone and just talking to them, and one-on-one discussion has valid purposes (e.g. discussing user stories or parts of the design before writing a spec)

Perhaps you disagree, or perhaps this is when your organization absolutely has to? ;) One-on-one discussion has valid purposes, even if the purpose is to reduce noise, but it's important not to err on the side of private messages because institutional knowledge just disappears, or never gets cemented in the first pace

[dpcx]

One of my former coworkers would send me this series of messages:

> Hi dpcx > Goodmorning > How are you?

All within the span of seconds, and only after I responded would they ask me their question. I tried to impress upon them to just ask the question that they had, to no avail.