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by nroach 2544 days ago
Tolerance for and expectation of "please" can be cultural. OS code may receive contributions from global contributors.

Anecdotally, in my team which spans individuals from each continent except Africa and the poles, US english speakers are the least likely to use 'please', whereas our APAC (asia-pacific) contributors use it liberally.

3 comments

Was i was trying to say was mainly that saying please implies that what is asked is more of a personal taste, and not an objective thing that really should be fixed.

If it's really something subjective I would say "This would be nicer if..." or "I think that could be changed to..." Instead of formulating some almost passive-aggressive request with "please".

or SE Asian team members who say "yes boss, sure" and then do nothing... and then you find they disagreed with the thing you proposed but there's no way in their culture that they can disagree with the boss, so they just say yes and do nothing. That one was fun to deal with ;)
Canadians will use it liberally along with thanks.
And sorry.