[kredd]

In one of my previous workplaces, my coworker and I used to exchange very… NSFW language while debugging certain bugs. It was all in good spirit and humour, everyone knew that’s how we communicate with each other, and it helped to alleviate the tensions for us. Obviously we would also give out statements in public channels to explain what we’ve done and so, but in a more public-friendly way.

It’s like having drinks at a bar solo, talking to people next to you (a bit more reserved, avoiding specific topics) vs. having drinks with a close friend. I don’t mind if someone listens to my private conversations with my friend, but the direct audience is different.

[opmelogy]

Ah gotcha. In this case it's not actually that you are hiding away and doing all your work via DM. You're just using it for smaller discussions and then circle back with the larger team to share info. That totally makes sense.

I was thinking that the OP for this comment thread was claiming that there are situations where public comments/knowledge sharing isn't needed for teams, which makes no sense to me.

[speeder]

I had a situation where some stuff isn't done in the public channel out of politeness.

For example: While working with text written by non-native speaker, had to explain often to some members of the team t hat the text was just awful and needed a complete rewrite. But I didn't want to type this in public so that the "culprit" wouldn't feel like I was out to get him or something.

At least in my culture, it is extremely rude to berate people in public, so I extended this to also considering rude to "blame" people in public when explaining why work is late.