Yeah, skip the fluff about my having a good weekend if you need me to fix something, but a lot of those uncertainty markers aren't fluff, they're essential to honest, accurate communication.
Similarly, many times when you say a variation on "I know you're the expert on the codebase" or whatever, that's because it's true and important. Something I think is a problem, which this article wants me to phrase as a short, plain declaration, might actually just be a misunderstanding on my part. If I get one of those messages, I'm not going to see my time being respected. I'm going to see an arrogant jerk too lazy to learn what they're talking about before shooting off their mouth.
It's also a misinterpretation of the "nohello", which is about dragging things out over multiple messages and time to put the actual message. Just adding some pleasantries at the beginning isn't the same thing.
Right. Nohello isn't about not saying hello. It's about not sending a message with nothing but a greeting and leaving the recipient waiting to find out what you want. It's about being efficient and respectful of the recipient's time.
If you're so pathologically "efficient" that you are bothered by reading the word "Hello" in "Hello. Please join the bridge. The site is down.", that's a you problem, not a hello problem.
> a lot of those uncertainty markers aren't fluff, they're essential to honest, accurate communication.
> Similarly, many times when you say a variation on "I know you're the expert on the codebase" or whatever, that's because it's true and important. Something I think is a problem, which this article wants me to phrase as a short, plain declaration, might actually just be a misunderstanding on my part.
This is not what the article says. The author is not advocating for removal of relevant information (including uncertainty markers and that which you describe as "true and important") - only information that is not relevant, such as "I'm not sure if I'm missing something here and sorry if this is a dumb question but" that is an example in the post.
And, if the information may be relevant, the author would ask you to include it - concisely, without fluff.
The main thing that Crocker's Rules are trying to cut out (in a LIMITED SPECIFIC OPT-IN BASIS) is specifically irrelevant information due to social graces/fear of offense. If it could be useful, the author (and Crocker) would have you include it.
Look at the actual examples they give of what you should say. Everything but the bald assertion is stripped away.
If you're saying the actual proper behavior is a middle ground: I agree! But that's not what the article is saying. (At least, not clearly, which would be its own irony.)
> Look at the actual examples they give of what you should say. Everything but the bald assertion is stripped away.
Right, I think the examples aren't the best. But, around the examples, look at what the author is advocating for:
> to skip social cushioning
> "your feelings about how I might receive this..."
> bears responsibility for their own emotional reaction to its content
> When you spend the first third of your message establishing that you are a nice person who means well
...etc. They're pretty clearly emphasizing the emotional content of messages, rather than informational content.
Then they explicitly say that the intent is to provide relevant information:
> You can document contributing factors if they are actually actionable, meaning if there is something structural that needs to change, name it specifically and attach a proposed fix to it.
...and then separate that from emotions:
> But confessing your emotional state and your reasoning process and your extenuating circumstances is not documentation, it is self-absolution
Yes, I agree that the author probably should have been a bit more clear, because people can get upset when it comes to workplace politics/communication, and clarity never hurts. But I'm pretty sure that the intent is what you'd want it to be.
And as a writer: I find that my instinct to write caveats like "I know you're the expert on the codebase" corresponds to a process I need to follow to verify the information. Emails like this can take me hours to write, as I scour the codebase, logs, etc for the missing pieces of information demanded by "mere politeness". Here's an example of a reply I got:
> Thank you for your careful report, I will attend to it asap.
The response was short and to the point, because no other information was relevant. And, indeed, I have written emails like that in the past. But, from the article:
> The fact that you were stressed, or that you had inherited the config from someone else, or that the documentation was unclear3, or that you asked your lead and they said it was probably fine, none of that is relevant to the incident report.
Those things are often all relevant. I beg the author to read a book about system-theoretic process analysis (STPA). Some are freely-available from the MIT PSASS website: https://psas.scripts.mit.edu/home/books-and-handbooks/. Nancy G. Leveson's CAST Handbook is perhaps most directly applicable.
Similarly, many times when you say a variation on "I know you're the expert on the codebase" or whatever, that's because it's true and important. Something I think is a problem, which this article wants me to phrase as a short, plain declaration, might actually just be a misunderstanding on my part. If I get one of those messages, I'm not going to see my time being respected. I'm going to see an arrogant jerk too lazy to learn what they're talking about before shooting off their mouth.