These are a set of guidelines that helps everyone to play nice and fair while communicating especially on mediums like Slack, Teams or Mattermost be it at your workplace or other online communities. Remember, while we are communicating over these mediums, neither our body language nor our voice is heard by other individuals who are reading our messages. This requires us to put in an effort while writing replies or initiating new conversations. Direct vs Indirect Messages Always try to avoid direct usage of english. They might find your directness rude and possibly offensive. By adjusting your tone, you are more likely to get a positive response from your reader. Consider these: Direct – You are doing it wrong. Indirect and polite – The way it is being done might not be the right way. Do you mind checking it once? Direct – You are using a non standard practice. You need to follow the steps as documented. Indirect – I’m afraid that what is being followed might not be the standard practic...

Many times we get greeted by just Hi or Hey messages from our colleagues and friends in our various messaging systems. Be it Slack, Mattermost, Teams, Hangouts or whatever messaging systems that you use. This is one of the most irritating (sorry to use that word, couldn’t find a subtle one), messages that you can ever receive. Messaging systems are meant for asynchronous messages. Expecting that the person at the other end of the conversation is always available to answer the hi/hey messages is too much of an expectation. Remember messaging someone is NOT like making a phone call. You cannot expect an immediate response there. Follow these simple etiquettes next time you message your friend or colleague. Write the complete content that you are planning to ask the person in a single message (as much as possible) May be you can start with a Hi, but make sure it is a multi-line message with the actual content. There is nothing more irritating than receiving 10 notifications in the mobile ...