
A real person, a lot like you - terpua
http://sivers.org/real
======
abstractbill
Very insightful (as is usual from Derek!).

I've developed a nice thick skin while working at justin.tv, but in the early
days I'll admit some of the contact I had with our users was pretty
devastating. At times I was simultaneously trying to scale the chat server
code to handle more and more users, fighting off a bunch of script-kiddie
attacks, and replying to emails telling me I must be just about the most
useless programmer in the world :)

~~~
smokey_the_bear
One of the best things about my co-founder is that he's thicker skinned than
me. Some of our user email makes me really upset, but he just cheerfully
replies so I don't have to dwell on it.

~~~
patio11
For those of us who don't have the luxury of human firewalls, I recommend a
puppet. The puppet answers the emails so that you don't have to. He says
whatever needs to be said to bring the business and customer to a successful
resolution. The puppet has no ego, the puppet has no worries, the puppet has
no deep-seated need for approval, the puppet exists only to reach mutually
beneficial solutions.

My puppet has gotten through a couple of cheerful responses to emails which,
if I had read them myself, would have left me unable to sleep for weeks.

My puppet also reports that the worst one had a follow-up "Thanks for getting
back to me! Oh sorry I was so stressed yesterday lol." The puppet lols, too.

------
andreyf
I think those "hurt" in both stories are making something about themselves
that really isn't.

The point of a girl "rejecting losers" on a dating site has nothing to do with
the losers and everything to do with reinforcing her self-image of "the kind
of girl who turns down 10 guys a day". Same with the people who write long
e-mails saying "you suck": if someone is looking for it, they can find a lot
of evidence people around them suck. The point of writing e-mails about it is
to build up one's own confidence, heal some hurt, or vent some frustration
about some issue completely unrelated.

The stories are really about people creating a self-image and protecting an
identity (call it "reflexive brand management", if you will). While I'll
concede that they're narcissistic in their disregard for how their actions
affect other people, I think both are natural and healthy in terms of their
own psyche.

~~~
alexyim
I wonder if you can get the same effect by writing the email but clicking the
"Delete" button instead

~~~
abstractbill
You definitely can. I write _awful horrible insensitive scathing_ emails to
people, and then delete them in the morning without sending them. I get the
catharsis, and I don't lose any friends (actual or potential) in the process -
everyone wins!

~~~
tel
The scary part is that delete and send are pretty close to each other in
gmail.

~~~
abstractbill
Yes, absolutely. That's why I never fill out the To field when writing an
email that I'm not sure I should send.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Without "To" field you risk to forget who you are angry at.

~~~
hboon
I type it into the top line of the email, cutting and pasting it to "To" right
before I send. Helps prevents those "oops! sorry I sent you the previous email
before compelting it because I accidentally hit the Send button."

~~~
lurkerperpetual
I usually append an extra character to the To: email address so it bounces in
case I accidentally send it

~~~
mmastrac
Just make sure it's not a dot: <http://www.dns-
sd.org/TrailingDotsInDomainNames.html>

------
keefe
On the other hand side, people should just man the hell up and stop caring.
OMG somebody sent me an angry email. I've gotten dozens, who cares? OMG the
girl on the dating site didn't respond to me, along with the other 500 I
messaged, who cares? All I care about are my goals. I'll manage the client and
if I lose him, move on to find another. I'll keep messaging until a girl
responds to me, then go from there. People need to understand that there ARE
hundreds of people online and just chill out about reacting to things like
that. I don't bitch people out because it's counterproductive, but who cares,
seriously.

~~~
antipaganda
You make good points, but something is definitely lost when someone is forced
to give up a sensitive personality due to an overly-abrasive society.
Politeness is good for us.

~~~
billswift
"Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear.
Honorifics and formal politeness [good manners] provide lubrication where
people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the
unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty", "meaningless", or
"dishonest", and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they
thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best."

\- - Lazarus Long

------
tjarratt
Looks like not everyone has read the rules of Netiquette! It really amazes me
how often people can write scathing letters and not realize that they are
going to hurt individuals that are responsible for maintaining / running
services and websites.

The only conceivable explanation is that these are people that have never been
responsible for something public facing and hence have never been criticized
unfairly.

------
dpifke
The corollary to this is that companies also need to treat their customers as
people. Too often when I call customer service I'm talking to a robot who can
barely speak my language well enough to coherently read the set-in-stone, no
exceptions, this-is-how-it-is policy off of his computer screen. His claiming
to be named "Bob" doesn't make him any more of a real human being to me.

And while I wouldn't be uncivil (or condone as much) towards "Bob," _both_
sides of the conversation need to avoid dehumanizing each other. I wonder if
the client in Derek's first example would have been such an ass towards Sara
if large companies hadn't preconditioned us to expect mechanical, uncaring
customer service.

~~~
inimino
I find it odd that you go on to say "both sides of the conversation need to
avoid dehumanizing each other", after "a robot" and "[not] a real human being
to me".

~~~
dpifke
What's odd in starting with an example as to why it's easy to dehumanize
someone in customer service and then saying not to do it? The choice in
phrasing and imagery was intentional, if perhaps a bit clumsy.

------
sivers
XKCD comic = 1000 words: <http://xkcd.com/438/>

~~~
swombat
Most of us need to have things repeated to us many times, in multiple forms,
before we get it.

------
duck
Everyone should read this and think about it. We all do it from one degree or
another, especially when you think about the ignoring example. The web
connects us to more people than we can imagine, but we often act as though we
would never meet them face to face - and that is where true connections come
from.

------
nathanh
I've received some pretty biting ones from people that were upset about having
to pay to use a product or service online. It's interesting that people are
willing to put hours into a hate note, yet aren't willing to pay $20 for
something online.

------
raffi
I remember there was a thread here a while ago about the most vicious attacks
we've experienced.

I don't think I get it too bad, but I do get them. I wonder where people come
from saying some of the things they do, even here.

~~~
billswift
A big problem here and most blogs is that you have to respond quickly or very
few people will ever read your response. I prefer to think about things longer
than is really possible when commenting on-line, which is why I don't comment
as much as most people.

------
d0m
In real life, cute girls turn off 10 guys a day without thinking about how
they feel. Why would/should they act differently on a dating site. (I'm not
saying that I appreciate this act thought, that's just how reality is.)

~~~
potatolicious
It's not the turn-down, it's the "Ugh, losers". Like, I don't get the
opportunity to turn girls down often, but where it has occurred I've certainly
never thought less of them for having the guts to approach me.

~~~
d0m
Of course.. it's hard enough to have the guts to ask, that's a shame when the
other laugh of you or something else insulting.

However, my point was that in real life, lots of cute girl would think "huh
loser" in her head and would just ignore you. As I said, I don't think it's
right, but still, I don't see why if they act like that in real life, they
would act kindly on internet.

~~~
potatolicious
There are assholes both online and offline, but I think the blog author's
point is that the anonymity and inhuman-ness of the internet converts some
people who aren't ass offline into online assholes.

~~~
ryanpetrich
They're still assholes offline, they're just prevented from being overtly so
by social custom (at least that's how I see it)

------
sh1mmer
One day I want to meet Derek in person, because he just seems like one of
those people in life that it's just good to be friends with.

Thanks, Derek.

------
presidentender
On the other hand, it can be dangerous to humanize internet people (or real-
world people) too much. I have a great deal of trouble disagreeing with
clients, and a huge tendency to absorb costs myself.

I agree that it's best not to send these scathing emails to people without
considering their humanity. I just have a hard time striking the balance
between that and letting others take advantage of me.

------
vital101
Remember when your mother told you "If you can't say anything nice, don't say
anything at all."? It still holds, except it's even simpler: Keep it
professional. Just because you feel wronged, doesn't mean you need to bring
someone down. Try to resolve things like an adult, it will probably yield
better results anyways.

------
dan_sim
That's how I begin to feel about the community here. When I wrote about
selling our product for 25K$ (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1212966>),
some people wrote that it couldn't work and things like that. If I would have
been new in business, it would have hurt me a lot. Now, I just say to myself
that these people are just bitter. They don't seem to care how much they can
hurt others.

~~~
gridspy
The HN community is often trying to be blunt and frank to give you the advice
that they think you need. This is a community with many high-end programmers
who probably look at your project and think that they could easily recreate it
in less than $10k worth of time (probably not true, but whatever).

My immediate reaction is that you need to ditch your eternal beta and
immediately offer a paid plan. Make the trial really limited. Talk (in person)
to potential clients and really try to really sell this thing.

As long as it is in eternal free beta you have no real discernment between
casual and paying customers. You have no money to make it worthwhile to you,
you have no advertising budget and no credibility. Sure, turning off "free
beta mode" is hard, but better to do it now than to work for years (has it
been since 2007?) under the assumption that all you need is more features to
make a profitable business.

It is a pity that you want to drop this product in its entirety. If I were you
I'd either walk away from it to get a break or spend all your effort on the
static sales pages, a billing system and advertising until you have some
paying customers.

 _On the website front:_

You really do have to get people to try out the dashboard for Timmy. You
should have a really easy demo dashboard. If you want to do more coding you
could add a Javascript test box where you can talk to Timmy on-line. Getting
people to talk to Timmy using MSN is your first hurdle.

None of the features sound compelling. You need to isolate the one call to
action that works for most of the potential customers you have personally
talked with and put that on the front page. Right now it feels weak - no
feature there calls to me. I can already track my time, so why use your
solution (tell me). Instant communication and notifications sound like the
features of MSN itself - come up with something that really is difficult to
solve that Timmy can solve.

~~~
dan_sim
Thanks a lot. This is a really great comment that I should have had years
before. We had our share of problems with that project but the main reason we
want to drop it is not because it's not paying, it's because our hearts are
not in it anymore. We don't have passion for time-tracking (and even if it's
hard to believe, some people have it). We learned a lot but now it's time to
let it go.

But thanks fo the great comment...

------
RevRal
Good timing.

On OkCupid I was just told that I am an asswipe, that I have no personality,
and no respect. Brought back some bad schoolyard emotions.

Thanks.

~~~
donaq
Out of curiosity, what sort of introductory messages do you send? And how many
times have you gotten such a response? I mostly get either nice responses or
no response on OkCupid.

~~~
RevRal
I send lovely introductory messages. Here's a real response: "First, please
allow me to thank you for sending me a message that doesn't suck." Everyone I
have messaged, who has responded, says something along those lines.

However, in this particular case, the scathing message was a response to a
subsequent exchange, not the introductory. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Everything was going as planned, so I asked for her number. She didn't respond
with her number. No big deal. I've wrung numbers out of girls on OkCupid
before (read: assuaged their reluctance), with stuff like this:

    
    
      I understand. You're likely a poor collage student who couldn't pay her phone 
      bill on time. Look, it's okay, you should've told me. I mean, I have extra 
      ramen packets and cans of beans.
    

Most of the time, the response is like this: "haha, how chivalrous. Here's my
number...."

This time it was something like: "WOW. Are you trying to be a dick? Blah blah
blah. I'm independently wealthy due to my heritage asswipe blah blah blah and
something about me having no respect and no personality."

I don't know what her deal was, being "independantly wealthy" must be a touchy
topic. My feelers were injured.

~~~
dkarl
The problem is that what you wrote is exactly what you _might_ have written if
you _were_ trying to be a dick. In theory, the perfect ambiguity of the
message would be cool in itself, leaving your recipient in a surreal quantum
juxtaposition of two states, which she could maintain by responding equally
ambiguously, and you would respond in kind, and after you two bonded online
over your shared joke you would get together for coffee and talk about Poe's
Law. In theory. In reality, the "bitter, sarcastic dick" possibility has a
much bigger emotional impact than the "friendly joker" possibility, so it's a
very unpleasant email to receive, which can (perfectly reasonably) be taken as
evidence that it wasn't sent with friendly intent.

Solution: provide some kind of clue to reassure her that you are, in fact,
joking, and not turning into Mr. Hyde at the first hint of rejection.

~~~
pingou
No need to provide a clue, if she can't understand the joke, she probably
doesn't worth it, so they both don't waste their time. Unless he's looking for
a fling.

~~~
dgabriel
As a woman who has in the past dabbled a bit in online dating, if I had
received that message from someone I didn't know, I would think he was an
asshole. Context is hard in email, and some people _are_ assholes online. If
she's getting enough responses, her guard is way up. This was mis-
communication on both parts. She's NOT necessarily a bad person.

~~~
RevRal
It's not like I was out-of-the-blue busting her balls.

Say I see this in a woman's profile: "I've mastered the art of unwrapping a
Starburst in my mouth."

You can be sure you'll find something like this in my first message to her:
"Awesome, I hear it takes ten years to master an art...." That actually has me
cracking up right now.

So, it's not like this particular person had a precedent to conclude that I
was more likely trying to be a dick, rather than having fun in accordance to
my previous messages. Something made her completely miss the fun side of it.

And the few times this "unpaid phone bill" joke didn't get me the number, the
woman was polite with something like: "sorry, it's too soon. I'm just not
comfortable giving my number to a guy on the internet yet." Which is
absolutely fine.

I know what this looks like (I'm an a-hole), but I also know how women
generally respond to this stuff; I have empirical evidence that shows a strong
correlation of success. Her response was not normal and pretty low-class, and
really left me blindsided. She did say some pretty ridiculous stuff that
wouldn't even be true of a dog with down syndrome. Quite unbalanced, even if
you read my message at face value: with no evidence other than her not giving
me the number, I was asserting she couldn't pay her phone bill on time, and
that I was willing to share some of my raman.

Besides, I had never met a person who didn't think raman was funny in itself.
Who hasn't lived off it for a few days? It's like an inside joke we all share.

I'm not going to abandon everything that actually works because one person got
offended. It has worked before, and it is very likely that it'll work another
50 times before I come across someone who is even mildly offended by my
general manner.

Also, and I feel really bad mentioning this, she is one of the lesser looking
girls I've spoken to with intentions of dating. I'm starting to think the
whole thing was because she had less experience with jolly bantering. But,
this may be me unjustly rationalizing.

Thank god for nested comments. _Waaaayyyy_ off topic.

------
watmough
Excellent article.

I support an iPhone app and occasionally get emails where the person is
obviously not expecting a real person to read it.

Almost without exception, I write as nice an email back as possible, and
usually people are disarmed. As I say, a great article, since it brings to
light something that people won't generally see until they are supporting a
web-page or app at arms length.

------
jlees
It's not just about the negative. A lot of us have grown up with machines and
technology, and we often forget there are humans involved in the simplest of
transactions, such as shopping or customer service.

Instead of fuming that you have to phone up to get your phone account
cancelled, rather than click a button online, it's amazing what you can
achieve if you put on a positive outlook and remember the other person is just
like you, but working some shitty call centre job to pay the rent. Since I had
this "eureka" moment (and I find it awful that I had to have one in the first
place), I've had _much_ better experiences - negotations, discounts, amazing
customer service, etc.

------
mcantor
I'm a little amazed (and somewhat disappointed) that no one has mentioned this
related Penny Arcade comic yet:

<http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/>

(Sure, arguably, dating sites are _less_ anonymous and have _less_ of an
audience than the video game in question, but the gist is the same: "I don't
need to take responsibility for my tomfoolery, so here goes nothing!")

By the way, I feel compelled to mention again--as I do on almost every post
from sivers.org--that Derek Sivers is a total badass, and we should all
endeavor to have our heads on as straight as he does. Thanks, Derek!

------
extension
I prefer to think of the internet as force of harmony and understanding,
allowing us to achieve unprecedented new levels of brutal interpersonal
honesty, you douchenozzle.

------
araneae
_"I felt for those guys. Each one pouring out his heart, projecting his hopes
onto Valerie, hoping she'll reply with equal enthusiasm, hoping she might be
the one that will finally see and appreciate him.

She said, “Ugh. Losers. I get like ten of these a day,” and clicked [delete]
on all of them, without replying."_

While his thesis might be true, this is not a good example of it.

Those guys undoubtedly sent off many such heartfelt messages each day. They're
playing the law of averages, and their chances are much better if they
indicate they read her profile.

And like she said, she gets 10 of those messages everyday, so she can afford
to be choosy. If she answered every one of them back, they would all e-mail
her back, and get their hopes up, and she'd have to e-mail back... It's a
waste of her time to bother.

It's not callous, it's a reflection of the reality that men are much easier
than women, making women a comparatively rare commodity.

This happens in real life all the time, and the only thing that's different
online is that men can send such messages without having to overcome their
shyness. So women get many more messages, and have to be comparatively more
selective with them.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
_it's a reflection of the reality that men are much easier than women_

Despite what so many people believe, no such reality exists. But it's easy to
console oneself by thinking so.

The situation was summed up quite well by a (female) friend long ago: "it's
easy to find a guy to sleep with. The much harder part is finding a guy you'd
want to sleep with a second time."

I've known a wide variety of people (intimately speaking) and I don't believe
that men are easier, it's just that we're socialized to be the initiators and
women the receptors. Many, many, _many_ women would love to be the initiators
(my friend above certainly), but societal pressures inhibit most of them.
Thankfully that seems to be changing, but I'm married now, so lot of good it
does me :-)

~~~
araneae
_it's just that we're socialized_

Okcupid has the data, and men are more likely to message women than vice
versa. Whether or not it's innate is irrelevant to this conversation.

But since you like anecdotal evidence so much, here:
<http://www.wetherobots.com/comics/2008-01-07-Misinformed.jpg>

~~~
ekiru
How does that prove that men are "easier" than women? It only indicates that
within Okcupid's membership, men are more likely to initiate communication
with a potential partner. Perhaps women are no more selective than men, but
simply typically prefer for men to initiate the conversation, as your parent
post claims.

------
petercooper
Stupid e-mails and comments used to bother me too, but I run some crazy
statistics on it now: At least 1% of people are incurable, malicious idiots
who have nothing better to do but spit bile all over the place. If I happen to
encounter them frequently it only proves I have _reach_ and what do you do
with incurable idiots? Ignore 'em - they're the minority.

------
mschaecher
Sivers.org hasn't loaded for me in a few weeks now :( Anyone else?

~~~
tb
Yeah me too.. I get XML parsing errors because there are a couple of extra
bytes of garbage at the beginning of the file, things like: "1caaa" on
<http://sivers.org/real> and "df9c" on <http://sivers.org/ff2>

------
hristov
Wow. That is going to make me think twice next time I flame somebody on HN or
Slashdot.

Apparently, it is not just karma I am burning. It is human feelings!

------
jnoller
What ever happened to being simply polite, and thinking about people before
you lash out? Hell; you should even be polite, and keep the tone civil if you
hate the person at the receiving end.

I think, to an extent, this is what's gone wrong with online communication and
political discourse - when did civility become something we simply wear when
it's convenient?

------
brianmckenzie
I simply don't understand why anyone would send an unprovoked, nasty email to
someone else. People on the internet have been pissing me off for nearly two
decades now, and I don't recall ever doing this.

But like clockwork, someone does it to me every few months.

------
quizbiz
How do you show that those that have you on the top of their priority list
that you are on their priority list as well. It gets to a point where it's
tough to keep up with various people each with a unique personal approach. I
really want to get better at that.

------
DaniFong
That was beautiful. Thank you.

------
roqetman
Thanks - something we need reminding of from time to time

------
rapind
The Internet is like your car.

