
Ask HN: Do you slack comments make people upset? - wuming
Hi folks. Recently I&#x27;ve had a minor issue where occasionally a comment I make in Slack will ruffle some feathers. From my point of view I&#x27;m just being direct, for example: asking for clarity about a process or pointing out a comms failure. But sometimes, apparently, other things are being read into my comments, like I&#x27;m accusing a team or a developer of a process failure, and I end up making people upset.<p>The solution to this is easy: try to add more context&#x2F;tone hints to my comments if I have to make them, or just talk to my manager first. But I am curious, is anyone else having this problem?
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feydaykyn
It is hard to express tone through text, even between people who know each
other well. Situations worsen depressingly quickly, it's too easy to feel
offended.

From experience, I refrain from giving any negative feedback through Slack and
go speak face to face. I also watch out for any misunderstanding lasting
longer than a few minutes, even if it's between others people.

Hedonic index increased tremendously at work in a few weeks when co-workers
started doing the same.

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deepsun
Doesn't work for immigrants -- language (or is it cultural?) barrier, even a
tiny one, makes face-to-face feedback to be accepted way too negatively,
because those subtle tone hints are really hard to master.

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feydaykyn
I think writing would be worse, especially in case of communication issues,
since it would hide the misunderstanding.

In that case I would start by explaining very clearly that is the intensity of
the words to be used, whether they express low/medium/high scale. And I would
also explain even more clearly what's the level of intensity for me, so that
the person understands what is at stake. In fact, I do it even with native
speakers, clarity is godsend.

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deepsun
That really depends on the other person. The more STEM-y they are, the easier
it is for them to abstract off personalities and focus on content.

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geezerjay
The problem is never the communication medium. More often than not the problem
is the way a person chooses to communicate.

