Lightcone uses it as our primary communication method and vastly prefers it over all of the above (like, I think our productivity would probably drop by something like 30% if we switched to email as our primary text-based communication method)
Emails are usually >2x the length they need to be, and most people’s email habits are structured such that the time to be unblocked from someone else on the team would go from an hour or so to half a day or even multiple days.
Also emails have an inbox nature where emails stay open until responded to, which creates lots of open loops for the receiver and sender, as opposed to Slack, which works on a pull-basis, which is generally a deep part of our culture (e.g. it’s better for you to be pinged periodically instead of having to track 30 open loops of varying levels of importance). Also a bunch of other stuff like “harder to integrate into lots of services” and “no emoji reacts”.
I think some of these are idiosyncratic to Lightcone operating philosophy, some of these are I think pretty broadly applicable.
It is my experience that the conventions of e-mail are significantly more formal and precise in expectation when it comes to phrasing. Discord and Slack, on the other hand, have an air of informal chatting, which makes it feel more acceptable to use shortcuts and to phrase things less carefully. While feelings may differ between people and conventions between groups, I am quite confident that these conventions are common due to both media’s origins, as a replacement for letters and memos and as a replacement for in-person communication respectively.
Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any further questions.
Best regards,
Daphne Will
I don’t think that’s really true. People are a lot more informal on Discord than e-mail because of where they’re both derived from.
In my experience after the first few introductory emails, opening remarks, formalities, etc., are dropped as the introductions have already been made. Unless the opposite party is vastly more senior or higher rank, then perhaps the same style is retained, especially in more hierarchical organizations.
For a place like Lightcone, if someone was still writing their 20th email to the same person like the above, I would seriously question their sanity.
It’s possible, even after all the paraphernalia is removed, that forming complete sentences increase the word count significantly, if the normal practice otherwise is to use slang and/or abbreviations everywhere.
Yet for that to 2x, or more, the total length seems really astonishing. What kind of Slack conversations are typical? Can you provide a real world example?
To look at it another way, I don’t see how I could cut the above comment in half while retaining all the same meanings, there just aren’t that many commonly known abbreviations or slang words.
To look at it another way, I don’t see how I could cut the above comment in half while retaining all the same meanings, there just aren’t that many commonly known abbreviations or slang words.
“Hey M.Y.Zou, email tends to be more formal, verbose and slow. Discord and chat feel more like quick informal chatting.”
(no, this doesn’t cover all the exact same nuances as the previous sentence, but part of the point is that those nuances weren’t really necessary. Slack also tends to pull extra nuance out of you if it’s actually important, but only when it’s actually important)
I think MYZ was referring to his comment rather than Daphne’s and saying that that one couldn’t be halved in length without substantial loss. (But I disagree. “Your first email might be formal but later ones between ~equals usually aren’t. I bet no one at Lightcone is writing a lot of emails like the one above. Abbreviation and slang surely don’t give a 2x shortening—do you have an example?” That’s from 826 bytes to 237 bytes. My condensation is fairly extreme and loses nuances but is still full sentences with complete words and the reduction is substantially more than 2x.)
UI affordances have a large effect on how people express themselves. I think it’s pretty easy for a change in format to cause large changes to conversational style.
Lightcone uses it as our primary communication method and vastly prefers it over all of the above (like, I think our productivity would probably drop by something like 30% if we switched to email as our primary text-based communication method)
Why do you think your groups’ productivity would drop roughly 30% if switched to email?
Emails are usually >2x the length they need to be, and most people’s email habits are structured such that the time to be unblocked from someone else on the team would go from an hour or so to half a day or even multiple days.
Also emails have an inbox nature where emails stay open until responded to, which creates lots of open loops for the receiver and sender, as opposed to Slack, which works on a pull-basis, which is generally a deep part of our culture (e.g. it’s better for you to be pinged periodically instead of having to track 30 open loops of varying levels of importance). Also a bunch of other stuff like “harder to integrate into lots of services” and “no emoji reacts”.
I think some of these are idiosyncratic to Lightcone operating philosophy, some of these are I think pretty broadly applicable.
Assuming it’s the same person writing both, why would they suddenly double their word count in an email program as compared to Slack?
Are you sure they’re not expressing more complex, nuanced thoughts, with the extra space?
Dear M.Y. Zuo,
I hope you are well.
It is my experience that the conventions of e-mail are significantly more formal and precise in expectation when it comes to phrasing. Discord and Slack, on the other hand, have an air of informal chatting, which makes it feel more acceptable to use shortcuts and to phrase things less carefully. While feelings may differ between people and conventions between groups, I am quite confident that these conventions are common due to both media’s origins, as a replacement for letters and memos and as a replacement for in-person communication respectively.
Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any further questions.
Best regards,
Daphne Will
I don’t think that’s really true. People are a lot more informal on Discord than e-mail because of where they’re both derived from.
In my experience after the first few introductory emails, opening remarks, formalities, etc., are dropped as the introductions have already been made. Unless the opposite party is vastly more senior or higher rank, then perhaps the same style is retained, especially in more hierarchical organizations.
For a place like Lightcone, if someone was still writing their 20th email to the same person like the above, I would seriously question their sanity.
It’s possible, even after all the paraphernalia is removed, that forming complete sentences increase the word count significantly, if the normal practice otherwise is to use slang and/or abbreviations everywhere.
Yet for that to 2x, or more, the total length seems really astonishing. What kind of Slack conversations are typical? Can you provide a real world example?
To look at it another way, I don’t see how I could cut the above comment in half while retaining all the same meanings, there just aren’t that many commonly known abbreviations or slang words.
“Hey M.Y.Zou, email tends to be more formal, verbose and slow. Discord and chat feel more like quick informal chatting.”
(no, this doesn’t cover all the exact same nuances as the previous sentence, but part of the point is that those nuances weren’t really necessary. Slack also tends to pull extra nuance out of you if it’s actually important, but only when it’s actually important)
I think MYZ was referring to his comment rather than Daphne’s and saying that that one couldn’t be halved in length without substantial loss. (But I disagree. “Your first email might be formal but later ones between ~equals usually aren’t. I bet no one at Lightcone is writing a lot of emails like the one above. Abbreviation and slang surely don’t give a 2x shortening—do you have an example?” That’s from 826 bytes to 237 bytes. My condensation is fairly extreme and loses nuances but is still full sentences with complete words and the reduction is substantially more than 2x.)
UI affordances have a large effect on how people express themselves. I think it’s pretty easy for a change in format to cause large changes to conversational style.