So, this chatting thing

[jlh]

I read over slytherincess's recent post with interest this morning, and then I read calliope14"s subsequent post and I have to say:

I disagree with nearly all of it.

So I was rereading, wondering why I disagreed, and strongly. And then as I read her analogies it seemed to me that Julie was treating YM as a private space. But, YM is a chat program; it's public space. So here is a hopefully very respectful response to these two posts, that includes a few things that I have found puzzling for some time now.


RULE ONE: Do not ping someone the second they come online, unless it is a pre-arranged meeting and this is expected by both parties, and this expectation has been explicitly stated and understood by both parties.

I really feel for the annoyance of starting up YM and having 37 people ping you before you've even sat down and I think there are two excellent built-in ways to avoid this:

1. Don't have YM start up when your computer starts up.
2. Have YM start you in invisible mode. This is really the easiest thing; this way you come onto YM and can see the lay of the land before you go visible. I do this and I know a lot of others who do this as well.

Julie's analogy here has to do with coming into your kitchen and turning on the light and having your neighbor immediately come by even though it's 5:30am. But that isn't the analogy I'd use, because I think of YM as public space. So I'd say being visibly on YM is more like sitting down in a large common space like a cafe. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to get into a huge discussion but you are going out of your way to make yourself available to others.


Rule two I'm going to take in its component parts as they're pretty disparate:
2ADon't ping someone in ALLCAPS IN OMFWTFWAHANDWOE MODE!!!!!!!>!>!>!
Okay, yeah, that can get old. But sometimes you've been waiting to say a particularly juicy thing to someone and you see them and hey, you're excited! We're all geeks here so I think we can relate.

2BDon't assume someone is feeling chatty just because they happen to be online.
Okay, I'm sorry: It's a chat program. I don't think it's wrong to ping someone and say, "Hey! What's up?" and see if they're interested. But that leads into:

2CDO NOT -- I repeat -- DO NOT IGNORE STATUS MESSAGES.
I agree with this, of course. I have had times myself when I needed to be online for some RPG thing but I really was trying to do some other things. And I used to be visibly online sometimes during the day at work, though that is no longer the case. I find aome's status to be one of the best: "Not up for a chat, but ping if important". It says what it needs to but it isn't obnoxious.

But if you don't really want anyone pinging you AT ALL then why are you running YM? I know this may come as a shock, but you can be at your computer and not have YM running. You can be invisible and only ping who you want to ping. When I see statuses that say, "DO NOT PING" or my personal favorite, "Sleeping!" I shake my head in confusion. Seriously, what is that about? I am at a loss. If I have a massive YM pet peeve, it's that one.

YM is a public space. By running it, and particularly by being visible, you are stepping into that public space. If you do not want anyone to ping you, why are you running YM? When I'm at work during the day, I'm on invisible so that I only chat with close friends who are likely also working and respect the rhythms of suddenly being not there. When I'm reading or writing and I really don't want to be disturbed, I quit out of all my chat programs. But I think that's my responsiblity, frankly.

2DMe, Me, Magical Me . . . One might think it would go without saying, but do not ping people with your Emoshunull Crysiss at 1:00 a.m. and then bitch because they can only drool on their keyboard in response. Rule of thumb: your personal crisis is most important to you; other people are about 1% as invested in your personal crisises/thangs as you are.
Call me crazy, but one of the reasons I like chat over the phone is that I know I'm not interrupting anyone by pinging them if they're online. Emotional crises often happen at 1am. If I'm online and you're a close friend, then ping me if you're upset. If I'm upset and I see a friend online, I will often open with, are you really there? To me, being actual friends with someone means being there for their personal crises and having them be there for mine in return. And yes, I actually do care. Am I as invested as my friend? Of course not. But am I emotionally invested in my friend being happy? Well, duh. And I know I'm not the only one; something happened over Xmas and there wasn't anyone online, and so I posted about it and said that I felt funny calling people. (One of the things that has happened for me is that the phone feels like a huge intrusion in comparison to chat, so I don't tend to call anyone.) Well, my pals let me know in no uncertain terms that I absolutely should have called them, even if it was Christmas Eve and no one was obviously online.

2ESTATUS MESSAGE: Writing!
I'm sorry, but when I am really writing, I quit out of chat. I often even quit out of email so I don't get distracted by the pings. When I don't want to be disturbed, I go home to my apartment, not to Times Square. If you see me with a status that says writing, it's because I'm writing casually or I'm editing and therefore I am available.

RULE TWO: Ping thoughtfully and with the other person in mind. Do not prioritize your own desire to chat over another's desire to be online, but to have some quiet time to themselves to read, write, or just be available for certain questions or topics (such as RPG modding or playing). Respect status messages and remember that a conversation, whether in person or online, is give-and-take.
Quiet time does not equal having YM running. I'm sorry, but there it is. If you don't want people to ping you for any reason, I really can't understand why you don't just quit out of your chat programs, or at least go invisible. This is a vast mysterious thing to me. Of course people should respect your status messages, but if you have a status that says, "IGNORE ME FOR i AM NOT HERE" then possibly you should not be there. And if you ping others while you have a big fat red "DND" message up, then you have to expect others to stop respecting your status quite so much.


RULE THREE: Lurking means someone doesn't want to chat to you right then and there. So don't ping anyone in conversation mode if they're not showing as online.
Two reasons:
1. You know they're offline, and you're trying to send them an offline message. You don't expect them to be there. Sometimes, as tea_and_toast points out, an offline YM message is a better way to communicate than an email. (Though I will say, it isn't reliable, so if you want to say something really important email is better.) I get offline messages all the time; I don't really find that offensive.
2. Your friend is never on visibly. Moony is nearly always invisible, as is Cassie, and they don't start a lot of conversations, so sometimes I ping with a "you there?" If they are, they reply. If they are but don't want to talk, they don't reply and hey, I don't know the difference and I don't feel dissed. I mean, just because your phone is ringing doesn't mean you have to answer it; caller id is there so you can screen.


RULE FOUR: Truthfully? E-mail is 7402374506238475603754 times better than Y!M when first contacting someone you don't know.
This never happens to me. I never get pinged by random fans. I don't like being pinged by people I don't know because it's awkward. So what do I do? I don't publish my YM name. You can make your settings in LJ so that only the people you have friended can see your YM name, or you can not put it there at all. Granted, sometimes they get around, but really, I've managed to completely avoid this issue so I can't imagine it's shockingly difficult. I didn't even get pinged by people looking for my NA character, and that character was fairly popular.

As for the being asked about BNF friends, well, price you pay my friend. If I had a quarter for every person who asked me what Cassie was like, I'd be--well, at least I'd be able to buy myself a nice lunch today. However, as a side note, what does majorly irritate me is when people ping me looking for someone else as though just because I'm their friend I know where they are. Dude, you have their cell number as well as I do. If you can't reach them, I probably can't either, and I refuse to pass them a message or be their secretary in any way. Send them a goddamned email and leave me out of it.

I suppose what this comes down to for me is, I don't expect the universe to revolve around how I want YM to work for me. I use the tool and its parts to get what I want out of it. I've also noticed that generally, people who respect rules are the ones you aren't annoyed by, and people who are annoying you aren't going to read your post or respect your rules. So half the time you've put off the people you like to talk to (who just will stop pinging you) and you've done nothing to stop the people who irritate you (who are already ignoring your status so why not ignore your post). Since I've started this post I've read some replies and I am amazed at the number of people who are online and don't want to chat with anyone like, ever. Okay, dude, I go your message and I will never ping you again. But know that this whole business of no one ever wanting to ping first for fear of disturbing you is just going to get worse, until we're an entire fandom of people on YM but never talking.

Comments

[sundaysunday.livejournal.com]

Word.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

I was trying to write something similar, but you're terribly eloquent and say what I wanted to, so I very much won't compete. Thank you.

[moony]

Yeah, I don't understand is being on YM at all if you can't talk. I'll see people's statuses say "Writing, Do Not Disturb" or "Homework, DND" and I wonder, "Why are you on YM if you're not able to talk? Why sign on at all?" I don't understand that. If I don't want to talk to people, I don't sign on. Period.

Or, I'm invisible. 99% of the time I am invisible because I want to control who I talk to and when. It's up to ME to tag people if I want to talk to them, and not the other way around. There's been times when I've gone visible, with an away message and ten seconds later five people tag me. It doesn't matter what my status is - the mere fact that I am visible is enough of an invitation for people to ping and it doesn't matter if my status message says I'm dead - they'll ping me anyway.

Invisible is really the only way to control YM and put the ball completely in your court.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I see some of Julie's points, but I mostly take your tack - I log on in invisible mode and, if I don't want to be disturbed or distracted by YM, I usually stay hidden (as I often am these days) or keep it off, entirely. I've been known to pull the wireless card out of my laptop so I'm not tempted/distracted by email *or* YM when I'm seriously writing. My "Not up for a chat..." (and heh - glad you find it succinct but not off-putting) one is because I am nearly always available to answer any FA-related questions, but I'm not big on random "So, hey, how's it going?" chats except with a very few people (who know they can always ping, regardless), so unless I'm in a "No, really, I'm up for anything" mood, I usually qualify it with that.

Although I've had plenty of interesting and funny YM chats over the years, I get frustrated by how much time gets eaten up by it. If I want to catch up with someone, phone or email or LJ posts feels like a better use of time sometimes. I'm much more likely to use YM for short "I have a question/issue/answer/just want to leave a bit of praise" exchanges. I like the immediacy of YM over email, but I'm usually content to get what I need taken care of, and then let the conversation dwindle off, unless I really know the person.

So, what's Cassie like? ;-) *hands over lunch money*

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I totally agree. I mean, dude, you are being a responsible adult. And you do ping people because you are on invisible. I think we both know people (and for those of you reading at home, I don't mean Cassie) that are always on invisible and bitch about people not pinging them. Hello? Am I psychic?

On the other hand, I would imagine that being invisible most of the time means that it gets worse when you are visible because you have created a scarcity, and scarcity = value. So if I see, say, you or Rach online and visible I will likely ping because I never see you around and I miss you both. I won't do that again but the temptation is there to strike while the iron is hot, you know?

Though after seeing all of this anger about unwelcome pings I'm going into a very long period of never pinging anyone first, no matter what their status is.

[longtimegone]

*nods* I really agree with this idea. I mean, I've very laid back about YM in general. If I ping you and you don't answer I simply assume you 1) are not there or 2) don't want to chat. If you ping me and I am not up for chatting, I will either tell you so, or just not answer.

I do think it is a bit different if you mod an RPG, because you have players that ping you all the time with questions. I mean, I agree with your basic premise in that, if you are there....you're THERE. But I do think the dynamic is a bit different.

I've also noticed that generally, people who respect rules are the ones you aren't annoyed by, and people who are annoying you aren't going to read your post or respect your rules.

Overall, I understand the general frustration of people that may not think or use "proper YM etiquette" cause it is irritating. Right or wrong, whether you view YM as a public or private forum, you can really help what drives you batty. I don't feel that frustration as a rule, cause generally, I only chat with people I enjoy talking to, and I'm v. laid back about the whole thing.

So I guess there isn't really much a point to this other than: Word.

[praetorianguard.livejournal.com]

*nods* I completely agree. I'm rarely "Available" on Y!M because I rarely have the time to chat indisciminately. (Man, I wish I did, but I just don't.) I need to be on a lot, but mostly I need to be available for specific purposes - FA, The Witching Hour, working on someone's paper, betaing, whatever. Invisibility or stealth settings works just fine for stuff like that. Especially because, yeah, there are people who don't read the status messages.

And most of the people I talk to regularly know they can always ping me with a "You there?" And sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not, and sometimes I am but I can't talk, but no one gets offended by it. In a lot of ways, though, I find it works better than e-mail. If I catch the message within an hour or two, the person is generally still around, and Y!M is a lot faster.

But I don't really understand being visible on Y!M - even with a status message - if you're not at least a little available. I do sort of understand why people think that being available with an "I'm not available" status message looks like an invitation for distraction. Otherwise, wouldn't you turn it off?

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. You delineated my response to the whole debate much more articulately (and possibly politely) than I could have.

[longtimegone]

Also, I am the t00b with a sleeping message up most nights, because I do not turn off my computer, and I just....I don't know. I'm sleeping. So it's my status. :)) If I am on the computer, I am usually logged into YM, but that goes back to me not having a major irritation issue with welcome/unwelcome pings.

[weatherby.livejournal.com]

Wah! Of course you can IM me when I am visible! Like I said to Carrie, that's why I'm invisible so often - I leave YM running when I walk away from the computer, and I come back having disconnected and my "at the store" or what have you status message is gone, so that whoever IMed me thinks I'm ignoring them. Which of course you already know, anyway. I don't particularly mind being IMed invisible, either - like I said, I'm frequently invisible, and if I don't want to answer, I just don't. I find that the IMs I get when I'm invisible tend to be more of the "Here is a message for you when you get back" anyway, so I don't get much of a problem with it.

[weatherby.livejournal.com]

I am in total agreement about people who are online but don't want to be IMed, especially with the recent addition of stealth settings. Whenever I see status messages like, "Only IM me if you're in this RPG!" or "Do not IM me at all!" I am like, why are you online? Or, if you're only there looking for a specific person, why not just be invisible and leave the person a message that you're there? Or use the stealth settings?

[ceilidh]

I agree with you in that 'don't want to talk? don't come online!' I totally agree. And I don't come on - visible - if I don't want to talk to people. And I don't mind if people ping me offline - as long as they don't get offended if I don't reply. I have had people leave me pings of 'you're never online anymore, I guess you hate me, etc' and... I don't. I'm just busy, hence I didn't come online/visible. But there are times I do need to be visible online for RPG things and I clearly say so, and the status is almost always ignored. It's okay to ignore it if you (generic you) aren't going to get offended that I don't reply; it's not okay to ignore it if you're going to get pissed and take it personally.

I like Plu's status that she uses: 'Not up for a chat, buzz if important.' And I'd respect that; I think I've pinged her a few times with it to ask her a quick FA question, but I don't expect her to chat with me for half an hour. But when I use it, I have people who don't respect it and want to chat for an hour, and then get offended when I say I can't or try to guilt trip me.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

See, back in the day when I was in an RPG, it was run by people who almost never were on for a chat. Everything happened on our Y!Group. But you know, the kids nowadays are not so much about the Y!Group. We only had chats as a group to either work something out or when we had a group event and were rping live. So the mods, not so much with the random pinging.

There is very little that truly irritates me about YM. Some things confuse me, but not much pisses me off except being asked to be someone's personal secretary. But that's less about YM and more about being the friend of a BNF.

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

if you're going to get pissed and take it personally.

I think that's the upshot here - however else you cut it, another person's YM behavior is not about you. (Unless, of course, it is, which I think is exactly what so many people are trying to avoid with all the public venting on this topic.) We seem to get this about the phone, in general. I wish that same thinking were more broadly applied.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

The thing about guilt tripping is, people will do it no matter what you do. And I've found that making posts usually only affects the people who respect your status. If they don't respect your status, why should they listen to your post?

Also, I admit, when you are often chatting with someone and then they aren't around for a while you wonder. In this fandom so often people create new id's so they only have to talk to a few people. There is so much manufactured exclusivity that it's natural to wonder, "Is this person busy, or am I just not on the newest coolest filter?"

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

Well, I have a lot to say about this, although we've already offlined about a fair bit of it (whee! rulebreaking even as we are debating the rules!).

A few weeks ago I was sitting in Starbucks minding my own business and trying to read the latest draft of a certain fabulous fandomer's novel on my laptop when somehow after a 15 minute conversation with a random guy at the next table I ended up proofreading his term paper for his communications class. THIS is part of the problem as I see it with being public on YM - I want to be around other people, but not necessarily feel obligated to interact with them.

As you now know (dirty little secret out), I spend most of my YM time invisible because it's just easier, for just the reasons you mentioned. It's the best of both worlds, because I can see people and if I am struck with the urge to leap out and glomp someone I can do so, but if nobody strikes my fancy I don't have to. Because it's so great, and because I get a lot of offline pings and have a lot responded to, I sort of assume that lots of other people do, too. This might also be because on my section of 25 people I list as "HP Friends" (so people who aren't involved with FA \or Lumos or whatever) there are never more than 8 available, and I might have chat windows open with 2 or 3 people who are listed as not there. :)) Ultimately this could become a problem, with everybody just hanging back in constant lurkdom, but for now it seems to work. I do go available for those 2 or 3 hours a week when I have energy and am feeling outgoing and taking all comers. :))

As usual, I see all sides of this. You know that fabulous feeling you get when you have to make phone calls to just pass along information and don't have time to chat, and about half of them are answering machines so you can just leave your info and not have to be fully polite and human? THAT is why I appreciate the invisible setting. Embrace it, love it, make it your lifestyle. (Actually, it IS my lifestyle, but that's a whole other post.)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I don't know about the phone. I think people get it about the land line, sure. But with cells, people get annoyed when you don't answer your cell phone.

It's that new-world total accessibility, and that more fandomy perception that if you aren't making yourself accessible to me then I must not be in your inner circle. And who doesn't want to be in the inner circle?

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

Good lord, I do go on so, don't I? Sorry about that - it was written between 3 kiddie crises and so not very carefully edited.

[ceilidh]

But with cells, people get annoyed when you don't answer your cell phone.

Oi. My parents get so irritated when I don't pick up my cell phone at work. I'm not allowed to have it on! I don't get why they don't understand this. :))

You're completely right about the guilt tripping thing. And I am sure that the handful of people who need to see the post and get it won't realise it applies to them. But when someone's extremely frustrated, it's got to come out somewhere.

[adjudicated.livejournal.com]

*sneaks on at work* I left you an offline message *irons hands*

Anyway, very quickly, like I said, I do see what you're saying and agree that your points are very valid. Yeah, maybe my post was very useless for the point that you say: the people that need to get it, just bloody won't. *sigh*

What you've said about suddenly someone not appearing as online anymore really speaks to me -- I really don't like this dynamic for myself. I have two Y!M handles: Slytherincess and perfectly_pansy. The latter isn't a secret per se, but it's not the handle on my LJ user page -- that would be Slytherincess. I think why I'm struggling with this so much right now is that I personally don't want to be that person who has a ton of Y!M handles just to avoid talking to people. I don't have a sooper sekrit Y!M handle. I want to be available to my friends and fellow RPGers -- that's why I'm online, and why I don't lurk exclusively. I was asked to mod in an RPG, and I did accept that offer, and I feel like that, rightly so, obligates me to be online and available. So it's hard to balance that with my own needs -- hence why I'm finding myself so fucking frustrated by the select few who are, IMO, really really over the top with their Y!M thoughtlessness. And while I feel my sentiments per se are not invalid, I'm certainly entertaining the thought that perhaps I expressed myself poorly, and even just as rudely as those who I am proporting to be rude themselves. So yeah, mea culpa.

More later.

[sheryll.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more with your take on this subject. I generally do run YM when I'm online, but most often am on invisible mode in order to get things done. People who need to reach me (the rest of the HPfGU Admin team, for example), know that I lurk that way but am available for the important things. None have ever abused it to just chat with me.

My best friend often has YM on while she's at work. I understand that if I ping her and say "Hello", she may not respond. That's cool. She will when and if she can. If I can't get her on YM and it's important? I'll wait until she gets home and pick up the phone.

I think my biggest peeve with YM is people who ignore status messages. They're there for a reason. For over a year, I've spent the better part of Sunday afternoons in YM conferences for planning Convention Alley and Accio. My status message will clearly say "Conference only" or "Accio stuff" or the like. Those who interrupt, do so at the risk of their lives, or at least their lives on YM list. On rare occasions, someone will ping and ask if I have a spare minute for something important. I'm generally nice enough to ask the severity of the 'emergency', but unless my mother died or something, is there really anything in fandom or my life that can't wait 2 hours? I think not.

[misscora.livejournal.com]

"Sleeping!"

This one I did all the time at school - I almost never shut off Y!M/AIM at school, partly because I used it as an answering machine. I knew a lot of my friends were up and about online after I'd gone to sleep (either from time diff or because they're night owls or whatever) and I'd far rather they ping my computer and leave a note if they had something I needed to know than call me and wake me up.

I don't do it now cause, well, everyone is awake while I'm asleep, and I fear for what would happen were I to leave myself signed in when I went to bed.

[malachan.livejournal.com]

I agree with your main points, especially:

But if you don't really want anyone pinging you AT ALL then why are you running YM? I know this may come as a shock, but you can be at your computer and not have YM running.

Absolutely! When I don't want people pinging me, I go invisible or don't start up Y!M in the first place. Then people don't ping me unless it's important. Simple, really.

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

I wanted to respond to so much of this, but then figured out that I mostly saying, "I agree with that statement completely and am glad you said it." So, yeah, thanks for posting this, I was thinking just about the exact same.

Oh, and by the way, this - Well, my pals let me know in no uncertain terms that I absolutely should have called them, even if it was Christmas Eve and no one was obviously online?

You absolutely should. No questions.

[arakne.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Nice to hear a different point of view.