No Hello

Context & Related Resources

• Many commenters connect “No Hello” to older IRC norms like “Don’t ask to ask, just ask” and similar sites (“nometa”, “dontasktoask”).
• Others reference classic “how to ask questions” docs and suggest a broader need for remote‑work etiquette guides.

Why “Hello-Only” Is Annoying

• Main complaint: it forces an unnecessary multi-step handshake in an asynchronous medium (Slack, Teams, etc.).
• Costs: extra interruptions, context switching, and delays when the actual question could have been included up front.
• In time‑zone–distributed teams, multi-turn greetings can stretch a simple exchange across hours or days.
• Some liken it to a TCP SYN without payload in a context where pipelining would be better.

Defenses of the “Hello” Ritual

• Many see it as basic politeness or “phatic” communication: signaling friendliness and non-aggression, especially in Anglo cultures (“how are you?”) or high-context cultures.
• Some explicitly use “hello” to check if the other person is present/available before investing effort in writing a long message, or to avoid being ghosted.
• A few admit they do it as a self‑prompt: once they’ve said “hi” they’re forced to follow up.

Proposed Etiquette & Compromises

• Common suggestion: combine greeting and content in one message: “Hi, [short context + question].”
• Some responders simply reply “Hi, what’s up?” or just ignore lone greetings until substance arrives.
• Others advocate polite education: after helping, explain why it’s better to include the question immediately, sometimes linking to “No Hello” in a status or wiki rather than sending it directly.
• There is disagreement over ignoring “hello”-only messages: some see it as justified boundary-setting, others as rude or passive‑aggressive.

Cultural, Power, and Role Dynamics

• Several note this pattern is more common in certain regions (e.g., India, parts of Europe, Africa, Latin America), often tied to norms where jumping straight to business is considered rude.
• Managers and people‑oriented commenters emphasize adapting to others’ styles and not over-optimizing minor social friction.
• Others argue that leaders should still guide better async habits because poor messaging patterns hurt team productivity.

Tooling & Automation Ideas

• Some suggest client features or regex/LLM filters to suppress notifications for bare greetings or auto‑respond to them.
• Others worry that agent-mediated communication will make interactions more annoying, not less.