General > General Technical Chat
Genuine question- is Please and Thankyou a cultural thing on the EEVBlog forum ?
james_s:
I rarely use the word "please", and rarely notice or care if someone else does. It's a formality I may use among family and close friends but not typically in day to date conversation and even more rarely in forum posts. When someone says it multiple times it just gets annoying, like a little kid who thinks if they say please enough times they'll get what they want. IMO it's mostly just overhead that does not contribute to the exchange of information. I've never claimed to be particularly socially adept though. As for thanks, the thanks button works nicely.
rsjsouza:
Living in Texas now and having visited and experienced other places around the world, I can tell here the "please", "thank you", "sir/ma'am" are much more proeminent across generations. I also come from parents that were actively interested in instilling good manners and kindness to others regardless of any other qualifiers, so I can empathize with your post, Fraser.
The online experience from my point of view is the same as yours, to a point where I reduced the amount of effort I put in a reply by replacing conjectures (to cover all possibilities) with several questions instead, so I can both get additional information about the issue and sense the engagement on the other side of the connection (this was also the subject of an interaction between modemhead and I many years ago). More often than not, the replies are quickly lost in the ether.
So yes, the "please" and "thank you" seem to be in rare availability.
Regarding the construct to use "would", I tend to soften a request with "would you mind". I had to learn this and many other soft sentences "on the job", given that many communications were to request any sort of help or information in the English language (not my native one), so politeness took me to great lengths.
joeqsmith:
Just the upbringing is all.
I turned off the PM about six months ago as I saw no reason for it.
CatalinaWOW:
Interesting question. It forced me to think about how I have responded and how I feel about responses on this forum.
I was raised as have many others to say please and thank you (along with many other social lubricants). And use them to this day in many social situations. But used them far less in the work environment before I retired. Please was reserved for unusual requests, and thank you for above typical responses. So it would be normal to just say send me the test results and simply acknowledge their receipt. But I would preface a request that required a deep search of the files or setting up an unusual device or the like with a please, and if a response was forthcoming a thank you and/or other indications of gratitude would follow.
My responses on this forum have been "work like". And my feelings about others responses to me have had the same general feel. I have not felt slighted, but do feel gratified by the "thank you"s received.
I am still processing whether I am behaving appropriately or not. I suspect between the vast range of cultural backgrounds on this forum combined with the equally large range of native tongues it is appropriate for all of us to be very generous in assessing the behavior of others.
wilfred:
--- Quote from: Bud on March 20, 2021, 06:38:09 pm ---There is another extreme though, in real life, when people thank you 3 or 5 or more times on a same occasion. I absolutely hate this and try to get away from them as soon as possible to escape the endless "thank you again" diarrhea. This is even more annoying than not receiving one at all.
In regards to forums, i think posting explicit thanks messages is totally fine in individual conversations over PM. In regular topics that would clutter the information flow. Topics are not one-to-one communications. I think "thank you" button is the right solution for it.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Bud. I think you've pretty well nailed it as far as I feel about it also.
The thank-you button has a perhaps dominant use as "I agree with this". Unfortunately not always wisely. Which only diminishes its value for its intended purpose.
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