Thoughts from the Elm community on Intentional Communication

Dude, you just reinvented Stack Overflow. And Stack is kind of infamous.

4. Sadness after being told to act more like a robot

As another sign of its inhumanity, Stack Overflow discourages greetings and thanks.

  • “just tried to write an answer on stack overflow, it’s a horrible experience, but what really surprised me is that they edited my answer and removed the “compassionate parts”… don’e read this thread if you want to stay positive today”
  • “A user with a mere 4,000 reputation edited the tags on my first question and took the opportunity to remove me saying ‘thanks’…That may seem like a tiny thing to some people, but I found it immensely offputting that a stranger was bothered enough by two words of common politeness to silently remove them from my post.”

Robots may not have use for these words, but humans use them to make others feel welcome and appreciated.

I’m not at all convinced that locking people into a finite set of “intents” (in Stack’s case, questions, answers, and clarification-requesting comments, just like your “Learning intent”) is the answer. Partly because it comes across as robotic and neurotic, and partly because people simply lie about their intent, and partly because people find ways to be horrible within the system (snarky answers, etc).

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