165 points by ghd_ 2 days ago | 313 comments on HN
| Neutral Moderate agreement (2 models)
Editorial · v3.7· 2026-03-15 22:13:49 0
Summary Free Expression & Workplace Communication Advocates
This blog post advocates for 'Crocker's Rules' — a workplace communication norm favoring directness and efficiency over social politeness in technical settings. The content champions freedom of expression (Article 19) by arguing that people should state technical truths without social filtering, but it simultaneously undermines accessibility (Article 2), privacy (Article 12), and worker protections (Article 23) by dismissing emotional accommodation and contextual explanation as wasteful 'noise.' The structural layer reveals privacy concerns through undisclosed third-party data collection (LastFM and GitHub APIs).
Rights Tensions3 pairs
Art 19 ↔ Art 2 —Content advocates for freedom of expression through unfiltered directness (Article 19) while dismissing accommodation needs (politeness, context, apology) that enable equitable access for neurodivergent and vulnerable individuals (Article 2 non-discrimination).
Art 19 ↔ Art 12 —Content advocates for directness and transparency in professional settings (Article 19) while the site infrastructure collects user data (LastFM/GitHub APIs) without explicit consent, conflicting with privacy protections (Article 12).
Art 19 ↔ Art 23 —Content advocates for unfiltered expression of critical feedback in workplace contexts (Article 19) while dismissing contextual and emotional explanation that workers may need to protect themselves from blame and burnout in incident reporting (Article 23 fair labor standards).
This is pretty autistic. I kind of agree, being somewhat on the spectrum myself. But I think the world would be a considerably worse place if everyone abided by such rules.
Some of those examples are genuinely different as they convey different intent and certainty. Also some of the basic small talk level things are also there to gauge someone’s responsiveness right now. To ask directly can mean “I believe my issue is important enough to immediately change what you’re thinking about to my problem without checking first”. You might complain about breaking your flow, which is fine, but an interruption can be a lot less disruptive compared to getting nerd sniped.
> Both messages contain the same information, however one of them respects time.
Unless you’re an incredibly slow reader this is a tiny amount of time.
> The fact that you were stressed, or that you had inherited the config from someone else, or that the documentation was unclear3, or that you asked your lead and they said it was probably fine, none of that is relevant to the incident report. You can document contributing factors if they are actually actionable, meaning if there is something structural that needs to change, name it specifically and attach a proposed fix to it.
Those are absolutely relevant! A lead told you to do it? Documentation unclear? One stressed person unable to hand over the task?
And you don’t have to have a solution there to highlight a problem.
> If the payment service went down because a config value was wrong, the incident report should say: the payment service went down because config value X was set to Y when it needed to be set to Z.
Contains zero useful information as to how this happened. It’d be like saying you don’t want to know what the user did before the crash, just that it crashed but shouldn’t have done because it got into invalid state X.
As with everything, I think there is an appropriate middle ground here. There is definitely too much beating around the bush in a lot of professional work, but some of that is actually useful and even good. Context doesn't always matter, but sometimes it does. Manners aren't always important, but sometimes they are.
A proper balance of direct and indirect is the appropriate tack to take.
> If the payment service went down because a config value was wrong, the incident report should say: the payment service went down because config value X was set to Y when it needed to be set to Z.
The number of junior engineers I have had to coach out of this way of thinking to get the smallest fragment of value out of a postmortem process... dear Lord. I wonder if this person is similarly new to professional collaboration.
The larger personal site is very aesthetically cool, though – make sure you click around if you haven't!
> The person invoking Crocker's Rules is saying, in effect, "your feelings about how I might receive this are your problem to manage, not mine, just give me the information."
Isn't it quite the opposite? The person invoking Crocker's Rules is saying, in effect, "my feelings about the information and how I might receive it are my problem to manage, not yours, just give me the information."
I'd say I generally agree with this sentiment, but it's important to first build the proper rapport with the recipient. If you show them kindness and respect outside the bounds of technical conversations, they'll be much more likely to assume the best of you when you communicate straight-forwardly over technical matters.
You also should take care to avoid crossing the line into just being a jerk. This type of thinking is also often used by people who are simply arrogant and rude and are patting themselves on the back for being that way in the name of "directness" or "efficiency".
I find it funny that the post promotes stripping useless information and yet a ton of the most useful information in those examples is placed in the skippable part.
Your coworkers are under too high a load, documentation is faulty, chain of communication is breaking down, your coworker lacks expertise in something.
All of those are calls to action!!
And no, you can’t tell the other person to “just communicate if it’s actionable” because they might not realise it. There’s lack of seniority, there’s tunnel vision…
I agree with the sentiment that gratuitous happy-talk adds noise to what ought to be clear, bottom-line-up-front engineering communications. But the recipients of those communications are people, and most people have feelings. So a good engineer ought to optimize those communications for overall success, and that means treating the intended recipients as if they matter. Some human-level communication is usually beneficial.
So, to use an example from the original post:
> "I hope this is okay to bring up and sorry for the long message, I just wanted to flag that I've been looking at the latency numbers and I'm not totally sure but it seems like there might be an issue with the caching layer?
There’s a lot of noise in this message. It’s noise because it doesn’t communicate useful engineering information, nor does it show you actually care about the recipients.
Here’s the original post’s suggested rewrite:
> The caching layer is causing a 400ms overhead on cold requests. Here's the trace.
This version communicates some of the essential engineering information, but it loses the important information about uncertainty in the diagnosis. It also lacks any useful human-to-human information.
I’d suggest something like this:
> Heads up: It looks like the caching layer is causing a 400ms overhead on cold requests. Here's the trace. Let me know how I can help. Thanks!
My changes are in italics. Breaking them down:
“Heads up” provides engineering context and human-to-human information: You are trying to help the recipients by alerting them to something they care about.
“It looks like” concisely signals that you have a good faith belief in your diagnosis but are not certain.
“Let me know how I can help” makes clear that you share the recipients’ interest in solving the problem and are not just dumping it at their feet and turning your back on them. You and they are on the same team.
“Thanks!” shows your sincere appreciation to the recipients for looking into the issue. It’s a tiny contribution of emotional fuel from you to them to give them a boost after receiving what might be disappointing news.
In sum, strip the noise and concisely communicate what is important, both engineering information and human information.
Directness can be taken to imply trustworthiness, as the author seems to be doing. But it can just as easily be taken as a sign of ineptitude, technical-mindedness, boorishness, courage, immaturity, confidence, impatience, or a dozen other attributes depending on context and participants.
For that reason, reading this is like reading a blog on poker strategies from someone who is only vaguely aware there are different suits in the deck. It's of course fine to ask others to play as if all the cards are diamonds, which is what I take this as. But the way it is written does strongly imply the author has a hard time imagining what the other suits could be for, or how an awareness of them could change their perception of card games.
Honestly, it's refreshing to imagine the lack of "suits" in this sense-- e.g., spending the day with a group of people who not only all claim to couple directness with trustworthiness, but who all earnestly deliver on that claim. I also get the sense that the author is probably not "sticky" in their judgments of others-- perhaps they'd initially judge me as inconsiderate for using niceties but quickly redefine me as trustworthy once I stopped using them.
I would like to know from the author: in the real world, are you aware of the risks of directness without a priori trust or full knowledge of someone else's internal state? I mean, for every one of you, there are probably several dozen people who claim to want unadorned directness but (perhaps unwittingly) end up resenting what they ultimately take as personal, hurtful criticism. And some number of them (again, perhaps unwittingly) retaliate in one way or another. And I haven't even delved into the social hierarchy of jobs-- it's a mess out there!
Everyone says that they value directness, and from what I can tell the vast majority of people actually don't.
For example, I had a job interview a couple years ago where the interviewer showed up fifteen minutes late for a thirty minute interview. Eventually he did show up, and the interview proceeds more or less fine, and near the end he asks if I have any questions. I said "is it common to show up fifteen minutes late for interviews that you schedule? Because it comes off as unprofessional to me".
He started giving me a bunch of excuses about how busy he was and eventually I interject and say "Listen, I don't really care. I'm sure your reasons are valid to you but from my perspective it just looks like you were happy enough to let me waste half the interview just sitting around staring at my watch."
A day later the recruiter tells me that they don't want to move forward. I asked if they gave a reason why and apparently they thought I wasn't a good "culture fit".
I wish I could say I'm above it and that I'm some hyper-stoic who always wants the most direct version of everything, but I'm certainly not immune to wanting some niceties instead of complete blunt directness all the time. I try and be above it, but I'm not.
If we accept that any one person can take responsibility for their feelings then it follows that everyone is responsible for their own mind. Otherwise what exactly are we saying? And emotions are complex, especially offence, it is practically impossible to say that something will reliably offend a specific person without trying it and seeing how they react. Even for the reactee. Someone can easily say "whatever happens I won't get offended". But they might get offended anyway and then we're rolling the dice on whether they are vindictive enough to hold a grudge.
People learn that lesson then don't stir the pot without reason. Rather than saying "I don't get offended" it is generally better to prove it and push people for feedback from time to time.
There is also a subtle point here in things like "if the design is wrong, say it is wrong" - how is someone supposed to know if the design is "wrong"? Philosophically it isn't possible for a design to be wrong, the idea is nonsense. Designs have trade-offs and people might or might not like the trade offs. But a design can't be wrong because that implies there was already a right solution that people could deploy. If someone is going to be direct that is also a problem they run in to constantly - they're going to be directly saying things that are harsh and garbled. A lot of humans aren't comfortable being that person, there is a more comfortable style of being clear about observations, guarded about making value judgements from them and associating with like-minded people from the get-go rather than pushing to resolve differences. And spending a lot of time playing social games to work out how to organise all that.
This post is a poor exposition of Crocker’s Rules.
Crocker’s Rules were a reaction to the avoidance of direct discussion of topics where some people treat the mere act of discussion in any capacity as offensive. Sacred cows and taboos for which there are social consequences even when asking honest questions. Crocker’s Rules, practically speaking, were a declaration that no good faith discussion was intrinsically offensive ipso facto for the person making the declaration. All taboos were open to good faith arguments and attempts at rigorous intellectual inquiry.
This article is focused too much on communication style and not enough on the subject of communication. The latter was the crux of it. Crocker’s Rules were about being able to rigorously discuss topics that society has deemed to be beyond discussion without taking offense at the fact it is being discussed.
I was present when Crocker’s Rules were “invented”. I see a couple other handles here that may have been as well.
The discussion shows just how many different communication styles there are. So many comments about "XYZ is the right way", "ABC is always wrong" or "I did UV to someone who says they like UV and they took offence".
It shows me:
- there are many communication styles and people tend to think their preferred one is obviously right
- people are often unclear on what they actually value in communication (and might like the opposite of what they say they value)
- people seem also to, at times, confuse other people's different communication style for rudeness, indecisiveness or small-mindedness.
So I guess the reasonable policy is to adopt a hybrid approach. Be tolerant of other people's comms style, try to be concise with enough politeness added in that you don't offend people, even if they say they want you to be ruthlessly direct. When you need to, try to steer the conversation towards your preferred style. Maybe "ok, I understand the background, let's try to distill the facts now", or equally "I feel I need more context before we continue, let's slow down and...".
For example, I have worked in a number of medium sized (50-200) companies that were so proud of being flat structured meritocracies, where anyone can say anything directly to their superiors. Every single time it turned out to be BS, higher ups wanted deference and following chains of command. But that sounds less catchy.
Look man, people are going to talk they way they talk. Just let them do it and deal with it for God's sake.
This reminds me of a front-page post a little while ago where someone wrote how much it stressed them out when people routinely apologized for delayed responses. Get over it.
I also sometimes wonder if folks writing these articles have had to work closely with people from culturally different places. I've had coworkers that literally could not be direct if their life depended on it for that reason, and I learned to deal with it.
Coming from a former production manager, communication takes style and you have to meet people where they are at. If they're at "Crocker's Rules," awesome! That takes 25 to 50% of the work out of the writing. They could be at "my best work was just trashed and I'm ready to quit," to which you could slow your roll and work through the crisis. Keep adding to your comm tools and you won't need one-size-fits-all theories.
Many people are taking what I believe to be the wrong message here.
I believe the author's intent was (or should have been) to describe how THEY wanted to receive communication, not how EVERYONE should.
A skilled communicator will craft their message for the audience. Some want "just the facts" with no social lubricant. Others want the banter to build person-to-person relationships. Some want a quick statement of context for everything. If you can adjust the message to the audience you will be more successful at working with them.
I have begun including "how I want you to communicate with me" as part of my standard "introduce myself to new team members" talk.
It’s been my experience that those that most loudly say they value extreme directness like this are also those with the most fragile egos. If you directly tell them something they did is wrong or non-optimal, they conclude that you’re an idiot, don’t change anything (or, worse, double-down), and will sometimes even berate you (directness!). You need to couch your discussions with them more than is usual with others.
The writer asks for it, so I will be blunt. They are demanding people have perfectly formed thoughts crafted in a way to give them just the information they wanted with no consideration for the process of thinking or consideration for the person speaking. It is selfish and impossible. Articles like this, I think, expose how bad we have gotten at both speaking and listening.
"I personally value directness, so when someone communicates with me in that way, it deos influence how I perceive them, even subconsciously."
Communication is mind control. The point isn't the words, it is literally trying to get a person to do something. I often point out to people that if you just couldn't see people's lips move then speech would appear like the sci-fi definition of psychic powers. The better a person is at communication the more they will fit their message to the audience to get the action intended. If 'direct' really works then over time it will be used but the fact that direct isn't used often implies strongly that it doesn't work for most people or it has secondary effects that are too negative. Demanding the exception is a pretty big ask especially if your aren't willing to meet half way.
A second aspect here is that while communicating we are developing our thoughts. We need time to tease out our real intentions and filler conversation helps that. Arguing 'they should have just said x from the start' is 20/20 hindsight a lot of the time. Expecting me to come to you with a terse, perfect information drop tailored to your quirks or else you will get annoyed with me is your problem, not the speaker's.
In the end speakers are practicing a really hard skill and the author ignores how hard it is. Learning to listen when someone has a hard time communicating something is also a really hard skill that this article completely ignores. If I could sum this article up it would be 'I want to give up trying to learn how to listen so now it is your fault I don't understand you'.
Asking (begging?) people to communicate with you in a certain way because you think it is depriving you of your attention(time?) is _much_ more selfish because you are depriving people of the opportunity to control how they are perceived.
How and what people think of me is extremely important to me. I want to be perceived as someone who is effective _and_ pleasant to work with. Changing my voice to suit your inability to summarize and interpret the ideas being communicated is selfish and antisocial behavior.
You are not a being of pure logic. The way I say something to you _will_ effect your perception of me AND the topic at hand.
> Politeness has a place, but I beg you put clarity first.
Having conversations with little-to-no noise as possible has a place, but I beg you to consider that the person conversing with you has a baseline level of empathy and ego and is not a p-zombie.
Wanting to be seen a certain way is just as (if not more) important than the extremely minor distress you feel by having to read some extra words.
The idea that how your audience receives the communication is their problem and not yours is entirely why some engineers are shit communicators and seem lost when facing the realities of human culture and politics. You might wish the world would all just think exactly like you but the moods, interest, and preferences of the people around you are YOUR PROBLEM and you need to engage with them if you want to accomplish anything unless you're some kind of prodigy who will be accommodated because of your unique capabilities (almost no one who thinks they are this are).
Yeah, skip the fluff about my having a good weekend if you need me to fix something, but a lot of those uncertainty markers aren't fluff, they're essential to honest, accurate communication.
Similarly, many times when you say a variation on "I know you're the expert on the codebase" or whatever, that's because it's true and important. Something I think is a problem, which this article wants me to phrase as a short, plain declaration, might actually just be a misunderstanding on my part. If I get one of those messages, I'm not going to see my time being respected. I'm going to see an arrogant jerk too lazy to learn what they're talking about before shooting off their mouth.
Some people have an attitude to work resembling “I spend most of my day here, so having enjoyable professional relationships with my coworkers is a major determinant of my quality of life.” And there are other people who have an attitude closer to “it’s my goal to deliver value efficiently and get paid. I’m not here to make friends. Any meaningful human interactions happen outside of work.”
I don’t know enough about autism to know if that’s the right label for the second category. (I’ve had coworkers who identified as autistic who seemed to deeply care about whether I enjoyed working with them.) I think these two types of people can work together productively, but I don’t think they’ll ever totally understand each other.
> but an interruption can be a lot less disruptive compared to getting nerd sniped.
Theoretically yes. Practically, folks who avoid small talk deliberately usually have enough awareness to not interrupt unless they need your time. But yes, directness without judgment is bad.
Ironically, the author fails to apply that judgment themselves and wastes a ton of words on unnecessary and/or bad examples.
And, more importantly, they miss the core point of Crocker's rule: Invoking it doesn't mean you get to tell other people how to communicate. You just tell them they're not responsible for your emotional/mental state.
If those extra details upset OP, maybe they lack the maturity to invoke that rule.
I agree with your point about human level communication and treating the recipients like they matter. I generally tend to prefer communication that is more on the blunt/direct side, but if there's one thing about communication that I've learned throughout my career, it is that the people who do best are adept at communicating well with a wide variety of people with different communication styles and preferences.
The people who try to force everyone else to fit into a specific bucket of communication style, or who refuse to deviate from their own strict communication preferences no matter the audience, those are the people I see struggle to find success relative to their peers.
"seems to be causing" is also an excellent alternative to "it looks like" that doesn't hinge on visual-sensory primacy, and tends to translate slightly less ambiguously across language-familiarity boundaries due to 'seems' having more precise meaning re: uncertainty than 'looks', 'feels', 'sounds'. Or you could abbreviate to "could be" / "may be" / "might be" (non-high certainty), "is probably" (high certainty) if that sort of nuance is your thing. Noteworthy point: it is neurotypical to treat "is" as 100% certain rather than 99.9% certain when someone says it confidently, but as 80% certain rather than 99.9% certain when someone says it uncertainly, based solely on non-verbal nuance; this can be infuriating and I tend to recommend saying "I am certain" at 99.9% in combination with courteous handling of the slight but eternal possibility of being wrong.
"Let me know how I can help" should not be taken for granted as a thing to be offered, though. Some teams have very strict divisions of labor. Some workers (especially anyone whose duties are 'monitor and report' rather than 'creatively solve') are not overtime-exempt and cannot volunteer their time. Some workers (especially anyone who's reached a high-capability tech position from the ground up) are flooded with opportunities to do less of their own job and more of everyone else's and must not preemptively offer their time to an open-ended offer of 'help'. A more focused phrase such as "Let me know if you have questions, need more evidence, etc." provides a layer of defense against that without implicitly denying assistance for help if requested.
"Thanks!" is one of the most mocked request-terminators I've seen in twenty years of business. It is widely abused as "have fun storming the castle, i'm out micdrop" rather than as a sincere expression of gratitude that contains any actual statement of why you're grateful. "Thank you for doing the job the company paid you to do" sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, even to neurotypicals. Tell people thank you with more than one word if you mean it, and tell them what you're thanking them for, and consider thanking them for what they did rather than lobbing it like a grenade strapped to a problem. If you hand them a problem and they say "got it, I'll look into it", saying "Thanks." to that is completely fine; it serves the exact purpose of courtesy described, and also doubles as a positive-handoff "your plane" reply concluding the problem handoff, so that you can safely mark it as delegated, they can safely assume you didn't miss their message and are continuing to work it, etc.
I agree it makes sense to specify that it is not certain, by adding "it looks like" (or "it seems like", or other wording that would not be too long; as another comment mentions, "looks" can sometimes be wrong). The other stuff might be unnecessary, although it might depend if it is implied or expected according to the context (in many contexts I would expect it to be unnecessary; another comment mentions how it can even be wrong sometimes).
(Your message is better than the one with a lot of noise, though.)
I can't speak for other parts of the world, but in the US, it's not uncommon for people to walk on eggshells while reporting information to coworkers (and especially managers) because there's absolutely a large cohort who will shoot the messenger. Crocker's Rules are undoubtedly a reaction to the extreme whereby managers in particular fail to receive receive crucial information because their reports are too afraid to pass it along.
In other words, people fail to communicate out of fear born from an assumption on how the person they're communicating with will react. The original quote would have you ignore your own fear and hand over the information, while your modified version would indirectly address your fear by refusing to take responsibility for how the recipient might feel. Whichever way you go with it, you're largely accomplishing the same thing.
The problem is that too many people couch pettiness and personal attacks in the philosophy of "being direct" or "telling it like it is". OP specifically mentions that criticism must be made on technical merits. The people that hand-wave this distinction away are absolutely insufferable.
Mm they didn't really mean /any/ question, and weren't inviting directness. Just like "hi how are you" from a stranger isn't an invitation to respond that your cat just died and your transmission needs replacing
Of course they didn't want to move forward. That's what you had decided/wanted though right? I can't imagine you hoping for any other outcome with that kind of question and follow up?
> “It looks like” concisely signals that you have a good faith belief in your diagnosis but are not certain.
A lot of people never get past this level of sureness, so the signal is lost (or at least compressed). You can ask them for a number from a digital display and they’ll say it “looks like 54”.
One way to rectify the idea that these messages have signal (which I agree with) and what the article says is that it’s declaring bankruptcy on additional context. The extra text has so little value it’s worth removing as a rule.
> If we accept that any one person can take responsibility for their feelings then it follows that everyone is responsible for their own mind.
I don't think this follows! People are very different, so something can be genuinely true of a subset without generalising to everyone.
Crocker's Rules definitely wouldn't work for me, but it's explicit in them that they can only be self-invoked. Some people seem genuinely to be very thick-skinned (but easily annoyed by indirection and politeness) and able to 'take responsibility for their own feelings' in this sense. I doubt (m)any of them are truly unoffendable... and one could argue that they should be taking responsibility for their own feelings of frustration triggered by normal politeness... but I assume they know themselves well enough to know that they are better off when people try to be as direct as possible when interacting with them.
Where it breaks down is if/when they treat this as an objectively superior state of being and mode of interaction, and use it as an excuse to be rude to others.
Yeah, I wonder if the author has been in a situation where a brief explanation was taken by a higher up (or a cc'd higher-up x2, or x3) as "It was entirely my fault and I'm withholding details that would further implicate me and giving only the facts that don't."
I've had to work to balance emails like this between "they don't want the nitty gritty, they just want to be satisfied the issue is solved" and "They will definitely want the nitty gritty and think something is up if the details seems suspiciously sparse". Especially if the recipients are technical, and they know that you know that they're technical. what are you hiding, Qaadika? you're usually more verbose than this.
This sounds like a refutation of the concept of taboos as a useful category, by the definition I use a taboo is something that may not be discussed openly. There's a theory that a culture without taboos is past it's peak in some important way- does crocker have any response to that criticism?
I subscribe to the thesis of Death of the Author, that just because someone came up with something, it doesn't necessarily given them a permanent special privilege in its interpretation. Everybody can understand the work as they prefer, and if anything, the work takes on a life of its own in greater society and evolves together with it. (Hence the limits on the duration of copyright.)
This is why many common idioms are now used in their opposite meaning, and we all understand, and it's fine. As a random example, "It's all downhill from here" can mean either "it gets easier" or "it gets worse". The meaning has changed over time. Also: "I could care less", etc...
> This article is focused too much on communication style and not enough on the subject of communication. The latter was the crux of it. Crocker’s Rules were about being able to rigorously discuss topics that society has deemed to be beyond discussion without taking offense at the fact it is being discussed.
That's a distinction that's not as clear cut as you think.
The problem in the workplace setting is that the subject is the code/system/product/organisation, which has no feelings and hence can't be offended, but many people feel compelled to use an overly verbose style in order to avoid offending the humans charged with the care of the unfeeling object.
There is a certain freedom in treating things as things and calling out their objective properties as is, instead of dancing around the facts.
This is the very same thing as talking plainly and directly about taboo or sensitive subjects. Just do it! It's fine!
Reading the article, I also feel that all of his examples are poor communication, both the "courteous" and the "direct" ones. You can communicate clearly and succinctly and also be considerate of the person you're talking to.
"Everyone says that they value directness, and from what I can tell the vast majority of people actually don't."
Well sure, of course we do. We (or at least, a lot of the readers of this who live in a US and similar economic and social system) have learned that it is virtuous and correct to say we value directness. But that's where it stops; it's just a thing that is right to say. Part of the current social interaction protocol. It's then widely understood that many interactions should not be hyper-direct.
What you have observed - people saying they value directness and then not exhibiting it - is the expected behaviour. This isn't a bug.
What's the mistake here? Shouldn't an incident report start with this and then continue with an analysis of the process, without too much "internal perspective"?
In my mind, the internal perspective might be useful to jot down when doing the analysis, but is too noisy to be useful to disseminate.
At lot of this isn't true in practice because we live in an async word. Perfect example is giving bad news. So much dancing verbal dancing around it when people really know the answer.
The best team I've ever worked on had little social cushioning. This doesn't mean people were being mean to each. The directness of everyone on that team was great because we could work towards resolving issues quickly and without any fluff. This also allowed us to find the best solution.
"I want to be perceived as someone who is effective _and_ pleasant to work with."
That seems like a good reason to adapt your communication to your audience. If x finds preamble unpleasant, but you use unnecessary preamble when communicating with x, that won't help you be perceived as pleasant to work with.
Of course everyone can take responsibility for their emotions. It's simply that many don't. And some that want you to care for their emotions. More to the divide, there are many who won't consent to doing so it letting you not do so. It is also the case that everyone can decide about this.
You communicate differently in person vs with async text.
If you don’t have your thoughts together, if you see a problem but are not sure of the fix, just say that.
Make it clear why you are communicating with me, do you have a specific request? A question? Just want to chat? Have a general discussion about an issue?
Content actively advocates for freedom of expression in the specific form of direct, unfiltered communication. The central thesis is that people should be able to state technical truths without social filtering. This aligns with Article 19's protection of opinion and information.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
Article's core argument: 'If the caching layer is slow, say it is slow. If the design is wrong, say it is wrong.'
Author criticizes suppression of factual statements through social convention.
Content argues that directness is necessary for teams to 'debug anything larger than a typo.'
Author advocates: 'A team that cannot tolerate direct statements about reality cannot debug anything larger than a typo.'
Inferences
The defense of unfiltered expression of technical fact and opinion aligns substantially with Article 19's protection of freedom to hold and impart information.
The framing prioritizes information access over social protection, which is consistent with free expression doctrine.
Content emphasizes equal treatment of individuals in communication norms (all colleagues should apply same directness standard), which faintly aligns with Article 1's universal equality, but only by accident.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
Author argues that directness should apply equally to all team members regardless of seniority.
Content does not address discrimination, dignity, or universal human rights.
Inferences
The egalitarian tone of the directness proposal tangentially supports equal treatment, though not grounded in human rights reasoning.
Content indirectly supports freedom of thought and conscience by advocating for unfiltered expression of ideas ('if the design is wrong, say it is wrong'). However, this is incidental, not grounded in rights language.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
Author advocates for direct statement of opinions and technical assessments without self-censorship.
Inferences
The advocacy for unfiltered opinion expression faintly aligns with freedom of conscience, though not motivated by human rights reasoning.
Content frames professional communication norms in technical settings. While it touches on workplace interaction, it does not engage with fair wages, safe conditions, or workers' rights. The dismissal of contextual explanation and preemptive apology could undermine worker protections and safety-critical incident reporting.
FW Ratio: 75%
Observable Facts
Content criticizes detailed incident reports that explain contributing factors and contextual stress.
Author states: 'confessing your emotional state and your reasoning process and your extenuating circumstances is not documentation, it is self-absolution.'
Content does not address fair wages, safe working conditions, or collective bargaining.
Inferences
The dismissal of contextual factors and emotional acknowledgment could suppress legitimate worker concerns about stress, overwork, or unsafe conditions in incident reporting.
Content advocates for directness that explicitly rejects social protection and emotional care. While not advocating torture, the normalization of unshielded criticism without acknowledgment of psychological impact could enable abusive communication.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
Author frames removal of social 'cushioning' as efficiency gain, not human need.
Content explicitly states 'you are not being considerate' toward those who add contextual framing.
Inferences
Advocacy for unfiltered directness normalizes communication that may cause psychological harm, particularly to marginalized or vulnerable individuals.
Content advocates for directness in ways that could conflict with community welfare and mutual responsibility. The framing treats politeness, empathy, and contextual care as individually optional, not as collective responsibilities.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
Author characterizes politeness and emotional preparation as 'noise' that shouldn't be mandatory in professional settings.
Content does not acknowledge collective responsibility or mutual care as valuable.
Inferences
The emphasis on individual directness over collective emotional care undermines the principle of mutual responsibility in Article 29.
Content advocates removal of social cushioning and emotional accommodation, which could undermine accessibility and inclusion for neurodivergent, anxious, or non-native speakers. The framing treats politeness and emotional labor as 'noise' without acknowledging legitimate needs for accommodation.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
Author describes politeness as 'anxiety cosplaying' and characterizes emotional preparation as 'noise' that wastes time.
Author criticizes preemptive apologies and contextual explanation as 'self-absolution' rather than legitimate communication.
Page embeds third-party API calls (LastFM, GitHub) without explicit user consent.
No accessibility accommodations (captions, alt text, plain-language summaries) provided.
Inferences
The dismissal of emotional labor and accommodation needs disadvantages individuals with anxiety, ADHD, autism, or language barriers, conflicting with non-discrimination principles.
Implicit data collection without disclosure violates privacy expectations and transparency.
Content does not engage with privacy as a right. Implicitly, the normalization of unfiltered communication could be read as advocating surveillance-like transparency in professional spaces.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
Page contains embedded JavaScript that fetches from 'https://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/' (LastFM API) using user 'larrasket'.
Page fetches GitHub activity from GitHub API without visible consent prompt.
No privacy policy or data collection disclosure visible on page.
Author API key for LastFM appears hardcoded in page source.
Inferences
Third-party data collection occurs without explicit user consent, violating privacy expectations.
Site lacks accessibility features (no alt text for code examples, footnote structure may confuse screen readers). GitHub/LastFM data collection occurs without consent disclosure.
Page executes third-party API calls to LastFM and GitHub without explicit user opt-in or consent disclosure. User listening history and development activity are fetched and displayed.
Supplementary Signals
How this content communicates, beyond directional lean. Learn more
Author describes politeness as 'anxiety cosplaying as politeness' and incident explanations as 'self-absolution,' using pejorative framing to dismiss legitimate communication practices.
false dilemma
Content presents a binary choice: either embrace Crocker's Rules directness or accept inefficient, 'noisy' communication. No middle ground acknowledging context-dependent communication norms.
appeal to fear
Author warns: 'A team that cannot tolerate direct statements about reality cannot debug anything larger than a typo,' suggesting teams that don't adopt directness will fail at technical work.
generalization
Author makes broad claims ('Nobody reads "hope you had a great weekend" and thinks better of the person who wrote it') without evidence or acknowledgment of individual variation.