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Baptiste Coulange
Baptiste Coulange

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Online wellbeing : what are your rules?

Working more and more online in a distributed company, we have to share some wellbeing rules of how we use online tools that don't seem intuitive to everyone. And I've never seen a written list of a lot of this culture shared by a lot of people I can meet online.

Since DEV is an awesome community, what about trying to build it!

Here are some rules that seem intuitive to me and that I try to follow (do you agree?) :

  • Make sentences
  • IF YOU WRITE WITH CAPITAL LETTERS YOU ARE SHOUTING
  • No custom funny font, No custom funny color, No custom funny background
  • Mention people only if they absolutely need to react (@here or Reply to All are the evil)
  • Put a profile picture and a bio
  • When you post on a chat (Slack), if you have an answer some seconds after your post, you are in a discussion so at least say "Sorry, I can't stay" if you were just posting something and leaving.
  • When you leave a discussion on a chat, say it, don't disappear while everyone is waiting for your answer
  • Embrace asynchronicity : When you post a blog post or message in a forum, don't DM or call everyone to ask if they've already read it, just wait.
  • Don't edit a post without notifying people
  • Links are fantatic, share a link instead of a description of how to find the information on a website

Do you agree with these? What are the online behaviors you follow and expect?

Top comments (4)

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itsasine profile image
ItsASine (Kayla)

I'm cool with editing after so long as you're honest about what changed.

I love Java.

to

I love JavaScript (edit: typo, this originally said Java)

That way it still makes sense if the comments are like "Wtf, I thought you hated Java?"

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jrohatiner profile image
Judith

This is a great topic. Most important - imho - is that all chat is done with respect. Also, remember that the discussion is a connection to "real" people -don't use words that would hurt or embarrass someone else.