Well, I’m not exactly Miss Manners, but I imagine it would depend on whether you’re using a synchronous or asynchronous protocol. Replying to an email (or an email-like service, like old-style Facebook messages) days later is common enough. I’d consider an IM to have timed out after a couple of hours or when the person you’re talking to signs off, whichever comes first, and maybe less—a message to someone marked as idle would have a longer timeout expectation than to someone marked as active. If you’re looking at a moving IRC channel or something like that (player chat in MMO-style games would fall into this category), it depends how fast the channel is moving but we’re probably talking minutes.
I don’t think exact content would matter as much as context, unless you’re explicitly asking for a reply when ready (“You might not see this right away, but when you get the chance, could you...”). “Ping” would almost certainly get you the same results as a more conventional greeting, provided it’s understood. For that matter, sending cat pictures would probably get you the same results.
Hmm. The times you’ve stated do broadly align with my own experience; the only major difference is that I expected the timeout in moving IRC and MMO chats to be in the low tens of seconds. I have updated accordingly. Thank you for spelling these out.
I’m curious what the timeout would be for a ‘semi-synchronous’ protocol such as the text chats in Steam, Skype, or Google Hangouts. (These services mostly act like IMs, but all offer the ability to send messages to users who are currently offline, and some offer extended chat histories. This allows having conversations over days, and I have done so on these services.) Any opinions? (Again, directed at any readers who wish to answer.)
I’ve never sent or received cat pictures and so have no experience with their timeouts. What evidence makes you believe that sending cat pictures would a) work as a greeting and b) have the same timeouts?
Well, I’m not exactly Miss Manners, but I imagine it would depend on whether you’re using a synchronous or asynchronous protocol. Replying to an email (or an email-like service, like old-style Facebook messages) days later is common enough. I’d consider an IM to have timed out after a couple of hours or when the person you’re talking to signs off, whichever comes first, and maybe less—a message to someone marked as idle would have a longer timeout expectation than to someone marked as active. If you’re looking at a moving IRC channel or something like that (player chat in MMO-style games would fall into this category), it depends how fast the channel is moving but we’re probably talking minutes.
I don’t think exact content would matter as much as context, unless you’re explicitly asking for a reply when ready (“You might not see this right away, but when you get the chance, could you...”). “Ping” would almost certainly get you the same results as a more conventional greeting, provided it’s understood. For that matter, sending cat pictures would probably get you the same results.
Hmm. The times you’ve stated do broadly align with my own experience; the only major difference is that I expected the timeout in moving IRC and MMO chats to be in the low tens of seconds. I have updated accordingly. Thank you for spelling these out.
I’m curious what the timeout would be for a ‘semi-synchronous’ protocol such as the text chats in Steam, Skype, or Google Hangouts. (These services mostly act like IMs, but all offer the ability to send messages to users who are currently offline, and some offer extended chat histories. This allows having conversations over days, and I have done so on these services.) Any opinions? (Again, directed at any readers who wish to answer.)
I’ve never sent or received cat pictures and so have no experience with their timeouts. What evidence makes you believe that sending cat pictures would a) work as a greeting and b) have the same timeouts?