Segmenting Messages

What is it?

Segmenting

Is

Typing

Like

This

In

A

Chat

Program

(stop pressing enter so much!)

It’s a rule in my stream and Discord not to segment messages. This post goes into why.

Reasons why it sucks

Changing course

You may never finish: maybe you get distracted or there’s an IRL emergency and you send something like “just so you know” without ever finishing. This is especially bad in archived chats because it will forever be that way with people responding “WHAT SHOULD I KNOW?!” with only a hope to avoid a DenverCoder situation should the person return and finish their thought.
- You may not even know if someone finished: if the person sending messages is a known segmenter and says something like “hey”, “how are you”, “I need a favor from you”, you can’t tell if they’re about to tell you the favor or if you’re supposed to ask what it is. There are times when someone sends 6 messages in a row and I don’t realize that they’re finished because the last one isn’t an obvious end.
You may answer your own question: sometimes, in the process of accumulating all of the context for a question, a person answers their own question, obviating the messages altogether.
You may change your mind: maybe, you’re typing out your stream of consciousness, only to negate the whole thing by the end of it. E.g.
- Hey
- I need your help
- Never mind, I figured it out

Notifications

In many programs (e.g. Discord, Signal, etc.), each chat message results in a notification being sent.

Notifications can block other content

For example, when I’m watching a YouTube video on my phone and someone sends a message, a notification appears over the top of the video. I have to swipe to dismiss it. A segmenter keeps causing those notifications to pop up.

Another real-world example is from DevelopIt (reference):

@Remy and @nDoorn, I forgot to tell you. Both of you are the reason I missed my exit on the highway yesterday 😠

I have Android Auto, and used Google maps, but discord messages from coding kept popping up so I couldn’t see the directions anymore

Quantity of notifications

Notifications typically have special UI, e.g. some kind of roll-up where you can see all of them (like on Android, iOS, Discord, etc.). If I see that I have 12 unread notifications, I expect to see messages from many different people. With segmenters, 12 messages may be a single thought from one person!

Notifications typically produce a sound, meaning segmented messages may repeatedly vibrate my phone. Maybe I think I’m getting a call from all of the vibrations, or maybe I’m just annoyed to keep hearing pinging sounds that could have been consolidated.

There’s a multiplier effect for group chats. If you send five messages instead of one and there are five recipients, you’re potentially causing problems for five people!

Minor reasons

Interrupting
- Can’t “interrupt”: I can’t actually respond to the messages until your full thought is out, because…
  - It feels like I’m interrupting
  - Your thought might change by the end!
- Other people may interrupt anyway: suppose you’ve typed 3 lines of 7 and someone else responds. The conversation may get side-tracked before you ever get those other 4 lines out, but then you’ve created a spaghetti-like conversation. If you do type out those four lines, the reader will have to piece together the context from your original messages.
Low-content messages: depending on how much someone segments, it results in a bunch of pointless messages being sent.
- For example
  - So
  - anyway
  - I was at the store today
  - and I saw the funniest thing
- (the “so” and “anyway” are pointless messages)
Context is lost: suppose, in a group context (e.g. when streaming or when in a group chat), that someone writes out a single message rather than segmenting. That lets people reply using the built-in threading model or simply copy/paste a message and have all of the context in one spot for other readers.
Reading space: by sending many small messages, there’s usually some UI space wasted due to repetition, e.g. a chat bubble usually has some padding in it. That padding would show up multiple times. Also, segmented messages may not use as much horizontal space if they get segmented before hitting the maximum width. For example:
- Imagine…
- something like this.
- How much space
- is being wasted horizontally on your screen
- right now?
My spaces specifically: I have the rule prominently posted on Twitch and Discord. Realistically, I understand that very few people will read the rules ahead of time. But if I share the rule with you specifically and you still violate it, it annoys me because it’s not that hard to accommodate¹. You can still consume all of my content without ever having to type, so if you choose to engage after being made aware of the rules, try to follow them! It’s like if I had you over to my place and said “please take your shoes off inside”—you understandably may not care in your own place, but I have my reasons for why it’s a rule in mine, and there’s a general understanding to abide by one’s rules in their place.
- ¹It’s not like I’m asking you to perpetually type in haikus or avoid the letter “e” in all of your messages. I’m simply asking that you stop pressing enter so much. Type out your related sentences all at once, then hit send. I get that you’re fighting your lifelong habit of not doing that; it’s why I need a rule in my channel about this.

Reasons to segment

Responding specifically: when you’re covering many topics and want people to be able to pick and choose what they respond to. This is great for Discord, WhatsApp, Signal, etc. where threading or replies are built in.
- For example:
  - I just got a new game that I’ve been playing all weekend.
  - I also ate some great food while playing.
- Those messages are somewhat related, but people may want to respond to only one of them (“what game?” vs. “what kind of food?”).
Poor UI: when the text input is a single line, it can be unwieldy as a sender to edit your messages or check for typos when you can’t easily scroll back.
Information density: sometimes, ultra-long messages can be daunting to read. Paragraphs and summaries are helpful in that case though.
Effort: it takes more effort to organize your thoughts ahead of time.
Habit: it’s what people are typically used to from casual 1:1 conversations with friends.
Serendipity: forgetting your thought, typing cliffhangers, etc. can produce fun/funny/memorable moments.

Other thoughts

Edit when possible: made a typo that doesn’t affect the overall understanding? Simply edit your prior message and silently fix it (“how are yuo” → “how are you”).
Your space, your rules: type however you want to your own friends; I only have this rule in my stream and on Discord. I.e. none of this text is to convince you to hate segmented messages. I’m just explaining why I do. 🙃