WhatsApp Group Chat Rules against Digital Noise and Litter

This is a follow up to our previous post 7 Rules for WhatsApp for group administrators. In this article we want to talk about the communication rules which slide into chats but to be honest should not be there. The aim of WhatsApp is to make things exciting and easy for groups but here are a few rules you might need to emphasize in order to create good team work.

Deciding what needs a group conversation

The point of a group chat is to get everyone involved when there is a popular or a group decision that needs to be made. So let us say that you want to decide on a theme for a show that everyone is attending, this would be okay to introduce to the group so that everyone gives their input. It could be a marketing group where you want to decide on a domain name for a project. Everyone’s opinion is needed in this case. However there are those things which are between committees or between two people for example some of the bad messages that are sent on WhatsApp group chats are as follows

“John i have sent you an email please check your email”
“Peter when you see this message please call me”
“Jane, I think you need to call me today”
“Am not sure of what I want Chipo, can you please help me”
“Jeff, can you help Mary”

All these messages can be found in many WhatsApp group chats in once form or the other. They seem harmless enough but here are some of the things that are implied

Look everyone I am doing something

“John i have sent you an email please check your email”
“Jane, I think you need to call me today”

This is a shameless way of saying I don’t have time to call this person personally, I want everyone to see that I have done something so it is no longer in my court. Imagine if you were in a office set up, would you go and stand on top of your desk and shout, “Hey everyone I have sent John an email, John I have sent you an email please check your email.” Not only is the idea of this irritating but it sounds like noise in the office. This is what such a group chat is, NOISE.

If you have a personal number for the person on the group then send them a personal message.

I don’t have time to look for you

“Peter when you see this message please call me”

Not only is this rude but it is disrespectful to Peter in this case. Why would one post on a group when it takes the same amount of words and text power to send a personal message to Peter. If you were having problems locating Peter after trying to call him or sending him messages, it might be better to say “Hi guys, been trying to get hold of Peter does anyone have his alternative numbers” This is more polite and more measured.

In some groups are thousands of messages which are sent and one may not read the individual message. Your message to Peter has a batter chance of Peter seeing it if you send to his inbox instead of sending to everyone.

The sympathy onlooker

“Am not sure of what I want Chipo, can you please help me”

If you want Chipo to help then get in touch with Chipo, broadcasting on the group does not make things easy for anyone it’s noise and neither does it bring sympathy. Go off the group and talk to Chipo. Everyone will just see that you have no idea what you want to do, why not do your research and get in touch with Chipo. Such a post is usually done when a group member is trying to raise peer sympathy from everyone and is trying to get an excuse when things do not work out. Such that when in the later times the person can then say, I asked Chipo for help so we have not been able to solve it. This is not fair to Chipo as well. So think of the open office analogy, are you going to stand on top of the desk and scream “Am not sure what I want Chipo. can you please help”

I am in Charge

“Jeff, can you help Mary”

This would be okay if the group assignments are being given but not when its just an out of the blue subject which one could have talked to Mary and Jeff separately. Now everyone would be left wondering, is it that Mary has no idea what she is doing, is Jeff even the right person to help Mary, why are we saying Jeff, what is Mary working on that needs help. There are more questions than answers.

If you are in the habit of walking into the open plan and shouting “Jeff can you help Mary”, not only are you disturbing everyone but you are exposing ideas or workings that have nothing to do with everyone.

Some of these communications seem harmless but they are very noisy to the group.

Dropping Names for no reason of a group member who is offline or Online

Group chats are great if we are communicating on a particular subject that has interest from everyone, however there is that person who is always mentioning people for no reason. You are left wondering what does that have to do with anything. It’s okay to drop names if it is adequate and there is proper evidence, but to just mention group members who are not even involved in the conversation is a no no. When a group chat goes on to have 900 messages, the person mentioned might not even know that they were mentioned for example a bad name drop is as follows

“Trina knows what I am talking about and she can testify”

For all we know Trina may not even have an idea of what is being talked about. It is unfair to Trina for people to drop her name in conversations that she might not even have time to respond to. Those group members who would be active in the group chat would start to think that Trina is involved and will keep it to memory which changes or adds to their perception of Trina.

It seems harmless enough but in the end the wrong perceptions are communicated about a person and they have no chance of replying.

What if the person is involved in the conversation? They might not want people to know their preferences. For example a simple statement like

“Jeff and Jane were at Victoria Falls last weekend”

Maybe Jeff and Jane do not want people to know or they are working on something that they are not ready to reveal what it is. People who drop names cause other group members to blush, get irritated, get angry and force other group members to leave.

WhatsApp Litters and Spammers who have a disclaimer

Once in a regular while there are those group members that will spam the group until kingdom come. This are people that chat about anything and everything. 90% of the time they are forwarding fake news. They have nothing to contribute and are just looking for companionship in the group. The problem here is that they create so much content and MB are spent. They send useless videos, images voice notes and so much more such that by end of day a person has sent over 300 MB of data. Imagine if you have 20 of such people in the people you are looking at a daily use of 6 GB of data. If you are one of the spam warriors, wellllllll.

These spam warriors normally forward messages and give a disclaimer such as the following