# Ping Me, Please!

Source: https://www.yegor256.com/2024/04/01/ping-me-please.html

There is a big difference between distributed and collocated teams: the
communication in distributed teams is asynchronous, which essentially
means that when you ask something, a response doesn't arrive
immediately. Moreover, it may never arrive. This can be very
uncomfortable for those who are used to the office work setup, where
most communications are synchronous: any question is answered
immediately, one way or another. In open-source repositories,
everything is asynchronous. Here is a simple rule that may help you
decrease the level of frustration in GitHub projects: ping them every
time you need an answer or attention to be paid to your code.


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There are four basic scenarios:

- You submitted a _new issue_.
  Post a message asking the project architect to pay attention.
  Otherwise, the owner of the backlog may miss your issue, and it will not be resolved for a long time.

- You sent a _new pull request_.
  Post a message right in the PR, asking the architect to review it.
  Otherwise, the architect may simply miss the pull request, and it will stay in the "waiting for review" state for a long time.

- You made _changes_ in a pull request after code reviewers asked you.
  Post a message asking them to look at your code again.
  Otherwise, they may never see the changes you just made.

- You post any _message_ in an issue or a pull request.
  [Start it]({% pst 2020/jul/2020-07-29-open-source-etiquette %}) with the nickname of the person you are talking to.
  Otherwise, the person who should help you may not receive a notification about your message, and it will be missed.

Also, listen to what Ben Batler from GitHub [said once](https://ben.balter.com/2014/11/06/rules-of-communicating-at-github/):
You essentially _never_ "walk over" to a coworker's desk, virtual or otherwise.
Whenever possible, prefer issues and chat over "just in time" communications.
Simply put, don't text me in Telegram.