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I see many of you don't like greetings for some reason. Before you comment, let me refute some of them already.

One of your arguments is "when someone says hi, they're not really saying hi to me".
Yes they are. Not only to you, but to everybody, because it isn't feasible to greet each person.

What's the big deal with that? Automatic systems for filtering? Come on... do I force you to greet anyone and add it to your questions? No! Why should you force me to NOT greet people? To "save text"? Why not limit vocabulary, BTW, and turn all question into Simple English? That would certainly save text.

What about jokes, analogies and other related expressions? Even writing style itself, I myself have a writing style that takes up some more space than possible, and many people do. Should that be fixed to conform to some standards? The important thing is not to type as little as possible, but to be understood. Would you prefer more machine-like questions?

Questions are not programs you need to optimize to avoid losing time. I enjoy knowing someone will read what I wrote, knowing I'm not just writing to a machine that doesn't feel, but to an actual person that might be offended if I downvote, and happy if I help.

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    Simple as "Stack Overflow is not a social forum". Nothing personal.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 22:34
  • @ShaWizDowArd, "Why can't I greet you? Stack Overflow is not a social forum". That makes utterly no sense.
    – JMCF125
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 22:43
  • @gnat, the opinion is the opposite, what I'd like is the opposite.
    – JMCF125
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 22:44
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    gnat's point was simply that this has been discussed by the community before, and it reached a conclusion.
    – joran
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 22:46
  • @joran, that was almost 4 years ago.
    – JMCF125
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 22:47
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    Can you demonstrate that anything of significance has changed in that time? Otherwise, you aren't going to get very far.
    – joran
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 22:48
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    What you downvoters don't see is that I don't like dictatorships. Suggest, don't force. Fortunately, thanks to Unicode control characters (like simple ol' &#001) and characters like "ı", your precious REGEXs are rendered useless. I will greet you anyway. Goodbye. :)
    – JMCF125
    Commented Aug 30, 2013 at 22:44
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    Downvotes are people voting against your proposal, this sounds more like a democracy that disagrees with you that a dictatorship (I believe the two are different). (Although stack exchange has both democratic and non democratic elements)
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Nov 3, 2013 at 18:17
  • @RichardTingle, I'm not talking about votes which are part of a democracy, but of votes prohibiting something. Hitler was voted, wasn't he? Remember although a dictatorship-like policy can be given and accepted democratically, it doesn't make it right (or even democratic, but that's debatable). If a bunch of people vote to kill someone, is that democratic? Maybe, but it wouldn't be right. This is an exaggerated example, however, here a similar scenario happens: you vote for people not to greet you, and they don't.
    – JMCF125
    Commented Nov 16, 2013 at 9:55
  • In a democracy I vote against littering, these greetings are equivalent, am I not allowed to be against littering on the site? (Also hilter was not voted in democratically, he got a leg in democratically then subverted the process by intimidation)
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Nov 16, 2013 at 10:41
  • @Richard, you people have an awkward definition of littering... (also people let Hitler do what he wanted, he could've been stopped before he changed the system)
    – JMCF125
    Commented Nov 16, 2013 at 11:07
  • Its a closer analogy, why do you think the community as a whole shouldn't be able to decide on a common format? (True, but it's more complicated that hitler just being elected)
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Nov 16, 2013 at 11:10
  • It's worth noting that comments are considered "less important" and if you must put this secondary information in then comments are the place for it
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Nov 16, 2013 at 11:12
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    You're ruining our book, our book that we've spent years writing. If you want to write your own book then do so, but if you want a page in ours then you need to find some consensus with us. And it is damaging; it makes the questions less clear
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Nov 16, 2013 at 11:47
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    Because we have determined that our rules have created an effective system. Other people have used other sets of rules for other sites (You want the forum system btw), many have died out, ours haven't. Ultimately if you don't like this system there are other sites out there. But you don't want to do that because this is where you get your questions answered most effectively. Why is that? Because of the rules that have been put in place. QED you actually like the effects these rules have
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Nov 16, 2013 at 12:54

3 Answers 3

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It is part of culture of this community:

Should 'Hi', 'thanks', taglines, and salutations be removed from posts?

might we like it or not. It is not usual; but this community is not usual either.

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    and that is one of the best things about SE!
    – user226423
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 23:20
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Questions are not programs you need to optimize to avoid losing time.

They're not programs, but they still need to be optimized to save time and space. People are volunteering their time for free. Get to the point of your question. We'd filter out more useless text if we could.

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    I know I certainly wouldn't filter it. You must answer questions as a mental exercise then. :)
    – JMCF125
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 22:42
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It should probably be mentioned that Stack Exchange is not a personal exchange between you and the answerer or a social forum, but that is pretty negative to say, however true.

As is likely reiterated all over the /about pages of every Stack Exchange site, we are a high-signal (good content), low-noise (lack of bad content, chatty noise, unprofessional behaviour, etc.) Q&A site, with the goal of having Q&A available for all. This is not just for yourself, and we try to stay highly professional about it, lest we degrade into

OMG I cnt solve ths problem ugh someone look at my code and fix it!!!111!

Hopefully you get the idea.

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    Note that's sloppiness and carelessness; I'm talking about friendliness and tolerance (they keep removing greetings from my posts, thank God only I can edit my comments).
    – JMCF125
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 22:53
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    @JMCF125 Greetings, however friendly, can, should, and must be edited out as they offer nothing of value to the question. This is community consensus, and you cannot ever hope of changing this alone. It was decided very early on in SO's history that we would adopt this model.
    – Amelia
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 22:54
  • Ok then. At least now I'm absolutely sure of the community's opinion.
    – JMCF125
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 11:51

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