Application for Status Message Firmness
The status is set to Do Not Disturb. The messages are arriving. The messages ask if the subject saw the previous message.
To: The Department of Digital Communication Standards From: A Person Who Set Their Status to Do Not Disturb at 2:00 PM Re: Application for Status Message Firmness, Effective Immediately Date: September 24, 2022
This application is submitted on behalf of a person who set their messaging application status to "Do Not Disturb" at 2:00 PM on the above date and received fourteen messages between 2:00 PM and 4:17 PM on the above date.
BACKGROUND
The subject set the status to Do Not Disturb with the understanding that this status communicates unavailability. The subject is aware that this understanding may be optimistic. The subject is applying to have the understanding confirmed or corrected in writing.
CURRENT SITUATION
Do Not Disturb does not mean the sender cannot disturb. It means the subject will see the disturbance later. This is a meaningful distinction that was not available to the subject at the time of status selection, as the status options do not include "Do Not Disturb And Also Please Do Not Send Messages That Begin With 'Quick Question.'"
The status message is a stated preference. It is not a wall.
THE FOURTEEN MESSAGES
Of the fourteen messages received during the Do Not Disturb period:
Three were from a colleague who had a question, sent the question, and then sent a message asking if the subject had seen the question. The question could not have been answered in the interval between the question and the inquiry about the question, as the interval was four minutes and the subject was not available.
Four were from a group chat that was operating independently of any status the subject might set, as group chats do not acknowledge individual preferences except when the individual leaves the group chat, which creates a different problem.
Two were informational. The information was not time-sensitive, as confirmed by the sender's response of "no rush!" sent twenty minutes after the original message.
Three were from one person who had something to share and shared it across three messages rather than one, which inflated the count.
Two were, upon review, from the subject's own notification system reminding the subject that they had set a Do Not Disturb status and asking if they wanted to extend it. They did.
REQUEST
The subject requests confirmation that setting a status to Do Not Disturb is a reasonable act that communicates a preference in good faith. The subject also requests, separately and with lower expectations of success, that this preference be occasionally honored.