Following up when nobody replies

How it behaves

• Both messages are written at the same time and you approve both, so you can read the second one before the first goes out.
• If the person replies at any point, the follow-up is cancelled automatically.
• If the first message was never actually sent, because you rejected it or it failed, the follow-up is cancelled too.
• The queue labels the second one, so you always know which is which.

What it will not say

A follow-up is refused if it announces that you are chasing. Phrases like "just following up", "bumping this", "did you see my message" and "in case you missed it" are all blocked.

Every one of them does the same thing: it tells the recipient their silence has been noticed and counted, which turns a message into a small obligation from a stranger. The reliable response to that is to keep ignoring it, now with mild irritation.

A follow-up is worth sending when it adds something. It is not worth sending to point out that the first one was not answered.

Where it cannot go

A play that comments in public cannot have a follow-up. Commenting twice on the same post, in front of that person's whole network, because they did not reply to the first comment, is not a follow-up.