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This document is a would-be harasser's checklist for extracting forced confessions and atonement schedules.
"I'm sorry I funded Wikimedia Antarctica but..."
Everything you say after the but negates everything you say before it and now you're only trying to justify your actions. Simply, "I'm sorry I funded Wikimedia Antarctica." and proceed to describe what you learned: "I neglected to look at relevant data before doing so. I see how that affected my thinking and I'm committed to doing that in future deals."
I can't stress how much more impactful my apologies have become with people simply by leaving out that "but". Even my relationship with my wife has improved because of it and I've noticed she's started to leave off the "but's" as well, which really makes me appreciate her apologies a whole lot more.
This is why Trump is a genius. The step 0 should be: never ever admin the mistake. Since you will look bad even if you admit the mistake: it makes no difference.
^Obviously trump is not a genious
There are few more odious Internet pass-times than relentlessly harassing someone for some perceived infraction until they give an imperfect apology and then nitpicking until they ritually humiliate themselves exactly according to your wishes. This document is a would-be harasser's checklist for extracting forced confessions and atonement schedules.
I'm not sure apologizing publicly has made anything better for any individual, especially in the current moral panic climate. Mobs don't accept apologies. Public apologies stamp official guilt on the individual and therefore serve as a license for the mob to further punish them because now they have admitted their fault and therefore are 'officially' guilty of the crime. Public apologies, therefore, are the metaphori…
Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on. As the "mob", which may or may not exist in any given situation, is not going to be swayed by protests of innocence, the former are the only people you should care about.
I'm not sure apologizing publicly has made anything better for any individual, especially in the current moral panic climate. Mobs don't accept apologies. Public apologies stamp official guilt on the individual and therefore serve as a license for the mob to further punish them because now they have admitted their fault and therefore are 'officially' guilty of the crime. Public apologies, therefore, are the metaphori…
What I try to do is apologize concisely, but then feel free to ignore people who want to drag this out into "that was not a REAL apology" / "now confess to your OTHER crimes" territory.
Look bad to whom? The interests of the public and the person who made the mistake are not necessarily aligned. Fortunately or unfortunately, sometimes not saying anything may be the best move for the person who made the mistake. Is this guide written for the benefit of those who have made a mistake, or the people who seek maximum prostration after a mistake is made?
In other words, maybe you don't like reading "non-apology apologies", but if it's the best move for someone in a given scenario, then it's what they should do. Perhaps they need to say something to keep their job, or avoid triggering some unsavory clause in a contract somewhere, but they don't care about "looking bad" (optics). It's certainly an unforced error to admit to more than circumstances require you to- if "mistakes were made" gets you where you need to go, then no point in bringing out the whole song and dance, right?
There are few more odious Internet pass-times than relentlessly harassing someone for some perceived infraction until they give an imperfect apology and then nitpicking until they ritually humiliate themselves exactly according to your wishes. This document is a would-be harasser's checklist for extracting forced confessions and atonement schedules.
While I do agree with you for some things, some mistakes may actually be severe and need correction in a public forum and it has nothing to do with harassement.
This is purely my personal opinion, but the wikipedia community seems like one of the most toxic communities on the web. The people contributing to WP - the editors - seem more concerned with coming up with Kafka-esque processes to introduce to the community than making the actual work of making an encyclopaedia. Perhaps the only area where editors are as zealous they are about creating obscure processes, is in polic…
> I hope for a new wave of optimistic idealism to swallow up tech again, bringing about a new era of amateurism. But with the professionalisation of even the free software community I have, I must admit, all but given up hope. This wave exists, we’re just old. Go talk to 16 year olds who are building virtual reality machine learning apps in their bedroom. Web is no longer the frontier. We’re old and out of touch. The…
Those VR meeting apps still need to connect to other computers, and if you get serious about machine learning the cloud is invaluable. Phone apps are also usually less local-friendly than desktop apps.
Just because kids aren't using email or websites as much doesn't mean that they aren't using the internet more.
Although personally, I wouldn't cry if the internet matured into a sort of academic database. Mass-scale social connectivity should probably move to local intranets, like airdrop and local-area IM platforms.
This is purely my personal opinion, but the wikipedia community seems like one of the most toxic communities on the web. The people contributing to WP - the editors - seem more concerned with coming up with Kafka-esque processes to introduce to the community than making the actual work of making an encyclopaedia. Perhaps the only area where editors are as zealous they are about creating obscure processes, is in polic…
Considering Reddit and 4Chan are things, Wikipedia is far from being the most toxic . Maybe the most elitist
On the other hand, I find a community like Stack Overflow to be much worse because the BS can strike any time, any place. Between questions marked "Off-Topic", and snarky replies, and the non-replies ("We won't answer your simple question because you should not be asking that!") you can't avoid the negativity.