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So you've made a mistake and it's public

meta.wikimedia.org

161–170 of 403 posts

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#161
post #140

I think a major point missing in amongst the discussion so far, and one that's causing a lot of crosstalk is whether you should even be apologising at all. For example. Progressives are widely known for their enthusiastic use of forcing people into public apologies for perceived crimes against the faith or for not acquiescing to unreasonable demands which can then be framed as a perceived wrong. I think a lot of the…

> if you're actually dealing with a genuine person or group who you've genuinely wronged then a real apology is warranted A pitfall of this mentality, at least in my experience, is that people I hurt are usually much better judges of whether I hurt them than I am. Something I learned that helped is: you can hurt someone without being wrong. "I regret that my actions had this effect on you," is a good place to start a…

>Something I learned that helped is: you can hurt someone without being wrong

>It often doesn't matter how legitimate someones' complaint is according to my personal worldview; what matters is how the affected feel.

I can't get behind this. Why am I responsible for the way the chemicals in someone's brain react if I say something that unintentionally hurts them? If i'm doing nothing wrong as you say and someone else is offended, or sad or hurt, that's honestly their problem.

People need to take responsibility for their feelings instead of making everyone else take responsibility for their feelings.

Why should I ever be responsible for the way someone feels unless i've done something intentionally to make them feel that way?

People's feelings are their own business, nobody else has the unintentional responsibility of random people's arbitrary feelings.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#162
post #140

I think a major point missing in amongst the discussion so far, and one that's causing a lot of crosstalk is whether you should even be apologising at all. For example. Progressives are widely known for their enthusiastic use of forcing people into public apologies for perceived crimes against the faith or for not acquiescing to unreasonable demands which can then be framed as a perceived wrong. I think a lot of the…

> if you're actually dealing with a genuine person or group who you've genuinely wronged then a real apology is warranted A pitfall of this mentality, at least in my experience, is that people I hurt are usually much better judges of whether I hurt them than I am. Something I learned that helped is: you can hurt someone without being wrong. "I regret that my actions had this effect on you," is a good place to start a…

You're absolutely right about not knowing being a problem; unfortunately I'm guessing it's a bit of an art, at least with respect to the "be careful of bad-faith actors" replies you've received, or at least a heavy dose of knowing the other party.

I do however find that if I actually take time to think about what's happened, a genuine wrong that might have been caused in a rush/unthought out moment is (usually) pretty obvious when looked back on in hindsight; there's usually an "aaah shit yeah that'd piss me off too" moment.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#163

I think a major point missing in amongst the discussion so far, and one that's causing a lot of crosstalk is whether you should even be apologising at all. For example. Progressives are widely known for their enthusiastic use of forcing people into public apologies for perceived crimes against the faith or for not acquiescing to unreasonable demands which can then be framed as a perceived wrong. I think a lot of the…

The "progressives" you're referring to aren't progressive. They're reactionary authoritarians, hijacking the ideals and preferences of whatever group they're attached to. You can find them in all forms of debased public discourse and lowbrow populism, with a history going back millennia, and uniformly distributed across the political spectrum. No-one called the Spanish Inquisition progressive.

I hold a very special loathing of anyone that weaponizes process in order to control others.

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst, Are full of passionate intensity".

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#164
post #140

I think a major point missing in amongst the discussion so far, and one that's causing a lot of crosstalk is whether you should even be apologising at all. For example. Progressives are widely known for their enthusiastic use of forcing people into public apologies for perceived crimes against the faith or for not acquiescing to unreasonable demands which can then be framed as a perceived wrong. I think a lot of the…

> if you're actually dealing with a genuine person or group who you've genuinely wronged then a real apology is warranted A pitfall of this mentality, at least in my experience, is that people I hurt are usually much better judges of whether I hurt them than I am. Something I learned that helped is: you can hurt someone without being wrong. "I regret that my actions had this effect on you," is a good place to start a…

> "I regret that my actions had this effect on you,"

That's just a variation of "I'm sorry you're so impatient" or "It's too bad you have no sense of humor.": https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Apology#Acknowledgment_of_th...

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/celebrity/people-are...

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#165
post #140

I think a major point missing in amongst the discussion so far, and one that's causing a lot of crosstalk is whether you should even be apologising at all. For example. Progressives are widely known for their enthusiastic use of forcing people into public apologies for perceived crimes against the faith or for not acquiescing to unreasonable demands which can then be framed as a perceived wrong. I think a lot of the…

> if you're actually dealing with a genuine person or group who you've genuinely wronged then a real apology is warranted A pitfall of this mentality, at least in my experience, is that people I hurt are usually much better judges of whether I hurt them than I am. Something I learned that helped is: you can hurt someone without being wrong. "I regret that my actions had this effect on you," is a good place to start a…

I don't disagree with anything you said, but I don't think this applies to the original comment. The majority of people who demand an apology aren't the victims. They're just random people on Twitter who are just looking for ways to attack people they don't like. It may have been a mistake for someone to wear a mildly racist costume on Halloween a decade ago, but there is no reason they should be expected to apologize.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted that you should contact them about their mistake in the most private way possible, then escalating slowly as the need arises. This follows the "praise in public, punish in private" maxim.

This makes me think, it is opposite to what mostly is used in open source projects that have bugtrackers. Github is filled with countless 'mistakes' (issues/pr's) people made in the code they published. Should there be some kind of way to make issues private? Before I was into open source I was always afraid to show my code to anyone because of the critique I could expect. But some coworkers helped me get the confide…

In larger projects bugs are rarely caused by a single person. With many people contributing to a problem in the way of code and reviews. The best way forward is for everyone to own the bug and own any potential solutions.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#167

> What should I do when I see someone else is making a mistake? > When you see others making mistakes, first help them see their mistakes and deal with them (e.g. by recycling this text, or by independently offering your analysis and answers to Steps 1 and 2 above). > Remember you make mistakes too, and be tolerant of the time it may take people to accept that they have made a mistake. (But you don't need to allow th…

I’m glad others out there see it this way. I made a minor mistake, and a former employer and manager used it to make me totally unable to work again by blowing it up as much as possible. It’ll blow back on them eventually, but in the meantime I’ve been made homeless and lost all my friends. Since lawyers are involved and profit from my mistake looking worse than it was, there will never be an honest reconciliation. The court of public opinion is the only way they might be convinced to show some kindness.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#168
post #114

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…

People in strong position stand to gain by apologizing, while people in weak position stand to lose. One must consider one's standing before dabbling. In my own company I try to apologize every time I screw something up. I know my position is unassailable, and my team members should have trust that their leadership is in touch with reality. I am also cognizant of the fact that no hired employee has the same level of…

I’m my experience it is up to the entire team or organization to cultivate such an environment. I do agree, it has to start somewhere.

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#169

I think a major point missing in amongst the discussion so far, and one that's causing a lot of crosstalk is whether you should even be apologising at all. For example. Progressives are widely known for their enthusiastic use of forcing people into public apologies for perceived crimes against the faith or for not acquiescing to unreasonable demands which can then be framed as a perceived wrong. I think a lot of the…

There are striking similarities between modern progressivism/wokeness and various church clergy throughout the ages. I'm glad you made that connection.

[deleted]

Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public

#170
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble handling others’ mistakes if I’ve corrected them before, they acknowledged the mistake, but they keep doing them. What am I supposed to do with people who won’t learn from their mistakes (in the workplace)? I’m directly affected by them as they increase my workload, so I can’t just ignore them.

I recently had a coworker point out to me a grammatical error I keep repeating, flush vs flesh, that he had reminded me of a year ago. I recently pointed out to a different coworker some whitespace inconsistency in a pull request in a similar fashion as I had pointed out a while back. In digging deeper into both situations where I was the reporter or the reportee, the issue came down to legitimate lack of agreement o…

Yea, unless you're professional writers, and I don't mean coders, that's not the right kind of things to focus on in pull requests. I mean, if someone happens to be great at code but really terrible at English, like you can't imagine they passed high school grammar, maybe it's a good idea to help them improve. But the average college educated developer writes well enough to write succinct and readable code comments and documentation. Or should be able to.
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