This is a nice outline for making one's own mistake.
How do you all approach telling another when another are making a mistake? Usually the other person may get defensive or a conflict may arise.
So you've made a mistake and it's public
211–220 of 403 posts
Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I find it helpful when writing apology posts ... How many apology posts do you write? Why would you need to write any? I don't understand why any apology needs to be public.
I ran a game company. There are lots of occasions where we made a change the players didn't like, or we screwed up in a way that led to economic damage to some players, or just had an operational issue that led to a bunch of downtime. Here is a random example of onee of these. https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2603061/page/1
Your apology posts are excellent and you deserve the positive response you get on them.
Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
To preface, we're talking about people with jackasses-tendencies here. Normal, well-adjusted people don't like to make their colleagues feel bad. But as you say, it's also been my experience that apology and... "ownership"(?) are two very different things in American (Southern) culture. "I'm sorry I did X" seems to signal weakness and invite criticism, if people are already so inclined. "I did X. It wasn't the best a…
As a Canadian, I was quick to realize that the mere word "sorry" has a different meaning to some people down south. In Canada I'll just say it casually to mean a polite "hope I'm not troubling you" or "sorry that happened to you", and never thought of it as immediately declaring responsibility let alone fragility. But in the US, I've been pounced on for a casual use of that word, as if I'd announced failure and that…
As a Canadian, you're missing out on the other critical half of the 'sorry'.
You step on my foot. I look at you, and say "sorry", and pull my foot away. You abashedly also "sorry" and we move on.
Am I apologizing? Hardly! The full sentence is, "Sorry, did you just actually step on my foot, what the hell?" and your reply is "Sorry, yes, I did do that, didn't mean to, apologies". Then the problem is solved and we move on.
> But in the US, I've been pounced on for a casual use of that word, as if I'd announced failure and that I owed something to the other party.
It is precisely the opposite in circumstances like the above!
Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Progressives are widely known for things like increasing the minimum wage, expanding access to health care, or legalizing drugs. I've never heard progressives pushing for forced public apologies.
AFAIK, Cortes is a Progressive[0], and a congressperson, which puts her in a position of power. She encouraged her supporters to create a list of Trump supporters so they can be denied employment in the future[1]. Jennifer Rubin, likely also a Progressive[2], said: “any [Republican] now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the will of voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should nev…
maybe baseless allegations of fraud exceeds the domain of "So you've made a mistake"
Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public
#215Earlier 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…
Even when we learn from a mistake it may still happen in the future. Hopefully we have reduced its frequency but it can still happen.
For example, I sometimes write "too be honest…". I've known it is wrong for decades, but occasionally am still not able to see it. Still happens about one out of every fifth time.
Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gospel of Matthew, chapter 18: If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat…
If he refuses to listen even to the church, then forgive him anyway.
This passage isn’t as much about forgiveness as correction. You are supposed to forgive no matter what (77 times). But this is if someone is doing wrong and needs to be corrected. If no matter what they will not stop their bad behavior then depending on how serious it is they cannot be allowed to keep being a part of the community.
Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
To preface, we're talking about people with jackasses-tendencies here. Normal, well-adjusted people don't like to make their colleagues feel bad. But as you say, it's also been my experience that apology and... "ownership"(?) are two very different things in American (Southern) culture. "I'm sorry I did X" seems to signal weakness and invite criticism, if people are already so inclined. "I did X. It wasn't the best a…
As a Canadian, I was quick to realize that the mere word "sorry" has a different meaning to some people down south. In Canada I'll just say it casually to mean a polite "hope I'm not troubling you" or "sorry that happened to you", and never thought of it as immediately declaring responsibility let alone fragility. But in the US, I've been pounced on for a casual use of that word, as if I'd announced failure and that…
As a Briton, I sympathise. It's easy to say and then feel foolish by the reaction of the counter-party - that you've made something bigger of it than it is, or that you've inadvertently (been considered to having had) admitted guilt to something serious!
'Sorry' to me ranges from 'Excuse me', through 'ha-ha we both reached for that/side-stepped in the same direction at the same time', all the way of course to the serious 'I regret and apologise for what I have done' that it (solely) means elsewhere.
On the flip side though, American's are constantly telling me that I'm 'so welcome' when they don't mean it (or perhaps because they're used to 'thank you' having similar infrequency and sincerity to 'sorry'?) - so I think we're even. :)
Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public
#218The number of people in this thread arguing that apologies can only make things worse is shocking. Are these the same people who reject addressing war crimes with truth and reconciliation, and instead advocate "deny everything, make counteraccusations"? A proper apology—one that (1) acknowledges the specific harm caused, (2) acknowledges responsibility and remorse for specific choices, (3) explains how they hope to m…
IMO 'truth and reconciliation' should just focus on 'truth'.
We don't owe war criminals reconciliation, but they owe us the truth.
Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a Canadian, I was quick to realize that the mere word "sorry" has a different meaning to some people down south. In Canada I'll just say it casually to mean a polite "hope I'm not troubling you" or "sorry that happened to you", and never thought of it as immediately declaring responsibility let alone fragility. But in the US, I've been pounced on for a casual use of that word, as if I'd announced failure and that…
As a Canadian, you're missing out on the other critical half of the 'sorry'. You step on my foot. I look at you, and say "sorry", and pull my foot away. You abashedly also "sorry" and we move on. Am I apologizing? Hardly! The full sentence is, "Sorry, did you just actually step on my foot, what the hell?" and your reply is "Sorry, yes, I did do that, didn't mean to, apologies". Then the problem is solved and we move…
> Am I apologizing? Hardly! The full sentence is, "Sorry, did you just actually step on my foot, what the hell?"
At least in the UK, that's not the full sentence, or it could be, but only with a change in tone ('SOrrY?!') - to me it's more like 'Oops my foot was in your way I think, so sorry'. (Said of course before you have a chance to think 'no hang on, I wasn't in the way, you weren't looking, this isn't my fault'.)
Re: So you've made a mistake and it's public
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine there's a special extra level of problems that apply when the apology reinforces someone's stereotypical views of the apologizer based on the group they appear to be part of, whether those views are held consciously or unconsciously, which makes especially problematic. Most of those attributes or not readily obvious in an online forum, but some are based on pronoun and/or name (mainly gender and nationality…
It was a homeschooling/parenting list. Those tend to skew female and this one did. Though the reality is that I have never been on an email list that was mostly female membership that wasn't poisoned by sexism. There is inevitably one or two men who have figured out how to participate in the discussion without the entire group wanting their head on a pike and you can't disagree with these men because a zillion women…
I noticed in this comment that you spent a lot of time talking about yourself and specifically praising yourself and your contributions to this community. Having no other insight other than what you are providing me, it seems like you tend to make yourself the center of discussion and honestly, you come across as high-ego. People like that are often polarizing in communities and tend the shift the conversation from "what" to "who". Perhaps the best practice would be to learn to make your point without personalizing it so much.