> 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 them to insist they have not made a mistake.)
I especially appreciate this. Far too often I see people reacting to people's mistakes with anger and hostility, instead of first trying to 1) understand the situation, and 2) help the person who made the mistake (if there even was one) understand the mistake.
The funny thing is, if you ponder for a while, you'll realize you'd have done some similar mistakes. But such reflection requires being honest to oneself and setting aside/rising above one's ego and doing an unbias reflection for few moments. Then a spontaneous smile will light up your face and unconsciously somewhere you've broken some string of ego otherwise holding you tightly all through your life.
Indeed. Whenever I get cut off on the freeway, I try to remember the times when I accidentally cut someone off but had no way to express "Oops, sorry!"
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 confidence I needed to go open source (within the company, not public internet). Being completely open about everything and accepting critique publicly really helped me grow as a developer to also be open to others. I wonder if I would have made the same transformation if I was only critiqued in private.
Bugs are not critiques. Working in software development, you learn extremely quickly that everyone writes bugs, and there is nothing to be embarrassed about. The openness of issue trackers even helps elevate that.
On the other hand, it's not normal and not often practiced to go digging to see whose mistake introduced a bug and call them out in public on it - that would be what shouldn't be done at all.
Not only (technical) bugs are reported, but also design decisions and such. A lot of those things often come down to difference in opinion. I've seen some developers be really adamant about how a bug was actually a feature.
> The openness of issue trackers even helps elevate that.
I agree partly. For me it helped see things different and make a positive growth. But I can image some staying afraid to enter or be deterred really quick never coming back.
>> This follows the "praise in public, punish in private" maxim.
So like the previous poster said. I am wondering if Github et al. should not contain a private channel.
I have a email on my Github page. And besides spammers I sometimes get questions regarding my projects. I don't know if it is due to people not understanding Github that well[0] or wanting to contact privately[1]. But for some reason they didn't open a public issue[2].
[0] I've met a lot of technical people that just are afraid of Github because it is complex. Electrical engineers, mechanics, embedded engineers. People I figure would understand software development concepts.
[1] Asking a stupid question publicly could also count toward making a public mistake depending on how secure someone feels about themselves.
[2] There is of course also the discussion if issues should be your projects helpdesk next to being an bug tracker. And raising an 'issue' for something that might just be a question might feel strange for some.
> I've seen some developers be really adamant about how a bug was actually a feature.
And sometimes they are feature, and it's the users that are mistaken on what the project they are using is offering them. It's a fine line, I'm sure, but different projects have different goals, and those goals will align to a specific user's needs differently depending on the user.
> So like the previous poster said. I am wondering if Github et al. should not contain a private channel.
It might depend quite a bit on the project. In an open source project with many contributors, there isn't really any meaning to "private" other than "limited to a subgroup of the people that care", and those people may have little to nothing with the design and implementation of the items in question. In a project that is mostly driven by one author that controls it and accepts some patches, that might be a lot different, and criticism may be received differently.
There's a whole spectrum there, and even if you provide the tools to allow different types of contact, what's to prevent people from using the wrong tool most the time? Rust, PHP, Perl, Bind, Apache etc aren't going to benefit much for a private list for first contact of regular bugs, but people would use it. Meanwhile someone's random personal project is still going to get people making public requests even if they prefer them private. In the end, I think we're all better served by a "public by default" for open source stuff, and for things people feel is actually private (security related items, for example), they'll look up a private contact or personal contact for someone related.
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.
I contributed to launching a few products. After countless hours of design debates, code writing, code review, the baby was finally ready to see the world ... but nobody cared. Not even a drive-by troll bothered writing "this is completely useless".
My Motto: "That product sucks, but wow! It made it on the shelf."
I think though there are still some elements, there is also a difference between genuine mistakes (bugs) and "knowing the wrong thing, and choosing to do so".
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 him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.
Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
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.
On the one hand, they were a cultural byword for a morally degraded profession at the time. "Tax collectors and prostitutes" is a phrase that comes up not infrequently in the gospels, and not just out of Jesus' mouth
So apparently the practice of tax collecting was a little weird in the Roman Empire.
On the other hand, he was known for having dinner with tax collectors and prostitutes. One of his 12 disciples was a tax collector.
You have to keep in mind that the way tax collection worked in that area at the time is that it was contracted out by the state. The contractor needed to deliver some amount of money to the state, and empowered to gather money from people; the difference between what they gathered and what they delivered to the state was their profit.
Tax collectors operating within this incentive structure were not likely to be very likable.
And just to drive the point home, the tax policy that this caused was occasionally literally genocidal, in the most strict meaning of the word.
This was possible because it was a slave society, and it was possible for the tax collector to collect your children into slavery in lieu of unpaid taxes. In some areas in Anatolia, which were close to the border of the empire and thus had a significant military presence that the tax collectors could fall back on, so the local population had no possibility to push back, entire societies were ended because the Roman publicans collected all children once they reached the age where they could be profitably sold (circa ~10 years or so, and sold usually to sexual slavery), and did so for long enough that the populations collapsed, never recovered, and were eventually replaced by other populations transplanted from elsewhere in the empire. (Later, the power of the publicani was seriously curtailed, in small parts because even the Romans thought that some of their practices were abhorrent. Albeit mostly because of internal power struggles with the senator class.)
So yes, people in the provinces had plenty of reasons to hate the tax collectors.
In some places, tax collection was performed for an occupying power, e.g., the Roman empire. Hence, it was rightfully seen as "money taken away" instead of "funding public infrastructure".
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 on whether it was indeed a mistake.
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.
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.
> 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.
Do you also feel a general lack of leadership and/or authority? Many things are best resolved by bringing the hammer down, but if no one is qualified to wield it you will be wasting your life trying to protect order from chaos.
The problem to be solved is why the person doesn't learn or change when they know about the mistake, not the mistake itself.
You might start by directly asking, "Why do you keep making this mistake?" It might be because they're careless, or lazy, or maybe they really don't believe it's a mistake (they just acknowledged the mistake to get you to go away). Or maybe they just need a little help, such as automated reminders to get them to check for those mistakes.
Sadly, there are people who will not learn from either kindness and teaching, or harshness and harrassment. In the workplace, you can make an appeal to the manager, but perhaps only after discussion with coworker has failed to produce the desired results.
Ask them how you can help them not to make the same mistake again. Not knowing the specific situation makes it hard to offer specific advice, but in software there are specific tools (e.g. IDEs, linters, CIs, tests, etc.) that help people avoid known mistakes. Sometimes having better docs or specific checklist (e.g. "your bug must have these fields filled in before we can work on it") helps.
If that doesn't help, ask the manager the same - emphasizing you are not attacking the person but looking for a way to stop wasting time on correcting the same repeating mistake which adds to costs and decreases productivity. That may generate some resentment (so trying to resolve it directly first is prudent) but if you avoid framing it as a personal fault it would usually help.
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.
Kindness doesn't solve a problem. It's better to employ empathy and reassurance which aren't necessarily the same thing as kindness. It seems that is perhaps what you otherwise implied.
I think the anger and hostility usually happens when the person doesn't accept that they've made a mistake. So I think it goes both ways. If someone contacts you about a mistake, don't immediately get on the defensive. Instead, relish in the opportunity to learn.
Probably the idea that you can pretend the truth is whatever you say it is, say whatever you want, never admit a mistake, and hundreds of millions of people will still back you up and continue to trust you. As seen by the president of the US ignoring election results, and countless other things done and said by that administration and their allies.
You realize this goes both ways. There are tons and tons of election irregularities. The presidential legal team has several lawsuits that are going forward and recounts going forward. There are literally tens of thousands of dead people who have voted in areas with very small margins.
So your statement ... you're making a truth. You're saying what you want it to be, even though there is tons and tons of evidence against that point (that the main stream media is intentionally ignoring and refusing to cover).
It goes both ways and our social psyche is now fragmented.
If you say so dude, and hey I have nothing against the using the legal process as it's intended. However there really is not tons of evidence, you haven't provided a shred of evidenced, nobody anywhere has produced any credible evidence of any of this. If they had the mainstream media would be all over it because any scandal is very good for their bottom line.
And I hope you'll retract your dangerous statements once the court cases are resolved and the recounts finished and not a single state is overturned.
There are a lot of irregularities and several states have already forced hand recounts because the margins are so close.
In PA and NV, they kicked out GOP observers. Why? Even if there is no foul play, that is a terrible thing to do. It. Looks. Bad. And it's illegal. Votes need to be tallied in front of both parties. They may have invalided hundreds of thousands of votes depending on a lawsuit.
Election fraud and voter fraud are very difficult to prove. America is no stranger to it (Remember Bush v Gore and Diabold voting machines?) But I think people had some hope the system was that corrupt. They were wrong, and America is.
The lawsuits in PA regarding kicking out GOP observers have been thrown out repeatedly, at this point the Trump campaign had to drop the claims about GOP observers not being allowed in from their lawsuits. Because there is zero basis to any of it.
The margins are close enough to recount, and nobody is arguing against a legal recount. But any reasonable person also recognizes that historically recounts don't change totals by tens of thousands of votes, so it is very unlikely to matter. The Florida results in the 2000 election you mention were much much closer than any state is in 2020.
Voter fraud is not at all difficult to prove. Many studies ballots have been analyzed in excruciating detail after elections, and surely will be done again this election. Voter fraud in the US is always extraordinarily rare. So far this election, one single case has been found in PA, and it was from a Trump supporter submitting a mail in ballot for his dead mother.
I find it helpful when writing apology posts to start it by writing down the timeline of events. Don’t insert any commentary attempting to justify anything in this part, it just comes off as defensive. Instead just outline what happened though you can include the immediate cause of decisions you made.
“Because I was worried about how people would react to X I decided to do Y”
Then after that you can write all the stuff that they list in this post.
I think it helps a lot to get the audience into the same situation you where in in their minds before understanding the context of how you actually screwed up.
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.
Incident reports such as this one are incredibly valuable for understanding what went wrong and deficiencies that need to be addressed, but also what went well (e.g. point-in-time rollback as effective mitigation).
The full timeline is valuable since you can look back on it and determine what went wrong when, so you can determine what changes need to happen to prevent these same issues in the future.
One thing I find is that incident reports such as these are most useful internally, but when communicated externally, they demonstrate that you're taking the underlying issues seriously and are committed to addressing them.
You see this a lot in corporate land. Never admit a mistake because it is a liability when you're getting sued. You often see corporations offering compensation for something they did wrong while at the same time explicitly not admitting fault.
Even at the individual level you'll see advice like "never talk to the cops" because it could possibly be used against you in the future.
I think it is mostly about ego.
In my country, lawsuits stemming from errors are very rare, but people would still die on random (mole)hills rather than admitting they were wrong.
I am myself very unhappy when someone points out a mistake in my texts, only in last 5 years or so I have learnt to be more relaxed about it.
This happens even in work environments where it's unlikely your coworkers will sue you. I feel like perhaps it's more about competitiveness - I've seen plenty of times people raised in US use any kind of admission of mistake as a bludgeon to get advantage, get more political capital or belittle someone elses project. I guess it's considered to be a good thing to grasp any advantage over others?
> The American abhorrence for admitting fault and/or apologizing is quite mystifying to me. It's really corrosive.
I don't accept this premise. Americans don't have a lot of the cultural baggage that leads to this. If anything, Americans are quick to admit fault and address root causes. We don't have a cultural history of beating around the bush, saving face, deferring to elders who are clearly wrong, etc. Individual exceptions abound, but I think on the whole Americans are ready to admit fault most of the time.
The US is also a massive country comprised of isolated and distinct subcultures, with a much more dramatic urban/rural split than denser regions. An acceptable apology in one part of the US is a thinly veiled insult in another.
Mistake 0 is assuming there's an "American abhorrence" or a tendency held by "Americans on the whole". It's difficult for any American, much less anyone outside of America, to have interacted with each of its distinct, and often wildly divergent, subcultures to find a genuine common thread.
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.
You will look bad even if you admit the mistake. But admitting to a mistake is good – assuming people already know about the mistake, it's good press to do so. (Especially if you're revealing the mistake to them, when they haven't already seen the mistake; if half of your mistakes are “oh, I messed up”, versus the same number of mistakes but they come out in newspapers first… which is going to look better for you?
Yes - if that is what you care about. But from what I see not so many people in the world care about "good". They just "want more".
For example, when a customer reports a problem, and I admit that there is a bug and explain a workaround some of them will say: "you have buggy software, bla bla I will use Google". But if you say: "Strange. This might some very strange setup issue - here is the workaround" - no problem.
Of course, some of our customers love honesty but the vertical I'm working in, honesty is not a thing.
Not sure why this is downvoted when its apropos. ^Trumps behavior is an effective counter example to the evolved list of rules, wikipedia puts forth as good autocratic process...insofar as wikipedia is more autocratic than communal by contribution.
It worked out fine, imo. The wikipedia page isnt about a popularity contest, per se but I can follow that parallel line of thinking.
Trumps behavior hasnt changed before he was elected or after the last election. As PotUS Trumps behavior was a bit less popular than another choice (not a relative landslide like 1984, 1972, 1964, etc). Granted, the political money machines have a lot to do with spinning the viewpoint of Americans, so it is possible that the election was not a good representative model.
I dont think the 2020 is a compelling single indicator of policy effectiveness on either side.
Regardless of popularity, his strategy of denying his mistakes got him as far as the white house, which I'd say is pretty far, but probably cost him the reelection. Handling your mistakes poorly is not the end, but it does weigh you down more than otherwise. There are better strategies. That's the point.
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 policing what content should they should fit into the their volumes. Truly, it is a bureaucracy expanding to meet its own needs. One that attracts a certain group of people, who have a certain view of social interactions, that necessitates certain procedures for social interactions, giving rise to articles like this one specifically.
For the rest of us cooking up an apology from a recipe is feel insincere, an apology is a ritual sure showing how its done ruins the illusion. On a higher level this type of process-over-vision thinking has ruined the goals and ideas of Wikipedia, a site which in the 00s seemed world-changing and lead it to it's decline in the 10s and to what I predict will be its fall in the 20s.
I hope to be wrong about WP, 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.
I think it's important to draw a distinction between mediawiki, the software, and all of its associated (GPL, BSD, apache) licensed ancillary software, and the administration and content side of wikipedia.
mediawiki is used by a lot of organizations for internal wiki stuff.
That's a peculiar way to describe things. I would consider being "elitist" almost synonymous to being "toxic", and thus 4chan being about the least toxic platforms on the list of major English social media, far below Reddit, Wikipedia, Twitter, HN and so on.
I don't think Wikipedia fosters the kind of nihilistic hatred that lead to harassment campaigns and real world violence the way 4chan does. I get that not all of 4chan is pol and r9k, but that's still a decent chunk of the users. I can't think of a place on the internet with a higher concentration of incels and alt-right nazi types, besides 8chan.
Strong disagree. The vast majority of subreddits are fine. Toxicity is compartmentalized to specific subreddits, which you can very easily avoid.
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.
I also agree. I find both Twitter and Reddit to be on the most part delightful sources of information. I do have a certain self-made bubble in terms of who I follow, but it's a bubble full of creators, artists, and those that want to share what they've done in a positive way.
Exactly! Reddit's anonymity and the sheer scale of the site make bullying impossible (hard to imagine /u/subhumanbuttocks88 being victimized by /u/mandocalrissian).
> 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 kids no longer hang out with us. Hence you see a lack of youthful idealism.
The web is still the frontier, we're just interacting with it in new ways.
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.
The similarity between the HN & IH communities only runs skin deep with the use of ‘Hacker’ in their names.
Is IH are more supportive crowd? A resounding yes, but that’s because as a group it was designed as a support mechanism for people looking to earn a salary by working solo.
HN is like the opposite of IH with respect to salary: it’s maintained by a VC entity and many hackers here draw high salaries working for trillion-dollar, billion-dollar and upstart tech companies.
HN was designed to be a water cooler for stating & demolishing arguments, with the occasional cheer to YC-funded startups, so it’s not surprising there’s a lot of healthy skepticism which often comes across as cynicism.
> coming up with Kafka-esque processes to introduce to the community
Is there an example of public crowdsourced resource of the comparable to Wikipedia size which managed to generate meaningful content without such kind of processes/bureaucracy?
The Israel-Palestine wars of that time were quite something and probably deterred a good amount of people who could have produced suitable content. The conflict was handled ineptly and way too late. No surprise that many academics still won't go near Wikipedia, especially in areas involving geopolitical conflicts.
Only been a pleasant place for me. They're very anal about some rules (copyright, for instance) and that's annoying to me sometimes but overall I can't say I've been upset with any contribution experience.
> 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.
Yeah, there probably are widespread cultural problems.
Hyperbole aside, I imagine most of “the actual work” (as you say) of maintaining any open source volunteer encyclopedia for decades has got to be the community culture and processes, not any technical artifact.
If you think the work of Wikipedia is “just” the words in articles, well, this is the same mindset of everyone’s favorite debunked critique of early Dropbox.
> 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.
I might take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges maybe reload it a few times. What percent of the changes are to policy space? (the article name begins with "Wikipedia:") And what percent are to regular articles / discussion of articles (article name is normal, or begins with "Talk:").
I think you'd be surprised because the vast vast vast majority of edits are to the articles themselves.
> Perhaps the only area where editors are as zealous they are about creating obscure processes, is in policing what content should they should fit into the their volumes.
I agree, sort of. The project is absolutely massive and is a constant target of "reputation management" campaigns. They have the difficult task of managing this thing with a volunteer workforce. What else can they do except make a process for everything? There are certainly editors that revel in the process, and that's too bad. I think the admin would act if the project started going down the drain.
> the wikipedia community seems like one of the most toxic communities on the web.
That's unfair; there are plenty of even more toxic communities, you just don't hear about them as much because they're less prominent and easier to ignore or forget.
>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.
I wonder if this is natural. Those in the community who care more about just making a good encyclopedia are eventually forced out by those who are interested in power games and process. I've heard it mentioned before (I forget if it has some formal name or not) in regards to companies where the people who primarily want to prioritize the goal of the company are eventually replaced by those who primarily want to implement and navigate bureaucracy because they can outcompete them on the local level, even if the company is worse off in general.
The world needs less optimism and idealism. They lead to disappointment, burnout, and bitterness. In healthcare doctors-to-be now often receive training and education that encourages thinking in terms of small victories and approaching treatment from a palliative care perspective, specifically when doing certain rotations. The more you expect a cure or a triumph or the achievement of some utopian fantasy, the faster you will exit many specialties.
> professionalisation of even the free software community
Never heard it put like that, but it's pretty on point. The bigger changes I've seen in free software these days, all the way down to systemd, feel very corporate. People try to argue whether it's corporate or not but even that feeling when enough people feel it is detrimental to free software culture. A culture which isn't very much minded or respected by our corporate cousins.
I do not understand peoples literal obsession with grading apologies these days. I've screwed up in big ways in my life before and I had to apologize. The harder work was eventually forgiving myself so that I could move on. I cannot imagine how the expectation that someone is going to be waiting around to grade and critique my apology would weigh on me. I can't even begin to imagine the mindset of someone who engages in that kind of activity must be, what other benign or symbolic things do you question in life? What other baggage have you carried all your life and used to wallop people over the head with?
This "you owe me an apology" trend is wild. Certainly, if you screw up you should apologize if the situations suits it. Rarely are those situations so black and white though. Leaving this to the jury of the public to take sides, to form camps, and to inevitably invade with their pitchforks is the stuff that the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp controversy is fueled by. If someone has wronged you bad enough, take them to court, deal with it there, and leave it there. If things got to that point then no apology will make anything better. At that point, everyone has lost and we're just trying to maintain order.
When I see people grading apologies on Twitter (and at times here) all I see is people propagating a reason to abuse public figures and at times companies. If someone has come to the point of writing a public apology, whether you think it's for damage control or not, it takes some level of humility and self-evaluation. Maybe that triggers nothing, maybe it begets change even in some small way, and maybe it leads to some life altering conclusions. Humans are not machines and we can't just cast people out because we don't feel the vibes of someones apology. For a culture like tech that likes to comment on how terrible cast systems and social hierarchy are, we seem awful quick to throw people into an "other" category because we feel some type of way.
Personally speaking, I think people who grade apologies have a darkness of their own and that darkness begets darkness. The darkness that calls for a public apology and eagerly awaits its arrival for swift and empirical dissection is no better than the incurred darkness of the act itself.
> 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
This is one of the biggest challenges with building a self-governing online community: The people with the most time, energy, and desire to be in charge are often not the people with the most to contribute. As the bureaucracy grows, actual contributors are increasingly disincentivized from participating in the governance because it becomes such a distraction to actually producing content. At the extremes, these communities end up with highly-political community governance that spends much of their time with political maneuvering and focusing on a handful of fringe issues, while the actual content creators end up operating largely independently.
If you ignore the politicking and realize it's mostly a distraction, there's often good work still happening on the core content.
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 metaphorical equivalent of blood in the water for attracting sharks.
Maybe it's better to just ignore and maintain innocence because then at least there is some gray area? I don't know.
Surely with regards to outcomes, there's a good argument to be made that one shouldn't admit guilt. But from a more, idk idealistic perspective, the world would be a better place if everyone promptly admitted fault and committed to doing better? I personally quite liked the advice given, and wish I had held myself to it more often in the past.
I think there's definitely some truth to what you're saying, but I also wonder how much this is a problem offline, I've not encountered it heavily, but I'm also not a particularly online person.
>But from a more, idk idealistic perspective, the world would be a better place if everyone promptly admitted fault and committed to doing better?
I'm not sure about that.
I think there needs to be a distinction between a private apology to specific individuals for specific wrongs vs public apology to an undefined amorphous set of people. The former is certainly the right thing to do and it also offers hope of redemption because the wronged individual can accept the apology and forgive (or not). In the latter case, there is no acceptance, there's only the mob who wants to make an example of you because they now have 100% proof of your guilt.
Fortunately I've never found myself in a position of sufficient power/responsibility to have to offer an apology to a group. Is there a balance to be struck between the difficulty the apologizer will undoubtedly face from rage mobs and the consolation some members of the wronged group may feel from the apologizer acknowledging wrongdoing and committing to do better in the future?
I don't know that I could blame someone for avoiding a public apology, with the current nature of online harassment, but I think that's a question anyone who finds themselves in such a position should at least ask themselves. And of course, if everyone also adhered to the "What should I do when I see someone else is making a mistake?" section, then the world would be perfect and conflicts would be much more easily resolved.
"I think there needs to be a distinction between a private apology to specific individuals for specific wrongs vs public apology to an undefined amorphous set of people. The former is certainly the right thing to do and it also offers hope of redemption because the wronged individual can accept the apology and forgive (or not)."
Note that those to whom you apologize may communicate that apology to "the mob", with the result that they have proof of your guilt as well as proof of your lack of forthrightness.
In the ultimate case, if you are following your own advice, Machiavelli and my bitter cynicism suggest that not leaving live enemies behind you is the best strategy.
Yes, but do we live in that idealistic world? I would answer with a very firm no.
The world would be a lot better place if everyone did (any number of things), but perfect compliance is just never going to happen. We cannot get people to not murder each other over shoes or sports teams. Any plan which depends on this compliance is doomed to failure.
Yeah, I generally agree with you. Mostly just exploring thoughts here, the gp comment prompted a kinda unexpected re-examining of my hitherto un-examined ideas on the ethical basis of the advice in the post.
I'd generally consider myself something of a utilitarian/consequentialist, and would normally accept the premise that apologizing in front of the Twitter mob would at best do nothing positive, but for whatever reason my brain wants me to say "apologizing is right, and consequences be damned"
I think you should also examine the possibility that gp is straightforwardly wrong, and that a good apology can make things better, even (or especially) in the face of being called out on Twitter. Consider how Dan Harmon reacted to Megan Ganz calling him out on Twitter: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/11/16879702/dan-harmon-ap...
Doubtless many people have made things worse with "non-apology apologies" [1]. But your brain wants to say "apologizing is right" because when done right, it is right.
To me, truth and reconciliation are self-evidently how we build a better world, and refusal to take responsibility for mistakes is self-evidently corrosive to the individual and to society.
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.
The point of apologising isn't to avoid consequences. It's intended to mitigate three sorts of damages: that inflicted on whoever suffered because of you, the damage society experiences any time its rules are broken, and the damage you have done to yourself by breaking some moral standard you believe in.
To that end, an apology that allows s/o to "get out" as in "saw no further consequences" isn't necessarily what's being claimed, because it still needs to come with (some) costs, even if they are mostly symbolic.
And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day. A Google News search has about five dozen examples from just the last day or two[1]. If apologies are never beneficial, I doubt they would be used that often.
Apologies are also a central factor in the most formalised system of "being cancelled" we have, the criminal justice system.
As to "getting out" of "being cancelled" by "mobs" I wouldn't know since I already have trouble identifying what that's supposed to mean.
> As to "getting out" of "being cancelled" by "mobs" I wouldn't know since I already have trouble identifying what that's supposed to mean.
I have a strong suspicion that you know what I mean, you just don't want to recognize that. If you indeed know nothing about cancel culture, I envy whatever bubble you reside in, and I wish I could organize my life to never encounter it too, however it is not so for me. If you pretend not to know about it because you don't want to engage in discussion about it, well, I certainly can't force you.
> And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day.
You may find it hard to believe, but I actually know people do such thing as "apologizing". I do it myself once in a while. My question was in specific context of the comment "Agreed. Apologizing may keep the mob size small and insignificant." and related to this context, not to general act of apologizing and whether or not it is practiced in human society. I think you have missed this context and from that follows your trouble to identify what I supposed to mean. I think I made it cleared now, or at least did as much as I could to make it clear.
Oh, your first hunch was correct. I sort-of know that it means the phenomenon where Harvey Weinstein rapes a dozen women and everybody on the internet pretends that's the reason they don't want to have women on their team. Because apparently "showing up at their colleagues' hotel room doors, naked and at night" is somehow just bound to happen in the course of standard operating procedures.
Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter.
> I sort-of know that it means the phenomenon where Harvey Weinstein
I think you are confusing your imagination with reality. Nobody - and by that I mean literally, without exaggeration, no single person who lives or ever lived - ever pretended that Harvey Weinstein raping women is the reason they don't want women on their team. Not "everybody", not somebody - literally no single person is pretending or ever pretended that. Moreover, you know that as well as I do, I am certain of that (because you don't know any such person, by virtue of such person not existing). So why are you writing these obviously false words?
> Because apparently "showing up at their colleagues' hotel room doors, naked and at night" is somehow just bound to happen in the course of standard operating procedures.
I do not know who told you that (I suspect you imagined it just as you did the above) but it certainly is not the course of any operating procedures at all. None of them.
> Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter.
People who walk through cities being anti-semitic and people who complain about cancel culture are distinct sets of people whose intersection is minuscule. And you also know it. Also, cancel culture is not complaining on Twitter about somebody marching somewhere, and you also know it too. Again, you are writing words which both you and everybody reading them knows are false. What for?
Oh yeah they do. And while canceled guys ressurect their careers pretty regularly, their victims don't.
It is not like actresses who lost careers because they refused Weinstein could ever get their careers back. And it is not like those who complain about securely harassment cold easily get new jobs - people are afraid to hire them.
> Denying that you have made a mistake is likely to piss off the people who would otherwise be willing to move on.
Which is why you don't deny it either; you move on, avoiding the Streisand Effect as best as possible by not engaging. It's passive denial vs. active denial.
I'm not saying this is moral or good - I'm only saying that it seems to work for people. It's a question of game theory. We can get better apologies if we start to accept apologies and move on with our lives, but the mob wants blood and these days the public apology only serves as an admission of guilt, absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb.
There will always be people who disagree with you, and who will continue to make public attacks on you. They're not the ones you are apologizing to, or for. Pretending you did not make an error will eventually catch up to you, in the opinions of those who would view an apology to your credit and in the fact that it leads to you making more mistakes and not correcting them.
"...absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb."
That's a little excessively dramatic, don't you think?
Then you risk being considered as though you explicitly denied it anyway - and the choice as to when and whether we move on is not so often yours to make alone. Do this sort of thing too often with the same people, and you are likely to get a reputation as untrustworthy - someone who might cover up a problem until it is discovered by others.
In the current "us vs them" of politics, apologizing does nothing to appease "them" while making you seem weaker to "us" and denying it means you will be given the benefit of the doubt by "us."
If e.g. Kavanaugh had admitted assaulting Ms. Ford and apologized, do you think enough Democrats would have said "Apology accepted" and voted to confirm to make up for the Republicans who would be unwilling to vote to confirm someone who has admitted to sexual assault? As long as Kavanaugh denies it, everyone who votes for him can just publicly say that they believed his denial, whether or not they actually did believe it.
I think we are considering the situation where a mistake was made. I don't think the Kavanaugh situation applies - depending on your views on it, it is either situation of cynical rapist and hardcore liar, thoroughly corrupt evil man, denying his crimes, or an innocent man being falsely accused in a vile crime. In both situations, apology wouldn't solve anything.
Item #0 from TFA is "that there is no point in pretending you have not made a mistake." Both the GP comment and myself are disputing this fact. I think it's odious to do so, but there absolutely is a point in doing so.
As far as Kavanaugh, obviously none of this applies if he is not-guilty, because few advocate apologizing for things you didn't do. However:
There are a lot of middle-aged adults who did terrible things when they were teenagers. Among those, the ones who own up and apologized are excluded from many positions of power, while those that deny it are included.
So for this particular subset of the population, we punish the best, reward the worst, and incentivize any fence-sitters to lie. Perhaps it's a bit OT, but something is clearly broken here.
> Among those, the ones who own up and apologized are excluded from many positions of power, while those that deny it are included.
That depends on the level of power the said adult has accumulated. We've witnessed people who were persecuted for most minor transgressions, and people who were forgiven for very major things (e.g. credible rape accusations, being an officer in the KKK, being a member of a terrorist organization, being in prison for murder while being a member of a terrorist organization, etc. etc.). That, of course, needs very powerful position and very powerful friends - which none of us likely has.
Well, you do have something of a point here: if you have done something that is illegal or widely regarded as reprehensible, then it is usually in your best interests to deny it - but it is quite obvious that the article we're all nominally discussing here is not about such situations.
I also find it interesting how the issue of admitting to making mistakes is being conflated with apologizing. While they are related, there is an important difference: a person who will never apologize is merely immature, while one who never admits to making mistakes might be a dangerous liability to himself and others, and is unfit for positions of responsibility.
Apology for sexual assault really does not mean I will be ok with someone who did it on the most powerful judicial position.
I mean, it is absurd expectation. Apology does not even absolve you if minor crime in legal system. Plus, Supreme Court has great only little checked power. I just don't see someone willing to use power that way as suitable, even if he apologized.
I didn't say people should forgive Kavanaugh, I said they wouldn't. Therefore denying it does have a point, directly contradicting the beginning of the article that states that there is no point denying it.
I think I understand where you're coming from, but I see the "never apologize" philosophy as having an utterly corrosive effect on the person who made a mistake.
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.
Admittedly, this can be a problematic situation, especially when part of the original mistake was speaking about something employment related without being a spokesperson for said employer. Another problematic situation can be if the mistake involves actual illegal acts. In those cases, discretion (omitting the apology or keeping it to an absolute minimum) may indeed be the better part of valor.
But even in those situations, I see absolutely no upside in publicly denying your mistake at length, if in fact you've made one.
I think people in this thread are talking at cross-purposes.
On the one hand, you have the people who are talking about when you genuinely make a mistake, and recognize it as such before public outcry.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have people that maybe feel that they were acting / talking / behaving in a way that is normal but are being told that they made a mistake. In these circumstances, there is usually the issue that the nature of the mistake is quite subjective.
In the former case, your strategy is probably a good one. In the latter, I think the "don't apologize" is probably the better way to go, for the reasons outlined by GC.
> No. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as Judge Brandeis observed. Proper handling of mistakes is a sterling quality in anyone, and particularly important in a leader or public servant of any kind. It pays long-term dividends.
The best course of action in public apology that includes potential mobs running rampant is to wait.
If possible, do not immediately make any statement and if in a organization, make an "we are investigating" response. Most mobs are moved by emotions and herd mentality so just being silent for a while can disperse the worst of the mobs.
Make an thorough apology (like the guideline here) later.
Most internet mobs just move on to the next totem pole to burn in days so this seems to work (and is indeed how a lot of companies respond if they can't just fire someone and get over it)
A real mob, such as campus students can be a bit more troublesome.
Let's pretend for a minute that you have a conscience and feel bad about the effects of the mistake---not just the effects of having the mistake discovered. What if you have harmed someone you cared about? Would you still apply the strategy you are advocating?
Perhaps apologies do "serve as a license for the mob to further punish". Even so, what is the result to your life or to an organization of doing what you suggest?
I kind of skip apologies now and either look at changed behavior or set up some reminder to check for changed behavior.
This is legally because apologies from companies are so full of doublespeak and low value language that it’s a waste of my time to read, much less expect any understanding. Here’s an example from Pichai [0].
I do like the outage report style that some companies use [1] and think this is the way to repeat a problem and what you do to fix it. This takes the place of an apology or denial.
There's only one rule for apologizing: You apologize if you actually believe that you've done wrong. NEVER apologize for something you believe was done correctly or in good faith or for "PR" or whatever else.
Not listening to this advice is 100% the reason why people don’t trust a lot of public apologies: too many people/companies “apologizing” by saying “I’m sorry you got mad” or “I’m sorry you found out about this”. If you apologize, mean it. If you don’t mean it, don’t apologize.
Every time a person/company apologizes for getting caught, it demeans public trust in everyone’s apologies.
I think only you can answer that question. Part of a good apology is knowing one-self and self-reflection. Unintended consequences happen, yes, and I don't think one could argue one way is always the right answer in all cases. Just remember rule 1 and that is _you_ that is giving the apology.
The problem is the "good faith" bit ... that often isn't visible downstream, and to external stakeholders it looks like you are making excuses.
For example, if I make a commitment to somebody and then circumstances outside my control prevent me from fulfilling it, I may very well say "it's not my fault, apologising would be insincere". But to an external stakeholder what they see is they are wearing consequences and I am not accepting accountability. There are a million shades of gray according to how much I could / should have anticipated the eventuality ... but that makes it really not simple to make this kind of call, and I would have to say, if you are going to err, I would rather err on the side of apologising than not.
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 security, and it troubles me.
Apologizing is a good leadership strategy regardless of standing IMO. It shows that you are human which can help one gain and maintain report with fellow workers.
If others are looking for any reason to get rid of you, it might put them in a better position to pull the trigger. Obviously that doesn't describe the vast majority of situations though.
Strong disagree. I want to follow someone who knows when not to apologize: when it’s _not_ their/our mistake, when assigning blame doesn’t help, and when they’re fighting for us.
I will also agree with you accepting makes only weaker. Nowadays, being cool in the team means troll others and joke about your mistakes or put it under the carpet. When someone agrees for mistake and apologies for doing that it gives trolls food for the next year. This post says the right thing to do from book theory. I have tried this. it doesn't work in practical terms. I want opinion from troll camp (who have done trolling others for making mistakes)
Public apologies, therefore, are the metaphorical equivalent of blood in the water for attracting sharks.
What are some examples of public apologies that met all 5 of these criteria [1], but made things worse rather than better? Would you consider the possibility that maybe the apologies that made things worse were actually done wrong, but they could have helped if they were done right?
More generally, apologies, restorative justice, truth and reconciliation, and related ideas seem to me like the obvious and only way to we can heal from injustice in our society. Refusing to admit fault seems obviously corrosive to society, and to a person's ego.
[Edit: man, I feel stupid for complaining about downvotes, but I am really not sure how I could have been more constructive with my disagreement in this comment. I cited examples, suggested an alternative explanation for observations my parent described, and didn't criticize anyone. What did I do wrong? I am ready and willing to apologize if I made any mistakes]
This is a great apology. Of course, he was wrong. Very wrong. But, I think there is one power dynamic that's missing in the entire #metoo discussion.
The power advantage that young women have on men; due to evolutionary pressures. Harmon didn't mean to be attracted to her. It happened.
I know biology isn't important in 2020. But I listened to his apology and realized that the human nature discussion is never part of this situation.
Ted Chiang's "liking what you see a documentary" is a good case study of a world where attraction's turned off. As a woman, I sometimes think we aren't empathic enough about how attraction works in men. It doesn't mean they are excused for sexual harassment. I just think evolutionary pressures should be part of the discussion.
Well, that depends on a situation. If you're in an environment where people are united by a common goal and assume good faith, then admitting you done goofed up (when you did) is the best way - everybody knows you realized your mistake and will try to do better, and people can move on - and usually will be glad to offer you to help fixing it. And they'd know they can count on you to own up to your mistakes - so they'd be ready to listen if you say something isn't a mistake.
If you are in a "cancel culture" situation, then people that surround you are not you friends, and they do not have common goals with you. You can not win. Best thing is to get out of that situation ASAP, if you can not - minimize your losses in any way you can. And continue looking to get out of this situation, because you can not win, and you will surely lose sooner or later. Try to still be kind to others - you won't fix the broken culture, but at least you can have a little island of non-awfulness around you.
A side effect of everyone getting 15 minutes of fame/infamy is that it means an increasing fraction of social interactions are one-shot. Often, the only time you will ever hear about someone is when they do something dumb that catches the Twitter zeitgeist. Once the moment has passed, they fade from view.
The optimal strategy for iterated prisoner's dilemma where you will interact with an opponent multiple times involves some level of fairness and give and take. The optimal strategy for single-turn prisoner's dilemma is to assume bad faith and selfishly betray your opponent.
One of the bosses I had at a big bank told me the one thing she observed about successful people was that they never got hung up on mistakes. If they made a mistake, they just moved on as if it didn't happen, but would apologize if you asked sincerely one on one.
I think that's a pretty good middle ground. Apologizing too readily might also signal you lack self-respect or confidence which may invite even more vitriol.
I like how everybody is talking about cancel culture without saying the words. We’re at a point where it’s definitely not just the right complaining about it.
Jeffrey Toobin: "I was fired today by @NewYorker after 27 years as a Staff Writer. I will always love the magazine, will miss my colleagues, and will look forward to reading their work,"
Just wankin' it in front of your coworkers during a meeting nbd cancel culture run amok! If you aren't okay with me wankin' it in front of you, sweetie, you're not cut out for this business.
I think about the worst public mistake I've made, multiply the panic and embarrassment by about 1000x, and that maybe starts to approximate what must have gone through Toobin's mind when he heard his colleagues calling out to him on the Zoom video. First, the confusion -- "why is everyone calling out my name all of the sudden?". Then he shifts his attention back to the conference... "there's no way they saw me". Then "How did they see me!??!?". Then "can I deny this?" Then eventually... "I think my life is ruined." How do you look someone in the eye again, when you know they know? His life over in an instant, all because he misjudged the line-of-sight from his camera (while making the horrible decision to "relax" while on a work call). One slip, and his world collapsed.
Most of us skate right up to the edge of disaster on a daily basis, and aren't even aware of it. One distraction and you forget you had something frying in the kitchen; or you crash your car; or you reply-all by mistake; or you bitch about your boss on the team-wide Slack channel instead of the 1:1 channel you thought you were on.
It's funny to see this just now. I've started contributing quite a bit to Wikidata as part of some work that uses it as a data source, and it's really the first time in more than a decade that I work in an environment where my work gets public scrutiny.
Shame is a really strong emotion for me, and I feel terrible when anyone spots a mistake. At one point, I left the site and didn't return for three days because I saw there was a notification for me. Which turned out to be positive feedback.
I feel far worse about my own mistakes than about those of others.
What I don't get is people doubling down on obvious mistakes. Show some contrition and your standing will net benefit from you screwing something up. Trust me on this: I'm German and we have made that principle semi-official government philosophy. Whenever I see, say, Turkish nationalists deny the Armenian genocide, or Polish wikipedia deleting articles about local anti-semitic incidents, I wonder if they seriously believe their actions won't make them look both guilty and somewhat stupid.
Oh, while we're at it: Only by participating have I learnt what a vast enterprise the whole of Wikimedia actually is, and how almost all of it is open to the public. It's the only non-profit organisation at FAANG-scale (except Amazon I guess), and you might want to check out, for example, what Graphana looks like at scale: https://grafana.wikimedia.org/d/000000605/datacenter-global-...
If you make an honest mistake on, say, WikiData, nobody should jump down your throat. That's not productive and the context is one where some degree of empathy should be expected. It's a commons. And trust me, I know how internet nerds can be on a commons - internet nerds that often get things very wrong in their criticisms but will swear and yell at you while leveling them.
That context is important. The goal that I hope we all want to push for a data commons is a productive shared environment. But when it becomes narrative or editorials, now there are very serious political and scholarly issues at work and popular narratives are frequently self-sustaining via institutional norms. You can cite hundreds of documents and publications for a popular liberal (like lib dem) narrative even if it's no better supported than a position published by an esoteric scholar in Maine and win any arguments about which should be included in the definitive encyclopedia entry on the topic and which should be quietly shoved aside. Even disagreements listed in these pages tend to be relatively popular narratives that are not particularly disagreeable to those in power, or have become popular enough despite that opposition and are the exception.
Turkish nationalists denying the Armenian genocide on Wikipedia will be drowned out by process: the dominant media and scholarly narratives (which are roughly correct). But what would we see on a page about Evo Morales back in October 2019? Would we not see the repeated dishonest narratives and headlines of the New York Times? In fact, we would: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evo_Morales&oldid.... No contextualization, just the implication that the NYT narratives are a good resource. And here is the closest snapshot in time to that wiki page: https://web.archive.org/web/20191112031842/https://www.nytim...
In short, mistakes should always be contextualized by the roles of those involved, the goals sought (and hopefully shared), and a desire to get at the truth even if it's uncomfortable.
Don't get me wrong, but, although I might entirely agree with what this page says, it's an opinion (as they state) and I kinda liked the idea that this foundation had no place for opinions.
If this mistake happens in the business context, commit to a root cause analysis, perform such with all involved parties and stakeholders, use a methodology such as Toyota’s Five Whys, identify areas for improvement, share your report, and resolve issues in a timely manner.
The above will not only improve your processes so failures are less likely, it will also demonstrate a commitment to quality and improvement to all observers.
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 curious, what kind of mistake are you envisioning in this scenario?
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.
I see. So people should not apologize for things they definitely did wrong because of situations where you feel other people have apologized and didn’t need to?
Point out where I said people should never apologise, do it now.
You asked.
> I'm curious, what kind of mistake are you envisioning in this scenario?
In reference to.
> harassing someone for some perceived infraction
And I just gave you one.
But if we're playing the Cathy-Newman so-you're-saying game I notice you have a lot of opposition to free speech posts; what is it about these views historically literally held by Nazis that you find yourself in agreement with?
Something that I would include with the apology part (the text may have covered this and I missed it) is that apologies don't have but's.
"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.
> These elements are required for your acknowledgement to be also valid as apology, see Apology#Which elements should be included in an apology for the details.
> When the offender takes full responsibility for one's wrongdoing, a simple statement saying "I am sorry." may help build the trust. This is particularly true if there is a story of good relationship with the offender; In most cases however, it will be insufficient.
It doesn't explicitly address "I'm sorry, but..." phrasing, but does suggest limiting apologies to specifically acknowledging what was done (and the pain it caused), accepting responsibility, and expressing regret.
> Understand that there is no point in pretending you have not made a mistake; pretending you have not made a mistake will make you look bad.
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?
Step 0 is admirable. I've come across business cultures where people got ahead (really!) by "outrunning their mistakes." Lots of rapid promotions and job transfers, leaving messes behind them -- and then blaming problems on their inept successors, or other saboteurs, etc. No accepting of responsibility.
Most of those places eventually go bust, but they can ruin a lot of people's lives before the final collapse happens.
Step 3.2 feels forced and a little Orwellian. Even something as hazy as invoking "bad judgment" -- and leaving the scene -- is often sufficient, at least at first. If errant people need a bit more time to process reality's sudden slap in the face, I'm in favor of giving it to them.
Eventually a lot of them do reach a fuller understanding. Or they redeem themselves in other ways. In the right settings, a little bit of mercy can be very powerful
I find this very funny. You have made a mistake? then starts this algorithm and you are all done !
> that you are sorry about the harm/damage/waste/confusion your mistake caused (being specific would demonstrate understanding);
I have big problem with apologizes, you don't owe apologies because you made a mistake, apologizing will not change anything, you can easily not feel the apologies you are making.
The form of words of an apology is extremely important. The worst form (in my personal opinion) is the qualified apology as in IF I have offended I apologize. It questions the need, it implies that its open to doubt.
The doubt is sometimes valid, as it might not seem (or in fact be) reasonable for the offended party to be offended. If person A says something that person B takes offense at, but person A had no intention of being offensive, _and_ it is not obvious (or rational) why B is offended, then it makes sense to offer "if what I said offended you, I apologize". That's polite and considerate.
For me, it's the least acceptable level, it's lowest common denominator least-worst choice. In public life, it has become the first choice goto form. I believe its driven by two forces: lawyer and insurance company "never concede" drives, which are at best asocial, and an underlying belief on the part of the apologist they did no wrong.
If an apology is genuine, heartfelt, it requires no qualifications. If it is qualified something is not reconciled.
I agree that in hypothesis, an issue could be moot or open, but do you really think this predominates?
I am by the way a serial offender and a serial apologiser. I know from bitter experience how hard it can be to accept fault and apologise for hurt caused.
* Step 3 is probably a bad idea, if any attention is being paid to "the individual people/entity affected".
* Step 4b is a bad idea; it has too great a possibility of re-raising the issue.
* Steps 5, 6, and 7 are completely optional and probably not recommended. If Step 4a worked, keep in mind that the strategy you have got you where you are.
* Given the above, Step 2 is a waste of time.
This message brought to you by the International Society of Misanthropes.
Step 6 and 7 are absolutely crucial. People not accepting blame (even privately to themselves) and never changing is even worse than people aggressively and publicly demanding apologies for wrongdoing.
Crucial to society. It's in the best interest of the accused that other people implement steps 6 and 7. And so realistically they ought to be implementing them too.
My point is that we shouldn't just be looking out for our interests. We should be working co-operatively to look out for everybody's interests. Ultimately this benefits ourselves too, but that's not why we should do it.
I think the current system is broken. We should be trying to align our incentives. Urging people to act against their own self-interests is self-defeating.
I think you're thinking about a very particular kind of mistake. However, for mistakes that are not hitting headlines, the original list from the article actually works. Specially for technical mistakes. I haven't been in a position that I had to go silent about my mistakes, which makes me happy. After admitting my mistakes I feel much lighter.
There are different degrees of public reaction. One thing is to admit a mistake in a public mailing list for an open source project or even in a blog post that were front page of this very forum. It's still a public/external reaction. However, it's a lot different than when you are a public figure and a mistake you made is the cover page of major newspapers. I think that, in those sort of situations, a more tactical approach may be desired, rather than a personal one.
I think I'd agree, especially with regards to the article's Step 3.
Admitting fault can open one to liability (sometimes legally). Although perhaps it depends on how one defines a mistake versus, say, an outright fault that people could find morally wrong.
An example that's not perfect (and I'm not arguing/defending one way or another) is Louis CK with the #metoo movement.
It seemed to me that his response was sincere and correct on the personal level. He acknowledged those he'd wronged, made clear the victims were in the right, apologized, and expressed a desire to improve his behavior. For all that, he was demonized.
To some extent, it felt like people were saying: "My god, you admitted it. You're worse than Harvey Weinstein - at least he had the decency to deny his actions."
Wikimedia is probably insulated in enough of its own groupthink to get away with their list. In the cannibal crab bucket of the real world, this list is way more practical.
> people want retribution, not justice
This. People desperately want to feel like they championed a cause, and the cheapest way to get that kick is by demanding your head on a platter on Twitter.
> People desperately want to feel like they championed a cause, and the cheapest way to get that kick is by demanding your head on a platter on Twitter.
Some people I had the displeasure of interacting with suddenly feel more ordinary. Thank you.
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[ 0.28 ms ] story [ 295 ms ] thread> 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 them to insist they have not made a mistake.)
I especially appreciate this. Far too often I see people reacting to people's mistakes with anger and hostility, instead of first trying to 1) understand the situation, and 2) help the person who made the mistake (if there even was one) understand the mistake.
A little kindness goes a long way.
[Edit: formatting]
We all get it wrong sometimes.
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 confidence I needed to go open source (within the company, not public internet). Being completely open about everything and accepting critique publicly really helped me grow as a developer to also be open to others. I wonder if I would have made the same transformation if I was only critiqued in private.
On the other hand, it's not normal and not often practiced to go digging to see whose mistake introduced a bug and call them out in public on it - that would be what shouldn't be done at all.
Not only (technical) bugs are reported, but also design decisions and such. A lot of those things often come down to difference in opinion. I've seen some developers be really adamant about how a bug was actually a feature.
> The openness of issue trackers even helps elevate that.
I agree partly. For me it helped see things different and make a positive growth. But I can image some staying afraid to enter or be deterred really quick never coming back.
>> This follows the "praise in public, punish in private" maxim.
So like the previous poster said. I am wondering if Github et al. should not contain a private channel.
I have a email on my Github page. And besides spammers I sometimes get questions regarding my projects. I don't know if it is due to people not understanding Github that well[0] or wanting to contact privately[1]. But for some reason they didn't open a public issue[2].
[0] I've met a lot of technical people that just are afraid of Github because it is complex. Electrical engineers, mechanics, embedded engineers. People I figure would understand software development concepts.
[1] Asking a stupid question publicly could also count toward making a public mistake depending on how secure someone feels about themselves.
[2] There is of course also the discussion if issues should be your projects helpdesk next to being an bug tracker. And raising an 'issue' for something that might just be a question might feel strange for some.
And sometimes they are feature, and it's the users that are mistaken on what the project they are using is offering them. It's a fine line, I'm sure, but different projects have different goals, and those goals will align to a specific user's needs differently depending on the user.
> So like the previous poster said. I am wondering if Github et al. should not contain a private channel.
It might depend quite a bit on the project. In an open source project with many contributors, there isn't really any meaning to "private" other than "limited to a subgroup of the people that care", and those people may have little to nothing with the design and implementation of the items in question. In a project that is mostly driven by one author that controls it and accepts some patches, that might be a lot different, and criticism may be received differently.
There's a whole spectrum there, and even if you provide the tools to allow different types of contact, what's to prevent people from using the wrong tool most the time? Rust, PHP, Perl, Bind, Apache etc aren't going to benefit much for a private list for first contact of regular bugs, but people would use it. Meanwhile someone's random personal project is still going to get people making public requests even if they prefer them private. In the end, I think we're all better served by a "public by default" for open source stuff, and for things people feel is actually private (security related items, for example), they'll look up a private contact or personal contact for someone related.
I contributed to launching a few products. After countless hours of design debates, code writing, code review, the baby was finally ready to see the world ... but nobody cared. Not even a drive-by troll bothered writing "this is completely useless".
My Motto: "That product sucks, but wow! It made it on the shelf."
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 him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.
Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
On the one hand, they were a cultural byword for a morally degraded profession at the time. "Tax collectors and prostitutes" is a phrase that comes up not infrequently in the gospels, and not just out of Jesus' mouth So apparently the practice of tax collecting was a little weird in the Roman Empire.
On the other hand, he was known for having dinner with tax collectors and prostitutes. One of his 12 disciples was a tax collector.
Tax collectors operating within this incentive structure were not likely to be very likable.
This was possible because it was a slave society, and it was possible for the tax collector to collect your children into slavery in lieu of unpaid taxes. In some areas in Anatolia, which were close to the border of the empire and thus had a significant military presence that the tax collectors could fall back on, so the local population had no possibility to push back, entire societies were ended because the Roman publicans collected all children once they reached the age where they could be profitably sold (circa ~10 years or so, and sold usually to sexual slavery), and did so for long enough that the populations collapsed, never recovered, and were eventually replaced by other populations transplanted from elsewhere in the empire. (Later, the power of the publicani was seriously curtailed, in small parts because even the Romans thought that some of their practices were abhorrent. Albeit mostly because of internal power struggles with the senator class.)
So yes, people in the provinces had plenty of reasons to hate the tax collectors.
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 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 on whether it was indeed a mistake.
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.
Just use transformers :)
You might start by directly asking, "Why do you keep making this mistake?" It might be because they're careless, or lazy, or maybe they really don't believe it's a mistake (they just acknowledged the mistake to get you to go away). Or maybe they just need a little help, such as automated reminders to get them to check for those mistakes.
Sadly, there are people who will not learn from either kindness and teaching, or harshness and harrassment. In the workplace, you can make an appeal to the manager, but perhaps only after discussion with coworker has failed to produce the desired results.
If that doesn't help, ask the manager the same - emphasizing you are not attacking the person but looking for a way to stop wasting time on correcting the same repeating mistake which adds to costs and decreases productivity. That may generate some resentment (so trying to resolve it directly first is prudent) but if you avoid framing it as a personal fault it would usually help.
So your statement ... you're making a truth. You're saying what you want it to be, even though there is tons and tons of evidence against that point (that the main stream media is intentionally ignoring and refusing to cover).
It goes both ways and our social psyche is now fragmented.
And I hope you'll retract your dangerous statements once the court cases are resolved and the recounts finished and not a single state is overturned.
https://battlepenguin.com/politics/the-return-of-american-co...
There are a lot of irregularities and several states have already forced hand recounts because the margins are so close.
In PA and NV, they kicked out GOP observers. Why? Even if there is no foul play, that is a terrible thing to do. It. Looks. Bad. And it's illegal. Votes need to be tallied in front of both parties. They may have invalided hundreds of thousands of votes depending on a lawsuit.
Election fraud and voter fraud are very difficult to prove. America is no stranger to it (Remember Bush v Gore and Diabold voting machines?) But I think people had some hope the system was that corrupt. They were wrong, and America is.
The lawsuits in PA regarding kicking out GOP observers have been thrown out repeatedly, at this point the Trump campaign had to drop the claims about GOP observers not being allowed in from their lawsuits. Because there is zero basis to any of it.
The margins are close enough to recount, and nobody is arguing against a legal recount. But any reasonable person also recognizes that historically recounts don't change totals by tens of thousands of votes, so it is very unlikely to matter. The Florida results in the 2000 election you mention were much much closer than any state is in 2020.
Voter fraud is not at all difficult to prove. Many studies ballots have been analyzed in excruciating detail after elections, and surely will be done again this election. Voter fraud in the US is always extraordinarily rare. So far this election, one single case has been found in PA, and it was from a Trump supporter submitting a mail in ballot for his dead mother.
Not only are your claims untrue, they are so unfounded that there is hardly anything at all there to even refute https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/11/13/trump-vote...
“Because I was worried about how people would react to X I decided to do Y”
Then after that you can write all the stuff that they list in this post.
I think it helps a lot to get the audience into the same situation you where in in their minds before understanding the context of how you actually screwed up.
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.
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
The full timeline is valuable since you can look back on it and determine what went wrong when, so you can determine what changes need to happen to prevent these same issues in the future.
One thing I find is that incident reports such as these are most useful internally, but when communicated externally, they demonstrate that you're taking the underlying issues seriously and are committed to addressing them.
I'm quite good at apologizing, because I need to do it so often. I get lots of practice.
The American abhorrence for admitting fault and/or apologizing is quite mystifying to me. It's really corrosive.
I've spent 40 years, promptly admitting mistakes, and repairing, where possible.
WFM. YMMV.
It's also something emotional. I grew up overseas, so I guess it never happened for me, so I sort of stand to the side, bemused.
Even at the individual level you'll see advice like "never talk to the cops" because it could possibly be used against you in the future.
[0.] https://www.scmedicalmalpractice.com/blog/2015/08/does-sayin...
This happens even in work environments where it's unlikely your coworkers will sue you. I feel like perhaps it's more about competitiveness - I've seen plenty of times people raised in US use any kind of admission of mistake as a bludgeon to get advantage, get more political capital or belittle someone elses project. I guess it's considered to be a good thing to grasp any advantage over others?
I don't accept this premise. Americans don't have a lot of the cultural baggage that leads to this. If anything, Americans are quick to admit fault and address root causes. We don't have a cultural history of beating around the bush, saving face, deferring to elders who are clearly wrong, etc. Individual exceptions abound, but I think on the whole Americans are ready to admit fault most of the time.
Mistake 0 is assuming there's an "American abhorrence" or a tendency held by "Americans on the whole". It's difficult for any American, much less anyone outside of America, to have interacted with each of its distinct, and often wildly divergent, subcultures to find a genuine common thread.
I'm sure a lot more people would be successful with absolute zero morals - e.g. Hazing your young son for trusting you, as told by Trump Jr
> But admitting to a mistake is good
>
Yes - if that is what you care about. But from what I see not so many people in the world care about "good". They just "want more".
For example, when a customer reports a problem, and I admit that there is a bug and explain a workaround some of them will say: "you have buggy software, bla bla I will use Google". But if you say: "Strange. This might some very strange setup issue - here is the workaround" - no problem.
Of course, some of our customers love honesty but the vertical I'm working in, honesty is not a thing.
Depressing... I know.
^Obviously trump is not a genious
> But isn't it true that organization/individual X made a mistake and didn't follow this process at all?
> Yes, it's true. And how did that work out?
Trumps behavior hasnt changed before he was elected or after the last election. As PotUS Trumps behavior was a bit less popular than another choice (not a relative landslide like 1984, 1972, 1964, etc). Granted, the political money machines have a lot to do with spinning the viewpoint of Americans, so it is possible that the election was not a good representative model.
I dont think the 2020 is a compelling single indicator of policy effectiveness on either side.
For the rest of us cooking up an apology from a recipe is feel insincere, an apology is a ritual sure showing how its done ruins the illusion. On a higher level this type of process-over-vision thinking has ruined the goals and ideas of Wikipedia, a site which in the 00s seemed world-changing and lead it to it's decline in the 10s and to what I predict will be its fall in the 20s.
I hope to be wrong about WP, 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.
mediawiki is used by a lot of organizations for internal wiki stuff.
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.
The only winning move is not to play.
In subreddits which are non political you'd still see people injecting nastiness.
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 kids no longer hang out with us. Hence you see a lack of youthful idealism.
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.
For sure, everything uses the internet. But not the web.
Point is most of us aren’t hanging out where the kids are hanging out. And we don’t have as much time to just hang out either.
So what's the newer, cooler, current version of what HN was in 2010?
Is IH are more supportive crowd? A resounding yes, but that’s because as a group it was designed as a support mechanism for people looking to earn a salary by working solo.
HN is like the opposite of IH with respect to salary: it’s maintained by a VC entity and many hackers here draw high salaries working for trillion-dollar, billion-dollar and upstart tech companies.
HN was designed to be a water cooler for stating & demolishing arguments, with the occasional cheer to YC-funded startups, so it’s not surprising there’s a lot of healthy skepticism which often comes across as cynicism.
Is there an example of public crowdsourced resource of the comparable to Wikipedia size which managed to generate meaningful content without such kind of processes/bureaucracy?
Yeah, there probably are widespread cultural problems.
Hyperbole aside, I imagine most of “the actual work” (as you say) of maintaining any open source volunteer encyclopedia for decades has got to be the community culture and processes, not any technical artifact.
If you think the work of Wikipedia is “just” the words in articles, well, this is the same mindset of everyone’s favorite debunked critique of early Dropbox.
I might take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges maybe reload it a few times. What percent of the changes are to policy space? (the article name begins with "Wikipedia:") And what percent are to regular articles / discussion of articles (article name is normal, or begins with "Talk:").
I think you'd be surprised because the vast vast vast majority of edits are to the articles themselves.
> Perhaps the only area where editors are as zealous they are about creating obscure processes, is in policing what content should they should fit into the their volumes.
This is important. I'm not sure if you're referring to notability, or sourcing, but both are critical to making an encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
That's unfair; there are plenty of even more toxic communities, you just don't hear about them as much because they're less prominent and easier to ignore or forget.
I wonder if this is natural. Those in the community who care more about just making a good encyclopedia are eventually forced out by those who are interested in power games and process. I've heard it mentioned before (I forget if it has some formal name or not) in regards to companies where the people who primarily want to prioritize the goal of the company are eventually replaced by those who primarily want to implement and navigate bureaucracy because they can outcompete them on the local level, even if the company is worse off in general.
Never heard it put like that, but it's pretty on point. The bigger changes I've seen in free software these days, all the way down to systemd, feel very corporate. People try to argue whether it's corporate or not but even that feeling when enough people feel it is detrimental to free software culture. A culture which isn't very much minded or respected by our corporate cousins.
I do not understand peoples literal obsession with grading apologies these days. I've screwed up in big ways in my life before and I had to apologize. The harder work was eventually forgiving myself so that I could move on. I cannot imagine how the expectation that someone is going to be waiting around to grade and critique my apology would weigh on me. I can't even begin to imagine the mindset of someone who engages in that kind of activity must be, what other benign or symbolic things do you question in life? What other baggage have you carried all your life and used to wallop people over the head with?
This "you owe me an apology" trend is wild. Certainly, if you screw up you should apologize if the situations suits it. Rarely are those situations so black and white though. Leaving this to the jury of the public to take sides, to form camps, and to inevitably invade with their pitchforks is the stuff that the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp controversy is fueled by. If someone has wronged you bad enough, take them to court, deal with it there, and leave it there. If things got to that point then no apology will make anything better. At that point, everyone has lost and we're just trying to maintain order.
When I see people grading apologies on Twitter (and at times here) all I see is people propagating a reason to abuse public figures and at times companies. If someone has come to the point of writing a public apology, whether you think it's for damage control or not, it takes some level of humility and self-evaluation. Maybe that triggers nothing, maybe it begets change even in some small way, and maybe it leads to some life altering conclusions. Humans are not machines and we can't just cast people out because we don't feel the vibes of someones apology. For a culture like tech that likes to comment on how terrible cast systems and social hierarchy are, we seem awful quick to throw people into an "other" category because we feel some type of way.
Personally speaking, I think people who grade apologies have a darkness of their own and that darkness begets darkness. The darkness that calls for a public apology and eagerly awaits its arrival for swift and empirical dissection is no better than the incurred darkness of the act itself.
This is one of the biggest challenges with building a self-governing online community: The people with the most time, energy, and desire to be in charge are often not the people with the most to contribute. As the bureaucracy grows, actual contributors are increasingly disincentivized from participating in the governance because it becomes such a distraction to actually producing content. At the extremes, these communities end up with highly-political community governance that spends much of their time with political maneuvering and focusing on a handful of fringe issues, while the actual content creators end up operating largely independently.
If you ignore the politicking and realize it's mostly a distraction, there's often good work still happening on the core content.
When Wikipedia came out I was hopeful that the governance model enabled by the web would be able to solve some of those age-old problems.
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 metaphorical equivalent of blood in the water for attracting sharks.
Maybe it's better to just ignore and maintain innocence because then at least there is some gray area? I don't know.
I think there's definitely some truth to what you're saying, but I also wonder how much this is a problem offline, I've not encountered it heavily, but I'm also not a particularly online person.
I'm not sure about that.
I think there needs to be a distinction between a private apology to specific individuals for specific wrongs vs public apology to an undefined amorphous set of people. The former is certainly the right thing to do and it also offers hope of redemption because the wronged individual can accept the apology and forgive (or not). In the latter case, there is no acceptance, there's only the mob who wants to make an example of you because they now have 100% proof of your guilt.
Note that those to whom you apologize may communicate that apology to "the mob", with the result that they have proof of your guilt as well as proof of your lack of forthrightness.
In the ultimate case, if you are following your own advice, Machiavelli and my bitter cynicism suggest that not leaving live enemies behind you is the best strategy.
The world would be a lot better place if everyone did (any number of things), but perfect compliance is just never going to happen. We cannot get people to not murder each other over shoes or sports teams. Any plan which depends on this compliance is doomed to failure.
Doubtless many people have made things worse with "non-apology apologies" [1]. But your brain wants to say "apologizing is right" because when done right, it is right.
To me, truth and reconciliation are self-evidently how we build a better world, and refusal to take responsibility for mistakes is self-evidently corrosive to the individual and to society.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology
To that end, an apology that allows s/o to "get out" as in "saw no further consequences" isn't necessarily what's being claimed, because it still needs to come with (some) costs, even if they are mostly symbolic.
And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day. A Google News search has about five dozen examples from just the last day or two[1]. If apologies are never beneficial, I doubt they would be used that often.
Apologies are also a central factor in the most formalised system of "being cancelled" we have, the criminal justice system.
As to "getting out" of "being cancelled" by "mobs" I wouldn't know since I already have trouble identifying what that's supposed to mean.
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=apologized&client=safari&rls...
I have a strong suspicion that you know what I mean, you just don't want to recognize that. If you indeed know nothing about cancel culture, I envy whatever bubble you reside in, and I wish I could organize my life to never encounter it too, however it is not so for me. If you pretend not to know about it because you don't want to engage in discussion about it, well, I certainly can't force you.
> And, yes, of course there are people apologising for all sorts of behaviour that's being criticised every day.
You may find it hard to believe, but I actually know people do such thing as "apologizing". I do it myself once in a while. My question was in specific context of the comment "Agreed. Apologizing may keep the mob size small and insignificant." and related to this context, not to general act of apologizing and whether or not it is practiced in human society. I think you have missed this context and from that follows your trouble to identify what I supposed to mean. I think I made it cleared now, or at least did as much as I could to make it clear.
Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter.
I think you are confusing your imagination with reality. Nobody - and by that I mean literally, without exaggeration, no single person who lives or ever lived - ever pretended that Harvey Weinstein raping women is the reason they don't want women on their team. Not "everybody", not somebody - literally no single person is pretending or ever pretended that. Moreover, you know that as well as I do, I am certain of that (because you don't know any such person, by virtue of such person not existing). So why are you writing these obviously false words?
> Because apparently "showing up at their colleagues' hotel room doors, naked and at night" is somehow just bound to happen in the course of standard operating procedures.
I do not know who told you that (I suspect you imagined it just as you did the above) but it certainly is not the course of any operating procedures at all. None of them.
> Also the related phenomenon where people walk through cities being casually and formally anti-semitic, deliberately crashing cars into groups of people, but call the other side "mob", because they complain about that on Twitter.
People who walk through cities being anti-semitic and people who complain about cancel culture are distinct sets of people whose intersection is minuscule. And you also know it. Also, cancel culture is not complaining on Twitter about somebody marching somewhere, and you also know it too. Again, you are writing words which both you and everybody reading them knows are false. What for?
It is not like actresses who lost careers because they refused Weinstein could ever get their careers back. And it is not like those who complain about securely harassment cold easily get new jobs - people are afraid to hire them.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/674/transcript
Which is why you don't deny it either; you move on, avoiding the Streisand Effect as best as possible by not engaging. It's passive denial vs. active denial.
I'm not saying this is moral or good - I'm only saying that it seems to work for people. It's a question of game theory. We can get better apologies if we start to accept apologies and move on with our lives, but the mob wants blood and these days the public apology only serves as an admission of guilt, absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb.
"...absolving the mob of any evil when they pull the person apart limb from limb."
That's a little excessively dramatic, don't you think?
It's 2020, everything's a little excessively dramatic
If e.g. Kavanaugh had admitted assaulting Ms. Ford and apologized, do you think enough Democrats would have said "Apology accepted" and voted to confirm to make up for the Republicans who would be unwilling to vote to confirm someone who has admitted to sexual assault? As long as Kavanaugh denies it, everyone who votes for him can just publicly say that they believed his denial, whether or not they actually did believe it.
As far as Kavanaugh, obviously none of this applies if he is not-guilty, because few advocate apologizing for things you didn't do. However:
There are a lot of middle-aged adults who did terrible things when they were teenagers. Among those, the ones who own up and apologized are excluded from many positions of power, while those that deny it are included.
So for this particular subset of the population, we punish the best, reward the worst, and incentivize any fence-sitters to lie. Perhaps it's a bit OT, but something is clearly broken here.
That depends on the level of power the said adult has accumulated. We've witnessed people who were persecuted for most minor transgressions, and people who were forgiven for very major things (e.g. credible rape accusations, being an officer in the KKK, being a member of a terrorist organization, being in prison for murder while being a member of a terrorist organization, etc. etc.). That, of course, needs very powerful position and very powerful friends - which none of us likely has.
I also find it interesting how the issue of admitting to making mistakes is being conflated with apologizing. While they are related, there is an important difference: a person who will never apologize is merely immature, while one who never admits to making mistakes might be a dangerous liability to himself and others, and is unfit for positions of responsibility.
I mean, it is absurd expectation. Apology does not even absolve you if minor crime in legal system. Plus, Supreme Court has great only little checked power. I just don't see someone willing to use power that way as suitable, even if he apologized.
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.
But even in those situations, I see absolutely no upside in publicly denying your mistake at length, if in fact you've made one.
On the one hand, you have the people who are talking about when you genuinely make a mistake, and recognize it as such before public outcry.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have people that maybe feel that they were acting / talking / behaving in a way that is normal but are being told that they made a mistake. In these circumstances, there is usually the issue that the nature of the mistake is quite subjective.
In the former case, your strategy is probably a good one. In the latter, I think the "don't apologize" is probably the better way to go, for the reasons outlined by GC.
If possible, do not immediately make any statement and if in a organization, make an "we are investigating" response. Most mobs are moved by emotions and herd mentality so just being silent for a while can disperse the worst of the mobs.
Make an thorough apology (like the guideline here) later.
Most internet mobs just move on to the next totem pole to burn in days so this seems to work (and is indeed how a lot of companies respond if they can't just fire someone and get over it)
A real mob, such as campus students can be a bit more troublesome.
Perhaps apologies do "serve as a license for the mob to further punish". Even so, what is the result to your life or to an organization of doing what you suggest?
"Yeah, I made a mistake, shit happens, now I know better".
Though looking at current leaders of industries and countries, you could get away with just pretending you did nothing wrong.
This is legally because apologies from companies are so full of doublespeak and low value language that it’s a waste of my time to read, much less expect any understanding. Here’s an example from Pichai [0].
I do like the outage report style that some companies use [1] and think this is the way to repeat a problem and what you do to fix it. This takes the place of an apology or denial.
[0] https://www.axios.com/google-ceo-apologizes-past-sexual-hara...
[1] https://aws.amazon.com/message/41926/
Every time a person/company apologizes for getting caught, it demeans public trust in everyone’s apologies.
For example, if I make a commitment to somebody and then circumstances outside my control prevent me from fulfilling it, I may very well say "it's not my fault, apologising would be insincere". But to an external stakeholder what they see is they are wearing consequences and I am not accepting accountability. There are a million shades of gray according to how much I could / should have anticipated the eventuality ... but that makes it really not simple to make this kind of call, and I would have to say, if you are going to err, I would rather err on the side of apologising than not.
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 security, and it troubles me.
Refusing to apologize has the opposite effect.
Sure it has, for example Dan Harmon's public apology to Megan Ganz: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/11/16879702/dan-harmon-ap...
Public apologies, therefore, are the metaphorical equivalent of blood in the water for attracting sharks.
What are some examples of public apologies that met all 5 of these criteria [1], but made things worse rather than better? Would you consider the possibility that maybe the apologies that made things worse were actually done wrong, but they could have helped if they were done right?
More generally, apologies, restorative justice, truth and reconciliation, and related ideas seem to me like the obvious and only way to we can heal from injustice in our society. Refusing to admit fault seems obviously corrosive to society, and to a person's ego.
[1]: https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/12/5/16710430/sexual-har...
[Edit: man, I feel stupid for complaining about downvotes, but I am really not sure how I could have been more constructive with my disagreement in this comment. I cited examples, suggested an alternative explanation for observations my parent described, and didn't criticize anyone. What did I do wrong? I am ready and willing to apologize if I made any mistakes]
The power advantage that young women have on men; due to evolutionary pressures. Harmon didn't mean to be attracted to her. It happened.
I know biology isn't important in 2020. But I listened to his apology and realized that the human nature discussion is never part of this situation.
Ted Chiang's "liking what you see a documentary" is a good case study of a world where attraction's turned off. As a woman, I sometimes think we aren't empathic enough about how attraction works in men. It doesn't mean they are excused for sexual harassment. I just think evolutionary pressures should be part of the discussion.
Neither person should be setup to fail.
If you are in a "cancel culture" situation, then people that surround you are not you friends, and they do not have common goals with you. You can not win. Best thing is to get out of that situation ASAP, if you can not - minimize your losses in any way you can. And continue looking to get out of this situation, because you can not win, and you will surely lose sooner or later. Try to still be kind to others - you won't fix the broken culture, but at least you can have a little island of non-awfulness around you.
A side effect of everyone getting 15 minutes of fame/infamy is that it means an increasing fraction of social interactions are one-shot. Often, the only time you will ever hear about someone is when they do something dumb that catches the Twitter zeitgeist. Once the moment has passed, they fade from view.
The optimal strategy for iterated prisoner's dilemma where you will interact with an opponent multiple times involves some level of fairness and give and take. The optimal strategy for single-turn prisoner's dilemma is to assume bad faith and selfishly betray your opponent.
Infer from that as you will.
I think that's a pretty good middle ground. Apologizing too readily might also signal you lack self-respect or confidence which may invite even more vitriol.
Humans make mistakes. Over and over. People need to forgive.
Most of us skate right up to the edge of disaster on a daily basis, and aren't even aware of it. One distraction and you forget you had something frying in the kitchen; or you crash your car; or you reply-all by mistake; or you bitch about your boss on the team-wide Slack channel instead of the 1:1 channel you thought you were on.
Shame is a really strong emotion for me, and I feel terrible when anyone spots a mistake. At one point, I left the site and didn't return for three days because I saw there was a notification for me. Which turned out to be positive feedback.
I feel far worse about my own mistakes than about those of others.
What I don't get is people doubling down on obvious mistakes. Show some contrition and your standing will net benefit from you screwing something up. Trust me on this: I'm German and we have made that principle semi-official government philosophy. Whenever I see, say, Turkish nationalists deny the Armenian genocide, or Polish wikipedia deleting articles about local anti-semitic incidents, I wonder if they seriously believe their actions won't make them look both guilty and somewhat stupid.
Oh, while we're at it: Only by participating have I learnt what a vast enterprise the whole of Wikimedia actually is, and how almost all of it is open to the public. It's the only non-profit organisation at FAANG-scale (except Amazon I guess), and you might want to check out, for example, what Graphana looks like at scale: https://grafana.wikimedia.org/d/000000605/datacenter-global-...
If you make an honest mistake on, say, WikiData, nobody should jump down your throat. That's not productive and the context is one where some degree of empathy should be expected. It's a commons. And trust me, I know how internet nerds can be on a commons - internet nerds that often get things very wrong in their criticisms but will swear and yell at you while leveling them.
That context is important. The goal that I hope we all want to push for a data commons is a productive shared environment. But when it becomes narrative or editorials, now there are very serious political and scholarly issues at work and popular narratives are frequently self-sustaining via institutional norms. You can cite hundreds of documents and publications for a popular liberal (like lib dem) narrative even if it's no better supported than a position published by an esoteric scholar in Maine and win any arguments about which should be included in the definitive encyclopedia entry on the topic and which should be quietly shoved aside. Even disagreements listed in these pages tend to be relatively popular narratives that are not particularly disagreeable to those in power, or have become popular enough despite that opposition and are the exception.
Turkish nationalists denying the Armenian genocide on Wikipedia will be drowned out by process: the dominant media and scholarly narratives (which are roughly correct). But what would we see on a page about Evo Morales back in October 2019? Would we not see the repeated dishonest narratives and headlines of the New York Times? In fact, we would: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evo_Morales&oldid.... No contextualization, just the implication that the NYT narratives are a good resource. And here is the closest snapshot in time to that wiki page: https://web.archive.org/web/20191112031842/https://www.nytim...
In short, mistakes should always be contextualized by the roles of those involved, the goals sought (and hopefully shared), and a desire to get at the truth even if it's uncomfortable.
In my experience getting consensus from all involved that a mistake has indeed been committed is the very hardest part of the whole process.
Just thinking out loud...
I would add:
If this mistake happens in the business context, commit to a root cause analysis, perform such with all involved parties and stakeholders, use a methodology such as Toyota’s Five Whys, identify areas for improvement, share your report, and resolve issues in a timely manner.
The above will not only improve your processes so failures are less likely, it will also demonstrate a commitment to quality and improvement to all observers.
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.
You asked.
> I'm curious, what kind of mistake are you envisioning in this scenario?
In reference to.
> harassing someone for some perceived infraction
And I just gave you one.
But if we're playing the Cathy-Newman so-you're-saying game I notice you have a lot of opposition to free speech posts; what is it about these views historically literally held by Nazis that you find yourself in agreement with?
"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.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Apology#Which_elements_shoul...
> When the offender takes full responsibility for one's wrongdoing, a simple statement saying "I am sorry." may help build the trust. This is particularly true if there is a story of good relationship with the offender; In most cases however, it will be insufficient.
It doesn't explicitly address "I'm sorry, but..." phrasing, but does suggest limiting apologies to specifically acknowledging what was done (and the pain it caused), accepting responsibility, and expressing regret.
Two more worth thinking about: Explain vs. excuse. While your feelings and justifications may explain your bad behavior they do not excuse it.
Not your fault, but still your problem. The (wrong) idea that an unexpected circumstance can excuse bad behavior, because it’s not your fault.
"I apologize for shouting at you. I was short on sleep and frustrated about something else. I was wrong to take out my frustration on you."
vs:
"I apologize for shouting at you but I was tired and frustrated."
An explanation can make the apology stronger because it demonstrates that you realize what it is you're apologizing for.
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?
Most of those places eventually go bust, but they can ruin a lot of people's lives before the final collapse happens.
Step 3.2 feels forced and a little Orwellian. Even something as hazy as invoking "bad judgment" -- and leaving the scene -- is often sufficient, at least at first. If errant people need a bit more time to process reality's sudden slap in the face, I'm in favor of giving it to them.
Eventually a lot of them do reach a fuller understanding. Or they redeem themselves in other ways. In the right settings, a little bit of mercy can be very powerful
> that you are sorry about the harm/damage/waste/confusion your mistake caused (being specific would demonstrate understanding);
I have big problem with apologizes, you don't owe apologies because you made a mistake, apologizing will not change anything, you can easily not feel the apologies you are making.
I apologize unreservedly is far better.
If an apology is genuine, heartfelt, it requires no qualifications. If it is qualified something is not reconciled.
I agree that in hypothesis, an issue could be moot or open, but do you really think this predominates?
I am by the way a serial offender and a serial apologiser. I know from bitter experience how hard it can be to accept fault and apologise for hurt caused.
1. Go silent.
> Complete public blackout. No denying, no accepting. The people want retribution, not justice. The media blackout is essential.
2. Reflect on it privately and quietly.
3. If not in violation of #1, apologize to the individual people/entity affected in private.
4. Once the mob dissipates, address the issue publically in long form.
> It is very important that it be a boring, long and solemn take on the mistake. Blog, interview, podcast, whatever.
5. Don't blame. period.
6. Set a roadmap to rehabilitation/mitigation.
7. Actually follow #6
* Step 4b is a bad idea; it has too great a possibility of re-raising the issue.
* Steps 5, 6, and 7 are completely optional and probably not recommended. If Step 4a worked, keep in mind that the strategy you have got you where you are.
* Given the above, Step 2 is a waste of time.
This message brought to you by the International Society of Misanthropes.
My point is that we shouldn't just be looking out for our interests. We should be working co-operatively to look out for everybody's interests. Ultimately this benefits ourselves too, but that's not why we should do it.
6. Set a roadmap to rehabilitation/mitigation.
and
7. Actually follow #6
are against anyone's self-interest. It's about holding yourself accountable for you actions.
I agree that there are far more constructive ways of dealing with internal (family or company) errors.
Admitting fault can open one to liability (sometimes legally). Although perhaps it depends on how one defines a mistake versus, say, an outright fault that people could find morally wrong.
An example that's not perfect (and I'm not arguing/defending one way or another) is Louis CK with the #metoo movement.
It seemed to me that his response was sincere and correct on the personal level. He acknowledged those he'd wronged, made clear the victims were in the right, apologized, and expressed a desire to improve his behavior. For all that, he was demonized.
To some extent, it felt like people were saying: "My god, you admitted it. You're worse than Harvey Weinstein - at least he had the decency to deny his actions."
> people want retribution, not justice
This. People desperately want to feel like they championed a cause, and the cheapest way to get that kick is by demanding your head on a platter on Twitter.
Some people I had the displeasure of interacting with suddenly feel more ordinary. Thank you.