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apologies, SurveyFail, consent
Sep. 5th, 2009 03:27 pmHow irritating is it when someone does something douchey and they say, "Well, I'm sorry if you felt offended, I didn't mean to"? It is so irritating.
Just- no. No, a thousand times no. There is no "if" here. You did a thing. Because of this thing, a person or group of people was hurt and/or insulted. The correct way to apologize is to say, "I'm sorry for hurting/insulting you." Not "sorry-if" or "sorry-you-felt-whatever." No. None of that. You apologize for the hurt, and then you ask what you can do to make amends. If absolutely necessary, you can then qualify with an "It wasn't my intention/I didn't realize/I never meant to," but only if you honestly had no idea your actions would have the effects they did.
This goes for asshats conducting poorly worded surveys on the internet and people you deal with in every day life. *sigh*
Anyway. I managed to find out about Ogas' survey the day he put it up- it popped up on my bloglists and I read through all of the awesomely intelligent and scathing comments left by various fans. I spent an afternoon indulging myself in the wank and the intelligent discussion, and it was deeply inspiring to watch fandom unite against the asshaberdashery of outsiders. But then I got to the RPS commentfic on the original survey discussion post, and I hit the back button so hard it gave me whiplash. And I hadn't looked at any of the discussion stirred up by the survey since then until today. So, whatever I have to say about the RPF commentfic (which isn't even available anymore, since the survey journal has been deleted), has probably already been said.
( I feel the need to mutter about it anyway. )
Just- no. No, a thousand times no. There is no "if" here. You did a thing. Because of this thing, a person or group of people was hurt and/or insulted. The correct way to apologize is to say, "I'm sorry for hurting/insulting you." Not "sorry-if" or "sorry-you-felt-whatever." No. None of that. You apologize for the hurt, and then you ask what you can do to make amends. If absolutely necessary, you can then qualify with an "It wasn't my intention/I didn't realize/I never meant to," but only if you honestly had no idea your actions would have the effects they did.
This goes for asshats conducting poorly worded surveys on the internet and people you deal with in every day life. *sigh*
Anyway. I managed to find out about Ogas' survey the day he put it up- it popped up on my bloglists and I read through all of the awesomely intelligent and scathing comments left by various fans. I spent an afternoon indulging myself in the wank and the intelligent discussion, and it was deeply inspiring to watch fandom unite against the asshaberdashery of outsiders. But then I got to the RPS commentfic on the original survey discussion post, and I hit the back button so hard it gave me whiplash. And I hadn't looked at any of the discussion stirred up by the survey since then until today. So, whatever I have to say about the RPF commentfic (which isn't even available anymore, since the survey journal has been deleted), has probably already been said.
( I feel the need to mutter about it anyway. )
