5 ms·

> except to note that it was not an apology at all. Ctrl-F there doesn't show a single "sorry" in the text. Or "Casey" for that matter. Why is it so difficult

by ddalex 4y ago

> except to note that it was not an apology at all. Ctrl-F there doesn't show a single "sorry" in the text. Or "Casey" for that matter. Why is it so difficult to say: "Casey, we are sorry, you were right and we were mistaken.". Instead there is a nebulous ~extended a branch to community and hope to accept our apology~ (paraphrasing) without offering an apology in the first place.

sirbranedamuj 4y ago
try looking for the word "apology" edit: > We know we have so much more to learn, but we hope that you will accept our apology and understand we’re humans behind this product with a capability and willingness to learn from our past mistakes. If someone said that to me, I would say "oh ok, no problem dude" and move on with my life. Not even defending the microsoft guy, I have zero skin in the game and couldn't care less. but people being weirdly pedantic about which words do and do not constitute an apology just because the source is Evil Microsoft Guy.
- ghusbands 4y ago
  Except "but we hope you will accept our apology" is not an apology. If they'd written "but we hope you will accept our apologies", it would have been an overly formal apology. In the informal tone they are otherwise using, saying "sorry" would have been most appropriate.
- Longhanks 4y ago
  Sticking the word "apology" on a letter does not make it an apology.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    But sticking "Sorry" does? Your whole post was Ctrl-F for a keyword, while refusing a synonym.
    - ddalex 4y ago
      But there is no "We apologize" either. There is a "we hope you (the community) accept the apology" - which apology ?! there wasn't one to begin with, because there is no "I/We apologize/are sorry" in the first place. And the apology should go to the individual harmed, not to the "community"
      - NikolaNovak 4y ago
        I find the format of "I've done wrong; please accept my apology" to be common and sufficient; clearly we have different expectations though -- or they are getting unanticipated amount of pedantic and semantic scrutiny (which in turn will eliminate posts like this, we'll get more corpo-santized-PR, but somehow I don't think that'll make people happy either :).
        ddalex 4y ago
        But this is not direct speech that they use - they use indirect speech referring to "the community" and "our" apology, trying to avoid associating personally with either the problem or the apology. Then they come out and blame Casey for "not accepting the apology". So in fact if they can't own the mistake, issue a direct apology, and act like adults, perhaps it's better to let the corpo PR speak in bland tones. EDIT: the GP of this thread edited their post: > Casey, I'm sorry. We made a mistake. I made a mistake! Now, this is an apology.
        brothir 4y ago
        But there's a big difference between saying that directly to a person and not. Addressing many people, or rather trying to and failing, without getting specific severely reduces the sincerity and effectiveness of the apology. The apology focuses more on what they did wrong internally, without getting into enough specifics of how it affected the external parties. And, some very serious issues weren't even mentioned.
  - jonny_eh 4y ago
    Saying “accept our apology” does make it an apology.
  - arcticfox 4y ago
    "we turned inwards, we were wrong. We hope you will accept this ... as an olive branch and accept our apology." That is 100% an apology
    - lkxijlewlf 4y ago
      But not to Casey. You dotted out who they apologized to and it was not the person they insulted, but to the "community". > We were wrong. As such, we dedicate this experimental renderer to the community as an olive branch. We know we have so much more to learn, but we hope that you will accept our apology and understand we’re humans behind this product with a capability and willingness to learn from our past mistakes. Seems rather childish.
    - ineedasername 4y ago
      Syntactically it's a reference to an apology. Semantically it sort of is, but the phraseology of indirect an apologies are common when the speaker wants to distance themselves from the wrongdoing. This tends to happen either from embarrassment or lack of sincerity. In this case, the comment from an MS employee in this thread indicates a potential lack of sincerity. If not for that I'd probably give more benefit of the doubt.
mellosouls 4y ago
we hope that you will accept our apology and understand we’re humans behind this product with a capability and willingness to learn from our past mistakes. Seems pretty sincere and decent to me.
- RL_Quine 4y ago
  Nah, this is the pestilent child response when they are wrangled into giving a "sincere" apology.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    It's at least a small step up from "We're sorry if you feel bad but..." I'd rate it 4 out of 10 on the NOTSORS scale [1] [1] No Apology to Sincere Apology Rating Scale™ And I wouldn't even be so hard about them if their initial now-edited reply in this thread wasn't also combative & demeaning.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    !! I like it, but you mean "petulant" .. "pestilent" may also apply though..
- twobitshifter 4y ago
  If we’re being critical it’s missing the “we apologize” and skips to “hope you accept our apology” and then jumps down a “we’re only human” escape hatch.
  - Humdeee 4y ago
    In other words, a try-catch-finally statement right out of the PR handbook
  - buttercraft 4y ago
    How is “we hope you accept our apology” not an apology?
    - 4y ago
zamalek 4y ago
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Genuine-Apology https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Genuine-Apology 1. Know what you did wrong: > When confronted with being told our rendering pipeline had terrible performance, we turned inward. [...] We were wrong. 2. Keep it simple, being careful not to start up a fight, a disagreement, or open up the situation for further discussion or recriminations. Subjective. You decide. 3. Be prepared to meet resistance. They are here meeting their resistance. 4. ...I hope you will accept my apology. > we hope that you will accept our apology 5. Be polite. Subjective. You decide. 6. Remind the person of all the fun times that the two of you had together. > experience we can all learn from to not only improve ourselves 7. Try not to smile. It's text. Sure. 8. In some situations a small gift may serve as a token of apology. > As such, we dedicate this experimental renderer to the community as an olive branch. 9. Express yourself. > a capability and willingness to learn from our past mistakes. 10, 11 remain to be seen. This is a good exhibit of an almost perfect apology. If you've been okay hearing "sorry" your entire life then I am afraid you've been lied to more often than not.
- philipwhiuk 4y ago
  > Remind the person They don't even mention the person. Pretty hard to argue they covered this. I assume WikiHow thought it was too obvious that you had to actually send it to / mention the person you were actually apologising to.
  - zamalek 4y ago
    > almost perfect apology
- chevill 4y ago
  >This is a good exhibit of an almost perfect apology. If you've been okay hearing "sorry" your entire life then I am afraid you've been lied to more often than not. If you specifically focus insults on an individual and call into question their competence and then make a vague statement that avoids actually saying you did something wrong ("We turned inwards), you have failed to do #1, which is arguably the most important step. It was an awful attempt at an apology that could easily pass for something written by a politician. Directness is a virtue when it comes to apologies. Counting check marked boxes on a wikihow list isn't a good way to measure the quality of an apology.

by ddalex 4y ago

sirbranedamuj 4y ago

try looking for the word "apology" edit: > We know we have so much more to learn, but we hope that you will accept our apology and understand we’re humans behind this product with a capability and willingness to learn from our past mistakes. If someone said that to me, I would say "oh ok, no problem dude" and move on with my life. Not even defending the microsoft guy, I have zero skin in the game and couldn't care less. but people being weirdly pedantic about which words do and do not constitute an apology just because the source is Evil Microsoft Guy.

ghusbands 4y ago
Except "but we hope you will accept our apology" is not an apology. If they'd written "but we hope you will accept our apologies", it would have been an overly formal apology. In the informal tone they are otherwise using, saying "sorry" would have been most appropriate.
Longhanks 4y ago
Sticking the word "apology" on a letter does not make it an apology.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  But sticking "Sorry" does? Your whole post was Ctrl-F for a keyword, while refusing a synonym.
  - ddalex 4y ago
    But there is no "We apologize" either. There is a "we hope you (the community) accept the apology" - which apology ?! there wasn't one to begin with, because there is no "I/We apologize/are sorry" in the first place. And the apology should go to the individual harmed, not to the "community"
    - NikolaNovak 4y ago
      I find the format of "I've done wrong; please accept my apology" to be common and sufficient; clearly we have different expectations though -- or they are getting unanticipated amount of pedantic and semantic scrutiny (which in turn will eliminate posts like this, we'll get more corpo-santized-PR, but somehow I don't think that'll make people happy either :).
      - ddalex 4y ago
        But this is not direct speech that they use - they use indirect speech referring to "the community" and "our" apology, trying to avoid associating personally with either the problem or the apology. Then they come out and blame Casey for "not accepting the apology". So in fact if they can't own the mistake, issue a direct apology, and act like adults, perhaps it's better to let the corpo PR speak in bland tones. EDIT: the GP of this thread edited their post: > Casey, I'm sorry. We made a mistake. I made a mistake! Now, this is an apology.
      - brothir 4y ago
        But there's a big difference between saying that directly to a person and not. Addressing many people, or rather trying to and failing, without getting specific severely reduces the sincerity and effectiveness of the apology. The apology focuses more on what they did wrong internally, without getting into enough specifics of how it affected the external parties. And, some very serious issues weren't even mentioned.
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  Saying “accept our apology” does make it an apology.
- arcticfox 4y ago
  "we turned inwards, we were wrong. We hope you will accept this ... as an olive branch and accept our apology." That is 100% an apology
  - lkxijlewlf 4y ago
    But not to Casey. You dotted out who they apologized to and it was not the person they insulted, but to the "community". > We were wrong. As such, we dedicate this experimental renderer to the community as an olive branch. We know we have so much more to learn, but we hope that you will accept our apology and understand we’re humans behind this product with a capability and willingness to learn from our past mistakes. Seems rather childish.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    Syntactically it's a reference to an apology. Semantically it sort of is, but the phraseology of indirect an apologies are common when the speaker wants to distance themselves from the wrongdoing. This tends to happen either from embarrassment or lack of sincerity. In this case, the comment from an MS employee in this thread indicates a potential lack of sincerity. If not for that I'd probably give more benefit of the doubt.

mellosouls 4y ago

we hope that you will accept our apology and understand we’re humans behind this product with a capability and willingness to learn from our past mistakes. Seems pretty sincere and decent to me.

RL_Quine 4y ago
Nah, this is the pestilent child response when they are wrangled into giving a "sincere" apology.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  It's at least a small step up from "We're sorry if you feel bad but..." I'd rate it 4 out of 10 on the NOTSORS scale [1] [1] No Apology to Sincere Apology Rating Scale™ And I wouldn't even be so hard about them if their initial now-edited reply in this thread wasn't also combative & demeaning.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  !! I like it, but you mean "petulant" .. "pestilent" may also apply though..
twobitshifter 4y ago
If we’re being critical it’s missing the “we apologize” and skips to “hope you accept our apology” and then jumps down a “we’re only human” escape hatch.
- Humdeee 4y ago
  In other words, a try-catch-finally statement right out of the PR handbook
- buttercraft 4y ago
  How is “we hope you accept our apology” not an apology?
  - 4y ago

zamalek 4y ago

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Genuine-Apology https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Genuine-Apology 1. Know what you did wrong: > When confronted with being told our rendering pipeline had terrible performance, we turned inward. [...] We were wrong. 2. Keep it simple, being careful not to start up a fight, a disagreement, or open up the situation for further discussion or recriminations. Subjective. You decide. 3. Be prepared to meet resistance. They are here meeting their resistance. 4. ...I hope you will accept my apology. > we hope that you will accept our apology 5. Be polite. Subjective. You decide. 6. Remind the person of all the fun times that the two of you had together. > experience we can all learn from to not only improve ourselves 7. Try not to smile. It's text. Sure. 8. In some situations a small gift may serve as a token of apology. > As such, we dedicate this experimental renderer to the community as an olive branch. 9. Express yourself. > a capability and willingness to learn from our past mistakes. 10, 11 remain to be seen. This is a good exhibit of an almost perfect apology. If you've been okay hearing "sorry" your entire life then I am afraid you've been lied to more often than not.

philipwhiuk 4y ago
> Remind the person They don't even mention the person. Pretty hard to argue they covered this. I assume WikiHow thought it was too obvious that you had to actually send it to / mention the person you were actually apologising to.
- zamalek 4y ago
  > almost perfect apology
chevill 4y ago
>This is a good exhibit of an almost perfect apology. If you've been okay hearing "sorry" your entire life then I am afraid you've been lied to more often than not. If you specifically focus insults on an individual and call into question their competence and then make a vague statement that avoids actually saying you did something wrong ("We turned inwards), you have failed to do #1, which is arguably the most important step. It was an awful attempt at an apology that could easily pass for something written by a politician. Directness is a virtue when it comes to apologies. Counting check marked boxes on a wikihow list isn't a good way to measure the quality of an apology.