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Comment by chevill | Hacker News Reader

>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.

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...except that they literally write "we were wrong" - so I'm not sure how you can interpret that as "avoiding to actually state they did something wrong"?

They admitted to being wrong about the technical solution to this problem, but not their mistreatment of community members. Huge difference.

> It was an awful attempt at an apology

> Counting check marked boxes on a wikihow list isn't a good way to measure the quality of an apology.

If anything, it's a way. Suggest something better for your definition of "good", as it looks like you're making a speculative criticism for your own edification.

>Suggest something better for your definition of "good"

I already mentioned two things that would make it a "good" apology:

- Directly mentioning whom you are apologizing too. In some cases addressing a group might be appropriate but in this case it seems like he should have mentioned Casey.

- Directly mentioning what you did wrong instead of phrasing it in an intentionally vague way like "we turned inwards".

Apologies are simple in composition. The hard part is getting over our egos.

> The hard part is getting over our egos

In this scenario it really isn't Microsoft who are demonstrating a bleeding ego.

Whatever you think about the apology, Microsoft made it without being called to do so. As an inconvenient data point, the apology (again, whatever you think about it) was omitted from the tweet. Casey blatantly rephrases the employee's words from "could be seen as impugning the reader" to "you are impugning the reader". This is all p-hacking convenient facts into one specific world view, and the fanbase is all too eager to echo it.

All of this drama is great for one specific ego.

>In this scenario it really isn't Microsoft who are demonstrating a bleeding ego.

My bad that part of the comment wasn't directed at Microsoft, its just something that everyone in general has to face when apologizing.

I do agree that Casey should have linked the apology blog regardless of whether he felt it was sufficient.

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