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Comment by bayindirh | Hacker News Reader

> I'm sorry for how you and the Japanese community feel about the MT workflow that we just recently introduced.

English is also not my mother tongue, but this translates to "I'm sorry you feel like that, but we don't care or change anything, can I call you to convince you into doing things our way while completely being off the record?" in my mind.

This is forceful and rude in my culture, but it's very rude and a no-no in Japanese culture AFAIK.

If the person wanted to help genuinely, I'd expect to read something like "I'm sorry you feel like this. I read your comments but I want to clarify some points so I can transfer these up the chain with utmost clarity. We might have made some mistakes and don't want to leave you out in the cold".

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This reaction baffles me and feels like online indignation culture. All I could see, as a Latin American English speaker, is someone who's sincerely trying to help and picked their words carefully. Your proposed phrasing sounds unnatural and AI-like.

This is exactly what cultural difference looks like. What sounds rude here sounds perfectly fine over there.

While I have written that comment somewhat quickly, that's not AI at all, I can assure you about that. :)

You're touching the heart of the question, but not in the way you think. Any arbitrary statement could be construed as offensive by SOME culture out there. But people prefer to immediately assume the worst and be offended instead of giving others the benefit of the doubt.

For instance, if I followed the principles of indignation culture, I could be offended by your "I can assure you about that :)" statement. I could say "Are you making fun of me?!?!"

To be clear, your statement is perfectly fine. I understand what you're saying, despite disagreeing.

Also, this happened in an English language forum. It's reasonable to expect that foreign speakers would be somewhat versed in the conventions of the English language and see that the comment was not offensive at all.

It's not just the words that differ. Rudeness can come from underlying values betrayed by language, and those values do matter -- words aren't simply interchanged atop them.

Some cultures value relational power in leadership, and so their language reflects preserving relationships as a base resources. Some cultures value authority, and so their idea of being polite might involve some maintenance of authority at the expense of perceived care or relationship.

I'm just saying the words that convey rudeness are not necessarily just a superficial dressing on the same thing. Politeness is a shorthand that is also about alignment with a cultural value. Cultural values differ. My being annoyed at someone else's cultural posturing as default, that's not just mindless indignation. Values matter.

As a native speaker (American) the phrasing is classic condescending soulless corporate customer service speak. 1) You must always apologize, 2) you must never admit fault. "I'm sorry you feel this way about what we did" comes across _to me_ as "what we did was totally fine, it's too bad that you don't understand the wisdom of our actions." That kind of phrasing is also a bit of a trigger because the majority of the time you hear it from companies that don't give a damn how you feel and will fight to avoid doing anything to actually help you.

It's of course impossible to say if this was just an unfortunate choice of phrasing or if it's a sign that Mozilla has become that soulless corporate entity (I say this as a Firefox user for more than 20 years).

> but it's very rude and a no-no in Japanese culture

What, specifically, about that phrasing is "very rude" and a "no-no" in Japanese culture?

I am genuinely curious.

Every culture has a way of discussing and resolving disagreements. Some are noisier and some are calmer. Some cultures do this dance with "apparent" disrespect, with forceful exchanges, some with calmer and tidier demeanor.

Japanese are the latter. There's a polite dance of disagreement. Every side listens others with respect (with respect to the process even if they don't respect the others) and answer politely yet firmly.

This comment smells like there's already some disagreement under this, and none of them have been listened and they are steamrolled with the new workflow.

Implying "Hey you're overreacting, let us convince you" doesn't help on top of it.

Politely say "I don't care what you think but I won't change anything" is perfectly fine in Japanese culture. Taking an issue privately instead of showing disagreements in public is also perfectly fine for Japanese people.

The issue has nothing to do with Japanese culture, but with how you work with a community of volunteers over the web. "Let's jump on a call" is what you say to a coworker, not to a volunteer in an online community.

> "Let's jump on a call"

Let’s jump on a call is something you say when you feel that the tone and intention of your communication is getting lost in text. And whether it’s common in all cultures or not, tone and intention getting lost in text is universal.

"We want to make sure we trully (SIC) understand what you're struggling with."

I'm afraid you skipped this part though

> We want to make sure we trully understand what you're struggling with.

I mean, that question is already well answered within the first (opening) comment of marsf, so that part smells "tl;dr. Can I call you".

This sentence makes it even worse. All the pain points are openly written there.

> I mean, that question is already well answered within the first (opening) comment of marsf,

No, it's not. Half of the listed reasons are obvious enough, but the half is very vague. I don't know if they are something you would understand as an insider, but as an outsider there would be many open questions if it would be my task to make this work.

The whole communication seems like people on one or both sides lacking information, and one trying to fix this to start the process for solving the other sides' problem. Nothing wrong with this in a professional environment.

Does it read like a canned response? Yes.

But it is not "forceful and rude" by any means and your interpretation is way over the top for what looks like two people from different cultures trying to communicate in a mutually non-native language using words on a screen.

Written messages can feel cold even when it's two native English speakers communicating over email or text and it's best to assume good faith until you see clear evidence to the contrary.

I don't think it even matters how canned it sounds.. it seems like a polite way to move the discussion to a phone call where some real communication can happen. I think that was a perfect response. Forums are not ideal for resolving conflict, especially if language barriers exist.

I was struck by some of the responses. "No I don't want to talk on a call, just read what I typed." If that's how you think then you're part of the problem.

> I'm sorry you feel like this

Nope. Start by apologizing for the impact of what YOU did. Contributor of 20y just quit and provide a clear list of what is wrong. "your feelings" and "your struggles" is not respectful.

You should be sorry that YOU pushed changes on them in a way that impacted badly their work and made them quit. Thank them for the feedback and try to open a discussion on finding a positive outcome.

But they might not be sorry.

Being sorry about how the bot works implies an intention to change/remove it.

Yep, it's pretty clear they are not that sorry, from the tone. They just want to smooth things over. No ACK of making a mistake or changing anything.

"I'm sorry for how you feel about this" (we won't admit that we harmed you with our bad behavior, and it's probably your fault for feeling pain.)

"your struggles" (it's your fault that you were harmed by our bad behavior.)

"Hop on a call" (we are the boss, you aren't, and your concerns are trivial.)

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