Reporting the mods

To clarify, an apology that goes 'I'm sorry I can't read your tone' is not a good apology, because it involves apologizing for something that's involuntary and not the thing people are upset about. An apology that goes 'I'm sorry I've been treating you like you're out of control. I think I'm unable to clearly process your tone, and in the future I will make an effort to take a step back and interact with you in a polite manner.' is a good apology, because it starts by apologizing for what you actually did, then goes on to explain why that happened and the steps you're taking to deal with it.

You don't have to like Spock. You don't have to be buddies with Spock. It would be a massive step forward if you could treat Spock with, at the very least, impersonal civility, and I think she'd be perfectly fine with that.

 

In the explanation stage of an apology, if you choose to write one, it's considered best if you focus on statements of fact without trying to minimize things. There's a difference between an explanation and an excuse, and part of why people have been upset with most of your apologies is that they seem to follow up with excuses or apologies for the wrong things. You don't have to apologize for something you can't currently help, but by acknowledging that thing you can't help and making steps to work around it, you put in the effort that helps smooth things over.

 

I'm not talking about this here anymore.

Athol, you wanted a reminder to come back to my big post for you.

 

I'm sorry for treating you like you were flippin' irrational, but that's how I was hearing it. I've been more than patient, so I'm not sure how much further I can stretch.

Could you give me reciprocity with realizing that people keep antagonizing me endlessly for trying to be polite about things?

I apologize for getting short and starting to respond to wiggles with "FUCKING WHAT?" But in this bizarro world y'all probably judge it as an improvement over my attempts to be civil.

 

They really don't though.

People are being short out of frustration, and some of them are reacting with sarcasm because you've exhausted their limit of good faith and sincerety. But I have not observed a single person so far going out of their way to purposefully antagonize or provoke you. You're doing that all on your own.

 

Okay, see, the problem here is that you're not very good at being civil or patient. In general, people are not antagonizing you for trying to be polite, they're reacting to your antagonism, which exists even if it's unintentional.

I can see you used my advice to try to formulate your apology, and I appreciate it, but it would have been a lot more effective to cut yourself off after 'that's how I was hearing it'. I mean, I might have changed the wording on a few things in that first sentence, but I don't want to copy-edit your apologies, I just want to say the first sentence alone would have been a good start.

It's hard to cut yourself off when you feel like you need to defend yourself. It takes effort. That effort is part of why such an apology would have been appreciated, especially since nobody here is unfamiliar with how much you're driven to defend yourself.

 

If, right now, you can't manage more politeness to Spock because you've been trying to be polite and failing, I think it would be better to just say 'I'm not sure how to fix the problem I'm having'.

 

Yes, emphasis on the claim that it keeps happening, when in reality it happened a couple times in the past.

 

Kathy Jones is the first one I found when I went looking for it, the rest happened to have been stuff that was in my quote-que for one reason or another.

If Spock can get upset about what they consider factually untrue, why can't I? I AM antagonized and people keep harping on how intent doesn't matter as much as not doing it.

What's the rate on my apologies getting accepted at all, and which ones out of those are accepted without notes on how I screwed it up? I swear, if someone minimizes how absolutely at-my-limit frustrated I am, I'm going to be pulling out a clip from Inside Out.

 

None of that is antagonising you. That is pointing out actual problems with the way you have been treating people - Spock's response is maybe frustrated and fed up, but she has been more than patient.

You have a history of responding to legitimate criticism as if it is a personal attack, which is why people are leery of interacting with you at this point.

 

Same to you. Did you completely miss my every attempt to try to explain things?

 

Okay, how do I respond to being called Bigot without feeling like it's a personal attack? How about "you're Serophobic"

 

https://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/get-a-load-of-this-guy-gif-3.gif

Fine, I'll speak your language.