[Noisebridge-discuss] Be Excellent to one another

[Autumn Tyr-Salvia]

When you say something that offends someone, the way to handle that is
to say "I'm sorry I offended you."

That's it, that's all you need to say.

*Even if* you did not mean to offend that person. *Even if* you think
that person is being oversensitive or thin skinned or otherwise should
not have found any offense in what you said. The fact is someone felt
hurt, and if you are a decent human being you should feel sad that
your words hurt someone.

Whether or not that person should have been offended is a separate
conversation that I suggest you should have privately in a one-on-one
conversation.

It's entirely true that everyone you encounter is going to have a
different standard for what is and is not offensive.

It's also entirely true that *most* people have issues they are
admittedly oversensitive about - I know that I personally have a few
issues I should probably just get over, but having years of painful
experiences associated with those things make it pretty hard for me
not to take what someone might have meant to be a casual comment as a
personal insult.

Compassion is what community is made of.

Whether or not someone should have been offended is *not* a reason not
to offer a quick simple apology for having hurt them.

Apologizing does not mean you agree they should have been offended.
Apologizing does not mean you don't privately think they should get
the hell over it and grow up. Apologizing does not mean you have now
lumped yourself in with the racists and the homophobes and the others
who are intentionally prejudiced and awful.

Apologizing does mean that you respect that person enough to feel bad
that you hurt them, and to want to maintain cordial relations with
them going forward.

Noisebridge is a community, and communities thrive on compassion.


--Autumn Tyr-Salvia (Atala)