kingswoman asked: Maybe you should take less shit from people on the net you've never met? After years as moderator on a large forum, I ignore people getting hurt because they misinterpreted a piece of text. You are making efforts to be helpful, they need to make efforts not to deliberately misread things!
I’m not “taking shit”, because that implies there’s no good reason for people to be angry with me; I’m accepting being called out because I actually made a mistake. Yes, I was trying to be helpful, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t fuck up by thoughtlessly steering someone towards triggering material in a context that was explicitly about their desire to avoid triggers, and then being glib, however unintentionally, when leaving the conversation.
As I’ve said often and loudly, intentions aren’t a get out of jail free card, and that applies to me as much as anyone else. Nobody’s deliberately misreading me; what I said could just as easily be interpreted as peevishness as contrition, because when I wrote it, I forgot that the written word plays hob with intended tone.
So, yeah. As the person who actually made the mistake, and given that I feel badly about having done so, it would be massively disingenuous and hypocritical to get angry when people call me on it. My intentions matter to me, but there’s no earthly reason why they should matter to other people, and as such, I don’t get to complain about being misunderstood, or whatever.
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