[jwcacces]

The only one who can judge the worthiness of this apology is Matthew Butterick himself. As for me, this sounds like the first steps of the self realization process Matthias should go through in an effort to better himself.

Let's not judge it to harshly. Rather let's encourage him to keep on walking down that path of self improvement that we all should be on.

[boredtofears]

> first steps of the self realization process

Every time I see a well written apology letter, I cringe at all the self-actualization rhetoric people respond to it with.

As if they must do more and become some kind of Buddhist monk before true retribution is to be awarded to them.

[throwaway9980]

Yes, I agree that we can all do better, be better, strive for good things for all, etc, but this language borders on religious. And it’s everywhere these days. It’s as if not always living up to a set of ideals is the modern original sin that requires constant atonement.

[itronitron]

Many people have been conditioned to believe that people in positions of power are virtuous, and that they reached that position by doing good things well. It's not that everyone expects people in power to live a set of ideals, it's that they have been marketed as such.

[vanderZwan]

The apology is in response to being called out on one example in decades of behavior so toxic that a significant number of people have left academia, an otherwise amazing open source project and who knows what else, as a result of it. This has been confirmed by many people at this point.

An apology in that context is a starting point, a request to open a door that has been shut by the abuser themselves. An apology doesn't actually fix anything regarding the toxic behavior, and not getting the benefit of doubt that ths behavior, again, with a track record of decades, is suddenly over is not just completely justified, it would be naive to do otherwise.

And to think that this kind of hesitance at trusting someone who has so systemically violated it for. decades. has anything to do with "awarding retribution" or "becoming like a Buddhist monk" is incredibly tone deaf.

[boredtofears]

Okay. So what is the “path” you’d prescribe this individual? That’s the part that never seems to get defined and seems to be something the accused must infinitely chase.

At what point should spectators be allowed to treat this individual like a human again?

[Guidii]

For insight into the larger context here (all the conversations and interactions, along with Matthew's interpretation) see https://beautifulracket.com/appendix/why-i-no-longer-contrib...

[koheripbal]

Apologies should be private.

Public apologies are their own form of unhealthy societal bullying.

[haswell]

Matthew called him out publicly. Given that, I can’t really judge the decision to make the apology public.

Ideally, all of this should probably be private, but public discourse about internal things seems increasingly the norm. I’m not a fan.

Edit: after reading Matthew’s updates to his original post [0], I fully understand why the apology is public. Matthias responded to the original post privately via email, and Matthew chose to publicly publish key excerpts and a general characterization of what Matthias wrote privately.

He then “gave permission” to Matthias to publish any corrections.

I’m not a fan of Matthew’s general approach here (even while acknowledging that of course bullying/abuse is unacceptable).

- [0] https://beautifulracket.com/appendix/why-i-no-longer-contrib...

[dTal]

What should he have done? Kept quiet? Attempted (and likely failed) to obtain a meaningless private apology, for multiple instances of public belittlement - while the bully carries on bullying?

No. As he says in his post - "It’s apparent that Felleisen has avoided account­ability for a long time. I’m far from his only target. I’ve seen him verbally abuse and heckle others. I’ve heard other accounts privately. But I’m only part of the cover-up if I choose to be. So from now on—I’m not."

And further on he directly responds to your objection:

"In general, I have a strong aver­sion to sharing any kind of personal or confes­sional anec­dotes on the internet. I’ve made an excep­tion in this case because the conceal­ment is worse."

[haswell]

We can only speculate on whether he attempted to resolve this in private or not.

My preference is that things like this should be addressed privately. I realize that this is not always possible, and at times, a public "shaming" is the only way to make progress.

My objection is to Matthew's insistence on taking a private email and making it public without permission, and then acting like he holds some authority to "permit" Matthias to respond / publish any corrections.

Matthew has every right to be upset about Matthias' behavior. He has every right to ask for an apology. But I can't help but feel he's giving away the high ground by using tactics that are pretty distasteful regardless of context. Like I said, it doesn't excuse or change how problematic Matthias' behavior was, but bad behavior shouldn't automatically justify more bad behavior.

[threepio]

1) No, you don't need to speculate. He describes three years of events that all happened in private (with no resolution). Starting from the very first sentence of the piece ("In January 2020, I told two members of Racket’s core team …")

2) The private email is relevant because its message is so starkly at odds with the public statement. It goes directly to the whole thesis of the piece: that bullies gain power through secrecy. He does not owe the bully any secrecy, because the bully has misused secrecy in the past. His attempt to find a principled middle ground is reasonable.

[haswell]

1) Nowhere does he say he ever attempted to address this in private. You could argue that "Matthias should have apologized unprompted", and I agree, but I think it's clear that this was behavior that had to be confronted. My comment about speculating is about prior attempts to resolve this privately, and as far as we can tell, that never happened (we also don't know it didn't happen, because Matthew never comments on this).

2) I'm reacting here because Matthew's message regarding the private communication is also starkly self-contradictory.

He starts by saying:

> I believe in the norm that private commu­ni­ca­tions should remain so, unless everyone agrees. So I’m going to para­phrase his message. If Felleisen feels mischar­ac­ter­ized, I give him permis­sion to publish it.

He seems to believe that by not publishing the exact words, he's somehow free of his own belief that "unless everyone agrees, private communication should remain so". What he's actually doing is proceeding to publish the private communication anyway by using a technical workaround, despite not having the agreement he called out moments before.

Again, I want to be extremely clear: I'm not defending Matthias here, at all. But Matthew is not being true to his own statements, and while this shouldn't invalidate his message, it certainly doesn't look great as a tactic, either.

[sjansen]

Dunno, if you're called out publicly I see no problem with replying publicly.

I mean what's the alternative, silence? For all we know, there may have been additional private communication and if there was I'm pretty sure it's none of our business.

[mark_l_watson]

With respect, I disagree. I think public apologies, when a perceived insult occurred in public, are much stronger.

[mathattack]

Apologies should be in the same forum as the offense.