tarquin wrote:
I'm still trying to work out if your comment of "when a lady acts in an ungentlemanly way a gentleman always apologizes!" is meant to be tongue-in-cheek....
I missed that one. If we take away the "old fashioned" sex roles implied, I think that the general sentiment is very useful to wikipedia. We should all stand ready to apologize, as stepping on toes is so easy to do in the heat of discussion and debate, particularly on emotional pages. And it's VERY important that we all be ready to apologize for our own wrongdoing, even if the other person won't.
(And sometimes, if we take a deep breath, we will realize that the other person doesn't really owe us an apology after all.)
I'm sure in real life we've all seen the situation of two people in an argument who both desperately want to make up and move on, but insist for whatever reason that the other person has to "go first". If he'll apologize, then I will. It's unfortunate, but it's an easy trap to fall into.
I hope Adam is listening here.
--Jimbo