[WikiEN-l] Forgive and forget

[Keitei]

On Jan 5, 2007, at 11:39, Thomas Dalton wrote:

>> I try to apply it all the time, but apparently it is a dying kind of
>> dispute resolution.
>
> It isn't a form of dispute resolution at all. You can't really forgive
> someone until they accept they did something wrong (well, I guess
> technically you can, but it doesn't achieve much), and once they've
> done that, the dispute is already resolved. All "forgive and forget"
> says is "once the dispute is resolved, move on, don't try and punish
> people for their mistakes".

Refusing to move on prolongs the dispute. Therefore, agreeing to move  
on resolves any residual dispute that would be left. Thus, it is  
dispute resolution. This isn't a content dispute sort of situation,  
but rather disagreeing with others' behaviors.

Let's say Person A often says certain sorts of things, which, to  
Person B, sound like personal attacks. Person B is offended and  
infuriated and begins a vendetta against Person A. Person A says, I'm  
sorry you took it that way; I didn't mean it like that. Person B has  
two choices: go around the wiki proclaiming that Person A is uncivil,  
never assumes good faith, and is racist; or forgive, forget, move on.

(This happens a lot.)