Is the Mistakes Page a Mistake?

 After the October 2020 TAAAP conversation about activism and accountability, Cinnamon's point about how POCs shouldn't have had to "throw digital rocks" stuck with me. 

This got me thinking about what I can do to not force others to do the emotional labor of calling me out.

I started a self-accountability practice where I review past projects knowing what I know now about generalizing and microaggressions. The very first video I checked had a problem, as did many others.

I could have quietly erased my past mistakes and made a private note to myself to do better. Instead I chose to take the approach of 1) reduce future harm by removing or flagging the mistake, 2) make amends for the harm already caused, and 3) publicly collect my mistakes. 

I made a mistakes page where I list the mistakes I've made, explain why they are a problem, what I did to make amends, and what I can do going forward.

I have concerns this is a terrible idea. So let's think this through.

• I'm virtue signaling (disingenously expressing a moral value so that others will see me as a good person). 
• To an extent, the mistakes page is a self-centered attempt to signal that I am open to constructive criticism in the hopes that future call outs give me the benefit of the doubt and therefor cost me fewer emotional spoons to process and therefor I am able to not burn out as an activist. 
• However, I understand I am not "owed" the benefit of the doubt.
• I value the chance that others will learn from my mistakes and consider a self-accountability practice more than the risk that I will be percieved as doing this for attention.
• I'm dramatizing little mistakes for the sake of something to write about.
• I recognize that some may think some of my mistakes weren't mistakes. What is a mistake is subjective. I could be mistaken in my understanding of how a mistake I made causes harm to groups I am not a part of.  I feel there is value in analyzing mistakes no matter their subjective "size."
• I'm down playing big mistakes by controlling the narrative and listing them with little mistakes.
• I acknowledge that I am probably down playing mistakes out of self-bias or playing up mistakes out of guilt. 
• In a past version I included links to counter this effect, but for the privacy of those involved I decided to remove the links.
• The purpose of the mistakes page is not a defense of my mistakes, but to be a learning resource. That my perception will play mistakes up and down doesn't prevent this from being a learning resource.
• I could get called out for not including certain mistakes
• This could happen. At which point I could include the mistake, or explain why I'm not willing to include the mistake. Ultimately, the mistakes page is a learning resource for myself and others. It's not meant to be a comprehensive list.
• I could get called out for not doing what I said I would do
• I'm drawing attention to mistakes I haven't fully balanced out yet like "Free Online Aspec Fiction, Poetry, etc." and I don't have a time table or current motivation to put time into balancing it. I have lacked the motivation to read lately. I worry that I will forget about balancing out this resource. But I think this is a positive that this public list puts some pressure on me to eventually balance out the resource. And if I get called out in the future for not fixing a mistake I said I would, that's still better than hiding the mistake / forgetting to ever fix the mistake.
•  I could get called out for making the same mistake repeatedly
• This could happen. At which point I would have to examine why am I making the same mistake repeatedly? What causes me to make this mistake? What have I not learned?
• I'm risking a dogpile on people who made the mistake with me or people who called out the behavior. The people connected to the mistake haven't agreed to and aren't aware that I'm highlighting the encounter.
• This is my biggest concern. In an earlier edition, I included links and dates. Although all the links were public, I decided to remove them. I also removed the dates and other details like which group the microaggression was toward if I felt this would help protect the privacy of others involved while still allowing me to explain the mistake.