Commandment 10: Be forgiving of other people's mistakes

 Out of the ten commandments of netiquette by Virginia Shea, this one has the most "biblical" vibe.

Mistakes are inevitable. Even I make them. Choosing to sound arrogant just now was probably one of them. Trying to break the fourth wall to sound funny was another. The point is, everyone makes them, and there is nothing easier than exploiting the mistakes of other people to make yourself feel intellectually or morally superior.

Sadly, it has been in human nature even before the advent of cyberspace for people who are about to lose an argument to latch on to inconsequential mistakes of their opponents to divert the topic of conversation to come out on top. Online this behavior often presents itself in the form of "grammar nazis", when people sometimes literally point out a missing comma to suggest that their opponent is mentally inferior to them.

There is more than one reason to avoid doing that. For example, it is you who could be wrong. It is always useful to possess a certain level of intellectual humility, especially when it concerns easily verifiable facts such as spelling, but also broader truths about the world. It is quite easy to come to a wrong conclusion when you only have but a surface-level understanding of some field.

Another reason would be that, assuming you are right, choosing to forgive a mistake will make it easier for other people to, in turn, forgive you your (inevitable) future mistakes.

And the third one is that a "better-than-thou" attitude is very isolating. In real life it might cause a rift between close people, but in the cyber domain, where possible contacts are nearly endless, one will likely drift into an echo-chamber of like-minded individuals, where no progress in any discussion is ever made.

On the other hand, judging people is super fun and very cathartic, so go get 'em!