Also from The Netherlands, this is 100% condescending and patronising to me. I read this as corporate-speak for "go fuck yourself". Let's go through it line-by-line:
> I'm sorry for how you and the Japanese community feel about the MT workflow that we just recently introduced.
"We have zero regrets about the changes we made and have no intention of making any changes - the problem is how you feel about them".
> Would you be interested to hop on a call with us to talk about this further?
"I can't be bothered to engage with the points you already raised. You can do some venting in a Teams call, but we don't want there to be a record so we can't be held to any promises we might accidentally make."
> We want to make sure we trully understand what you're struggling with.
"You are the problem: you haven't embraced our glorious changes yet. Accept our "help" to adapt to your new reality, or get out"
So no, that's not what you'd write if you genuinely wanted to help: that's what you write when you want to get rid of someone who is bothering you.
If they genuinely wanted to help, the response would've read something more like this:
> Dear marsf,
> It is shocking to me to learn that our recent rollout of sumobot has caused enough friction to make a 20-year veteran of our community quit. Our intention has always been, and will always be, to use new technology like sumobot to help our communities - not harm them. Reading your report, we have clearly failed at that.
> To prevent it from doing additional damage, we have chosen to pause sumobot for the moment. We still believe that it can become a valuable tool, but it'll remain paused until we have discussed its modes of operation and the impact it has on the way you contribute with representatives of the various communities. We'll work out an approach over the following weeks.
> I hope this is sufficient for now to change your mind about leaving - people like you are essential to open-source applications like Firefox. If you wish to discuss it face-to-face, my team and I am more than happy to hop on a call with you to make sure we are doing the right thing.
I can't believe I had to scroll this far to find a well-articulated example of a proper response. It isn't just a few words that needed changing, the original response by Mozilla mas missing the whole point that you bring up in your example: a 20y veteran volunteer is leaving. Within a small community, the action of a single veteran/leader leaving this way will certainly have an effect on the rest of the volunteers, even more so when you consider the cultural aspects of this specific community.
> I'm sorry for how you and the Japanese community feel about the MT workflow that we just recently introduced.
"We have zero regrets about the changes we made and have no intention of making any changes - the problem is how you feel about them".
> Would you be interested to hop on a call with us to talk about this further?
"I can't be bothered to engage with the points you already raised. You can do some venting in a Teams call, but we don't want there to be a record so we can't be held to any promises we might accidentally make."
> We want to make sure we trully understand what you're struggling with.
"You are the problem: you haven't embraced our glorious changes yet. Accept our "help" to adapt to your new reality, or get out"
So no, that's not what you'd write if you genuinely wanted to help: that's what you write when you want to get rid of someone who is bothering you.
If they genuinely wanted to help, the response would've read something more like this:
> Dear marsf, > It is shocking to me to learn that our recent rollout of sumobot has caused enough friction to make a 20-year veteran of our community quit. Our intention has always been, and will always be, to use new technology like sumobot to help our communities - not harm them. Reading your report, we have clearly failed at that. > To prevent it from doing additional damage, we have chosen to pause sumobot for the moment. We still believe that it can become a valuable tool, but it'll remain paused until we have discussed its modes of operation and the impact it has on the way you contribute with representatives of the various communities. We'll work out an approach over the following weeks. > I hope this is sufficient for now to change your mind about leaving - people like you are essential to open-source applications like Firefox. If you wish to discuss it face-to-face, my team and I am more than happy to hop on a call with you to make sure we are doing the right thing.