I am defining winning as damage control. EY has been trying to control the damage, and in that pursuit, I'm starting to wonder if damage control, to the extent it could be considered successful by many people, is even possible.
He's a public figure + He made a mistake = People are going to try and get mileage out of this, no matter how he handles it. That's very predictable.
Further, it's very easy to come along after the fact and say, "he should have done this and all the bad press could have been avoided!"
A page on LW might work. Or it might be more fodder for critics. If there were an easy answer to how to win via damage control, then in wouldn't be quite as tricky as it always seems to be.
It's still a matter of limiting the mileage. Even if there is no formalized and ready-to-fire response (one that hasn't been written in the heat of the moment), there's always an option not to engage. Which is what I said last time he engaged, and before he engaged this time (and also after the fact). If you engage, you get stuff like this post to /r/SubredditDrama, and comments about thin skin that not even Yudkowsky really disagrees with.
It doesn't take hindsight (or even that much knowledge of human psychology and/or public relations) to see that making...
Todays xkcd
I guess there'll be a fair bit of traffic coming from people looking it up?