Doctoring blog posts

Have you ever quietly altered a blog post, after sensing the drift of the comments?

Or do you know anyone who has?

It occurred to me that this would be a terrific way to discredit commenters.

Post something controversial. Get people really angry. Then change the post to something bland so they look foolish.

They, of course, don't have your power. The commented word is like the sped arrow....

Comments

[Alice Marshall]

In a world of screen shots and RSS readers that is a great way to get into trouble.

It has already come up in political blogosphere and the offenders have been exposed.

[David Tebbutt]

I agree on the correction stuff. I've done it myself. But left it in plain view if it's a serious change.

Anyone know any good flame wars from a silently altered post?

[Chris Edwards]

It's difficult to think of any circumstances where it would work to the detriment of the commenters rather than the original poster. If you stirred up a flame war and then altered the post to make it more considered, the angry commenters would get even angrier and there is a reasonable chance they copied chunks of the original text for their own blogs. Before you know it, you have become a Stalinist airbrusher of history - and they would have ample evidence in their own hands.

I think simple typos can get edited silently. If the typo/mistake was noticed by a commenter or the change alters the meaning, it should get the strikethrough treatment. However, I've slightly altered posts after publishing to make them clearer, just as long as they don't have comments on them.

Who knows, the mistake might be better: "the medium is the massage".

[City Hippy]

I have amended and added to posts and edited small errors, often grammatical etc, - if they are inconsequential to the content then I replace but if fair play requires a strike through i.e. if I have erred then that is what I do.

You make a good point though...perhaps the wayback machine could become a sort of legal deposit library for blogs? Currently it does not seem to archive.

Namaste

Al