POLL: When is it ok to edit a blog post?

[sqbr]

Reading this post about the controversial decision to delete posts on Boing Boing and the fact I just made a post I've had to edit several times based on people's comments got me thinking about (EDIT :)) editing blogs.

Here I'm talking just about personal blogs like this lj, not proffesional or semi-profesional/famous ones like Boing Boing.

EDIT (heh): My brain turned to mush just as I was finishing this, so I'm still not going to express this well, but: I've conflated "What you do personally" with "What you tend to think other people should do" and "what you think is an objective minimum standard for blogging", and of course these are not always the same thing (such an objective standard may not even exist). Also I should make it clear that while I do think there are certain basic standards of behaviour I would expect from most bloggers (e.g. not changing your posts and then lying about it) on the whole I think people have a right to run their blogs how they like (though I think it's good to make your policy clear if there's confusion)


[Poll #1215499]

I was going to have a question about deleting posts but couldn't get it to come out right, especially since I'd have to take into account friendslock/private posts etc. With regards to the Boing Boing thing I can kind of see why they deleted the posts without saying (though it's hard to say for certain if it's justified given they won't say the reason) but deleting all comments asking about it until they got around to making a statement is just rude.

For myself I pretty much never delete comments, but am pretty fast and loose with unmarked edits as longas they don't change the basic meaning of the post (lots of bad phrasing etc)

Comments

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

I prefer to mark edits that significantly add something or significantly change meaning, if it's done long enough after the post that someone is likely to have read it.

For other people - their blog, their rules, ultimately. I tend to think they "should" mark edits if it's substantive and especially if it relates to comments that have already been made; but not that they should be forced to. If they want to withdraw something they've said from publication, that's their right.

And I'll delete whatever comments I want to, whever I want to. I'm not big on _editing_ comments (unless, perhaps, they're obviously abusive trolls, and then I'll note the edit), but deleting? My blog, my rules - I'm not /obliged/ to provide a platform for anyone to argue or be rude or troublemake or flame. My LJ is my my living room, and I have a very low tolerance for hate speech of any kind.

Having said that, I rarely actually do delete comments from my LJ. But that's because most opf my commenters are lovely! If they're some random person who has come into my house purely to pick a fight with me or insult people, however, I show them the door.

[out-fox.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting analogy, about the house.

I do see lj as more like a private place, even when it's public bloggers, because it can be so inherently social, people indulge their personal interests etc.

Whereas in Wordpress I figure, I put something out into the internets ether there then I know it's open to debate. It's like starting a conversation at my own party vs. yelling my opinion from one little soapbox in a rather massive speakers corner.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

That's interesting that you perceive a difference in privacy level or how comment policies should be depending on the blogging platform. With the indulgence of our host (or elsewhere, if preferred), I'd love to explore that more.

Do you think there is (or should be) a difference in comment policies depending on whether the blog is hosted for free on a company's servers or hosted by yourself on a server that you pay for?

Yay! An excuse to use this icon!

[alias_sqbr]

Host piping up here to say I'm too tired to engage with this conversation right now, but feel free to go off on any tangent you like(*). I promise not to delete your comments :)

(*)Well, ok, there are tangents I would disapprove of but not any I can see the two of you doing.

[out-fox.livejournal.com]

I was initally thinking less of the free/paid element, than the different degrees of inbuilt social networking vs. visibility in search engines between the platforms.

Although expense comes into that agreed.

Imo lj is favored by certain demographics and for certain uses more than paid/own blogs because of both it's implictliy more "communities" nature and the lower/nil entry costs in blog hosting and time required to familiarize self with physical blog management [learn CSS, make layout, organize feeds & personal content policy etc.]

The greater investment to create a high profile "real" public blog seems to imply more often [in Oz anyway] that the person has a topic they want to actually publicly expound upon.

/edited to edit out my "awaiting hosts indulgence" comment.

[alias_sqbr]

I think you may be right about the way things work *now*, but a lot of people I know (myself included) had personal blogs that they then shifted to lj with no change in tone etc, so I think it's less inherent to the nature of blogs and more that the "amateur looking but really good for community building and conversation" nature of lj (plus myspace, facebook etc) attracted all the unproffesional personal bloggers leaving Wordpress etc for the would-be Serious Bloggers.

It never occured to me that it might be an australian thing, though, hmm. (Lauredhel is also an aussie, btw)

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that it's so much a paid/unpaid divide as a cultural issue. Different 'spaces' have different expectations and different unwritten rules - not to say that lj (for example) is particularly homogenous on that count, but you can certainly observe general tendencies in behaviour on the basis of platform.

Besides - some people pay for their LJ, and some people elsewhere have managed to obtain very cheap hosting :)

[alias_sqbr]

For other people - their blog, their rules, ultimately. I tend to think they "should" mark edits if it's substantive and especially if it relates to comments that have already been made; but not that they should be forced to. If they want to withdraw something they've said from publication, that's their right.

Yes, same. The "should" in my poll was just on the level of general expectation/politeness, I'm not saying we should kick trangressors out of the blogosphere or anything :)

Having said that, I rarely actually do delete comments from my LJ. But that's because most opf my commenters are lovely! If they're some random person who has come into my house purely to pick a fight with me or insult people, however, I show them the door.

Mm, I've yet to delete anything other than spam, but that has more to do with the quality of comments I get than my standards.