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]

Even just the "house" analogy might be understating or misstating things, depending on the situation, because blog posts/threads often have a specific topic or purpose. So it might be, in some cases, more like gatecrashing an activist meeting that happens to be in a public place and yelling slogans opposing the purpose; or attending a jam session in a pub and deliberately playing off-key; - that sort of thing.

People always have a right to feel angry (no one can regulate feelings), but they don't have a right to come back and egg the place.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

Actually "public place" just doesn't work in this context either. "Private property with the door open" is better.

[alias_sqbr]

Hmm...I don't know, it's a lot creepier to stand around listening at the door of a stranger than it is to read their blog. Or to encourage other people to stand around as well.

But I agree it depends very much on the nature of the blog and individual post: this post, for example, is on a pretty broad topic and a random stranger wouldn't be out of place piping up with their opinion. But it would easily be creepy for a random stranger to comment on my "what do you think of my new haircut?" post.

[alias_sqbr]

Most of my reply is below, but:

The problem with this sort of discussion is that people always have the "right" to do what they like with their blog, and their commenters always have the "right" to be angry. But there are certain situations where the behavior of one or more parties, while well within their rights, isn't very justified. For example, I have a right to ban anyone who comments using an icon from a show I don't like...but it would be pretty petty of me, and those banned would be justifiably annoyed. On the other hand, I would be justified in deleting any comments containing offensive porn advertising, and the commenter might have the right to be angry but it wouldn't be justified.

The question then is the highly subjective grey area in between those two extremes. I can't stop my commenters being angry, but where possible I'd like to avoid making them justifiably so (according to their own personal measure of such things as well as mine)

That said, I agree that even when you're justifiably angry, it's still pretty much always wrong to "come back and egg the place".

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

And when I said elsewhere that on my LJ people are expected to fit themselves into the conversation rather than make it all about them, I'm (obviously, I hope) not talking about people who use icons from TV shows I don't like! I can think of situations where I might delete a comment for an icon, but I think we're on basic agreement on that (as we are on the gist of the other stuff) - deliberate extreme spoilers, porn, race vilification, that sort of thing.

It's also _possible_ (I'm not sure) that we're choosing to emphasise different aspects of this because we're visualising different initial scenarios. When you said "Icon from a show I don't like", I was "Ohhhh. That's not _at all_ the sort of thing I was thinking about". We get some pretty nasty trolls from time to time. I guess I'm thinking that you're mostly talking about fandom wank type scenarios, and I'm thinking more about race hatred and rape apologism and stuff? (Correct me if I'm wrong, please.)

[alias_sqbr]

I guess..I'm trying to find a framework which covers both, and testing any suggested framework with both extremes. I'm emphasising the counterexamples to the arguments people are making. Also since the example that inspired me was (in my opinion) someone deleting things for bad reasons, I ended up with a bias against that.

So if someone says "Bloggers have the right to set their own rules and delete what they like", I think about bloggers who are petty and delete things for selfish or shallow reasons.

But if someone said "Bloggers should never delete anything, that violates freedom of speech" I would think about hate speech, spam etc..but noone argued that way, so I didn't bring it up. A lot of people do argue that way, in other places, so I probably should have mentioned it for completeness.

Also I should have explicitely added "hatespeech/racism etc" to the poll, it's not quite the same thing as "rude" and "troublemaking", though I did have it in mind when I added those categories.