BLOGGING FOR FREEDOM |
CORRECTIONS TO YOUR BLOG ENTRIES |
Two methods exist for publicly and transparently correcting mistakes in posted entries. Both involve using the Edit function in your blog software. Use the strikethrough. The strikethrough is a simple HTML tag. Some blog programs give you one-click formatting of strikethroughs (no more difficult than making a word bold or italicizing it). In other cases, you need to put the tag in by hand, on an HTML screen. The opening and closing strikethrough tags are: <s> and </s>, respectively. Good blog- Ging protocol would be striking through a mistake and typing the correction immediately afterward. Correct the mistake and write out an explanation for your changed entry. It’s perfectly fine to avoid strikethroughs if you divulge the error and simply correct it. In both cases, you might consider resurfacing the entry to the current date and time, if your software allows time-shifting an entry. Doing so puts the entry back on your index page, if it had fallen off over time, and back into the RSS feed. Visitors and feed subscribers will see the entry again, with your corrections. Resurfacing isn’t always necessary; I do it when I’ve made a whopping blunder and I want to conspicuously correct myself. Of course, that happens only once a year. Once a month. Every couple of days. Never
mind how often it happens.
With the exception of resurfacing an entry to correct an error, it’s best not to alter your archives. That means you should not change the date and time, not alter the permalink (remember, some readers might have bookmarked the permalink, so don’t move the page around), and not delete past entries. That last bit of advice — don’t delete — can present tough decisions. If you really get in a jam, perhaps by offending somebody, you might want to (or promise to) eliminate the offending post. Do what you must, but remember that blog archives are regarded as inviolable historical records of the blog. Leaving them untouched is part of the ethos of transparency that governs blog culture. On Competition and Cooperation Competition and cooperation present a push-pull dynamic in the blogosphere.
If you’re a beginner, you might not feel competitive in the slightest. And if you write an online-diary type of blog, you might never feel the quivers of competitive blogging vibrating through the Web. But topical bloggers do compete — for attention, traffic, influence, TrackBacks, prestigious citations in otherblogs, and scoops. At the same time, the Blogosphere organism has an underlying cooperative spirit. Competition is not particularly frowned upon, but vio-lation of basic cooperative rules is. Transgressions of the line dividing competition from cooperation can brand a blog as inauthentic — perhaps the most damaging reputation. In theory, blogs are authentic above all else, aspiring to an editorial purity that honors strict topicality, careful crediting of sources, and avoidance of gratuitous commercialism. In this context, commercialism refers to self-promotion, especially by using other blogs to drive traffic to your blog. This cultural breach can be committed in subtle or obvious ways; they are all scorned. The following sections explore problems and solutions. You didn’t do it alone In a topical blog, few entries exist in isolation, unsupported by the work of others. It does happen; if you write an essay on your topic containing original thoughts (they needn’t be unique thoughts), there might be no need for attributions. If an entry contains no links to outside sources (articles or blog entries), it means you are not crediting any influences upon your thinking. As a matter of style, topical blog entries are enhanced by links, but style is up to you. As a matter of fairness, attributions for links and ideas are a blogosphere mandate.