life with the edit button
24 Feb 2011 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouSometimes I think the best thing about the internet is the edit button. Sometimes I think it's the worst thing.
Awhile back, I remember someone making the suggestion on DW's suggestion-comm that edited posts get a notation of some sort. This post was edited on ___. Either in the original suggestion or the comments, someone had the idea that wouldn't it be better to have a notation for every edit? This put the absolute fear of the intarwebs into me, and not because I'm all that bothered if people know I edit, but because no one would ever read my posts again. The pages would never load, because the last quarter of any page would be nothing but:
post edited: day/month/year
post edited: day/month/year
post edited: day/month/year
post edited: day/month/year
...for like twenty lines, probably concluding with:
this post has been edited so many times the database has run out of rows and now the INTERNETS ARE BROKEN and you know EXACTLY WHO TO BLAME.
Okay, that's a rather tongue-in-cheek poke at myself (because while I do edit, I'm not quite that bad, err, I think), but the issue of editing missives is one that I've tangled over privately many, many times. Like just about any other topic I bring up (short of pure opinion-posts or rants), I can see multiple sides to the issues, and I think each of the points has validity. The problem is that it seems like to address whether it's okay to edit, first I have to address what exactly a post is trying to do. Or maybe I should say, I have to determine when editing is productive and when it's counter-productive, but that means understanding just what makes a post 'productive'. Aaaand that's probably even more confusing than my first attempt. Bear with me.
This post will be full of related side-notes, I suspect, in hopes that might reduce any misinterpretation. If any of what I'm saying (unintentionally on my part, believe me) makes you frothing mad, save it. This is for consideration, not argumentation. Mostly that's because I don't see my opinion as having all that much impact in the grand scheme of things, so the effort required to mount an angry offense seems like overkill. Very little I'll ever write/say really deserves the full-blown stress of OMG someone is WRONG on the INTERNETS. I'm wrong plenty of the time. I know this already. I just think you've got better things to do than get mad at me, because that's giving me an importance I don't believe I deserve.
Side-note: I use silly examples because I've found that anything resembling a possible hot-button will bring out at least one person determined to argue that my example is wrong or bad or whatever -- when my goal in this kind of example isn't that I believe (whatever that means) that cars should have three wheels or seven, but to demonstrate a pattern of some sort. To me, arguing whether an analogous illustration is wrong or bad is somewhat akin to taking the statement, "on Wednesday afternoon, someone robbed the local bookstore" and responding with "but it was Tuesday morning, therefore, no robbery occurred at all and you are all wrong and therefore nothing else you say is worth considering!" Which reads as a pretty silly reaction in itself, except that I've gotten that reaction, and it's tiring. I know there's a label for that kind of fallacy -- arguing to the details, I think? -- but the point here is that the sillier the example, the less likely there'll be a hot button that'll prompt that kind of knee-jerk reaction.
Side-note to the side-note: I'm not saying that some analogies aren't offensive, or that someone is wrong to point out that an analogy is offensive. The problem is that sometimes this is the point of using that analogy, to demonstrate that when you look at it this way, wow, that's pretty offensive. (Like giving an example of a chauvinist reaction to something, as a way to get people to see why I find a similar statement about a different group to also be offensive.) Except that what I eventually realized is that I'd rather use silly analogies whenever possible, and avoid being jumped on just because someone didn't get the method I was using to argue or illustrate.
Here's a silly example of when communication fails because the writing isn't clear, and how this can misfire if signals start crossing. Slight exaggeration, but this is what it looks like from the writer's point of view. Well, if the writer is me, at least.
first version: After being whipped fiercely, the chef folded the eggs into the cake batter.
(A) reader good mental reaction: Ehehehe. I don't think the image I got was the image you intended.
(B) reader semi-good mental reaction: HAHAHAHA You're such an idiot. Do you realize what you just wrote?
(C) reader not-so-good mental reaction: HOW DARE YOU suggest that chefs should be whipped! You chef-hater!
(A) & (B) written response: *slight sarcasm/humor* So basically you think chefs should be whipped.
(C) written response: *barely holding back anger* So basically you think chefs should be whipped.
author: Uhm. Wait, that's not what I meant to say. I didn't put it well. Let me try again.
*author hastily edits for clarity*
second version: After whipping the eggs fiercely, the chef folded them into the cake batter.
(A) & (B) written response: that makes more sense.
(C) written response: Oh, great, now you're just trying to convince us that you're not really a chef-hater. You are just compounding your errors with your paltry attempts at editing! We know the truth!
Yes, a silly example, but I think it's applicable in cases where the OP (whether this is me or someone else) is just plain communicating badly. Does forgetting to put "not" after "would" -- and thereby making a statement that's the complete opposite intended -- mean that the mistake of thinking faster than fingers can type amounts to a revelation that the OP is being intentionally deceptive about his/her position? Or is it just that sometimes, communication breaks down and a sincere OP is therefore obligated to make every attempt to clarify, and reduce (if not totally remove) the misunderstanding?
Let's say the original statement had been really offensive (insert your own hot-button here as you re-read), and the revision were a gentler form. We've all seen the author-fails, where an author posts something pretty inflammatory and then backpedals. Should that original be saved as screen-captures, to remind readers (what readers, we maybe should also ask: to whom does this record have importance?) of the original version? I can see definite value in having someone be a record-keeper in the way that the fanwank-styled comms are often record-keepers, especially when things escalate to the point of deleted posts or replies.
Is editing therefore merely disengaging, and covering up one's idiocy?
Yet I can also see that in some cases, the record-keeping feels almost vindictive. That bothers me even when the OP is arguing things that I find strongly disagreeable. Maybe it's because I'm well aware I've had plenty of wrong-headed opinions and drawn wrong-headed conclusions in my time, and I don't have the energy to track everyone else's mistakes, too. Or maybe I'm just not the right personality to gloat over someone else being an idiot -- even if I know that doing so means I'll get to look like less of an idiot, for a little while, in comparison. (Would that be the Idiot Olympics variation on the Oppression Olympics?)
Maybe the question isn't whether it's right or wrong to edit but to ask: what's the purpose of an online journal? Who does it serve? In the long run -- with posts going back three, four, five years or even more -- who goes back and reads those older posts? If posts have value, over time, to whom do they have the most value? To the readers, to see the OP's thought processes and reflections and reportage over a great span of time? Or to the OP him/herself, to act as a record of one's thoughts, events, life in general?
Is a journal more honest if it tracks the changes and development of the OP's thoughts, and therefore editing (or deletion, now or later) effectively count as erasing a point in one's journey?
Even if the post deleted or edited is otherwise innocuous, to someone (anyone) -- like old to-do lists, or reports on how sick the cat is, or complaints about a job or lack thereof -- could it be that the position of the OP (that it's unimportant information and thus deletable) is contradictory to the audience position (that every bit of information should be saved as some kind of permanent record for future, uhm, generations)? The secret inner historian in me says, save it all! and the rest of me says, who really cares what I was doing three years ago on a muggy July evening? Who in twenty years will even be able to read this, and even in four years, who's bothered to read it? Why should it take up space?
Yes, I'm aware that space on the internet is not 'space' in the same way that, say, books on a shelf take up space. The amount of space available -- on the net, on my server, on my harddrive -- is far greater than I'll fill up, and I can always buy an external terrabyte harddrive. It's not an issue of space, really. It's an issue of weight.
Or maybe I should say, I dislike baggage. My brain is cluttered enough. I'd like at least one thing in my life to be relatively less cluttered... and a journal that records everything, that never cleans its closets, is a journal that takes up too much space. What value do those records serve, except to weigh me down?
At least, that's the sense of things, and it's one I can't shake.
Again, to be clear: I have no answers. I am asking these questions in hopes that if I keep asking myself, maybe I'll hit upon the right question to get enough of an answer that'll give me new questions. Expect repetition. It's part of the process of turning things over: it's all fundamentally the same box, just a different angle in each progression.
Does a cleaning-house deletion somehow damage this nebulous collection of communications? Why would it make a difference, to delete now versus to wait awhile and then delete? If a journal exists as a record for the purposes of the author's own use, then what value is there in storing/maintaining thoughts (or allowing them to remain presented as part of the 'authorial collection') if those positions are no longer accurate to the author's current position?
Is a journal effectively created by the OP but really owned (in a sense) by the readership? Are any attempts at removing once-aligned (but no longer) conversations/posts betraying the readership by altering or glossing a historical point in the author's internal progress/process?
It seems to me that when readers lambast an author for editing or deletion, the message is that the author does not, in fact, 'own' the material. The communications made are set in stone, and now 'owned' by the readership, who will maintain them for future reference. The commentary I see in threads about OP idiocy (among many other types) is a definite derision against the OP, as though editing or deletion is an attempt to somehow stymie the readers, pull wool over their eyes, fool them into thinking the OP has always thought this way.
That's possible. Some may use editing or deletion in that manner. But I also think of other significant track records or processes in my life, where I've chosen to remove elements because I now find them repulsive, uninteresting, redundant, or maybe just plain not where I'm at.
Something very concrete: for several years, I had my grandmother's dressing table. It's quite pretty, a repro Duncan Phyfe, and of course it held a great deal of sedimental value for me, seeing how many hours I spent at my grandmother's knee while she put on or removed makeup. In the end, though, I gave that dressing table to my sister, and if she'd not taken it, I probably would've sold it or given it away. Yes, it has major familial value, but it was no longer me. Once, I loved that style, then I grew up and realized my own style and realized that furniture didn't fit me anymore.
To me, retaining something in a journal that doesn't "fit" me anymore (like, I changed my opinion about that or figured out I'd drawn a very wrong conclusion in analysis or don't see reason to keep copious posts about a job I hated and am now glad to be rid of) is sort of like that piece of furniture. Do I keep it, anyway, just so you -- the theoretical visitor -- can see the tracks of where I used to be (style-wise, or content-wise) alongside the more recent parts?
Or do I say: if I have this, it'll give you a completely different impression of me, and I'm not that person anymore. Is it right -- is it fair, even -- to expect me to retain every little bit of where I've been, even if I know this means you might get a totally different (and needless to say, wrong) impression of me? I mean, yes, fine, it was a lovely dressing table, but I don't freaking wear makeup. And I don't even really like Duncan Phyfe all that much, either. Why on earth would I enjoy or even want to tolerate someone drawing the conclusion that I sit down every night and use cold cream to remove pancake makeup, and that I like pink-fabric'd seating benches? Hell, I don't even like escutcheons all that much.
That's what goes through my mind when I read people complaining or decrying someone's deletion of a post (new or old). It's a little knee-jerk, but I think what's really going on in there is the issue of who owns the post: me, as the curator, or the audience, as the consumers?
The issue of ownership also ends up smacking up against the issue of dirty laundry. If, for instance, that dressing table wasn't a pretty and girly mid-century repro of a Duncan Phyfe but was instead... oh, something really horrendous (to me, at least) like, hmm. Oh! Like the brown-and-cream plaid scratchy fake-wool knock-off La-Z-Boy that I inherited when my grandfather died. That thing was ugly, claw out your eyes ugly. (It was also, sadly, incredibly comfortable after being thoroughly broken in, but still, ugly with a capital Eww.)
Let's pretend that I have managed to grow myself into someone who treasures my italian design and my mid-century modern and my close-to-bauhaus. I might see having to retain that old plaid chair not as a record of my past but as, plain and simple, some kind of punishment. It's an embarrasment, and it's one I'm very glad I don't have still hanging around. It didn't fit me, I might say, with the same kind of "yes, I was there, and I'm not now, thank HEAVENS" that I'd say about, oh, maybe, the 'me' that once thought that all Yankees were crass and rude jerks without a lick of common courtesy.
What's the purpose of being guilted into keeping that chair simply because it's where-I-was, with no regard to where I am now? What's the value in being guilted about wanting to delete a post that spoke of where-I-was, with no regard to the fact that I, uhm, kinda married a Yankee (who has excellent manners, thank you). There's airing one's dirty laundry, and then there's the subtle pressures of being expected to keep one's laundry out, permanently.
Buried in the metaphor of "dirty laundry" is the hope that at some point, you wash it.
But is washing it -- editing my posts -- an attempt to cover up where I was? To lie about it? Or is it to say, "that's just not where I am, now, so why keep around this thing or attitude or representation that would make people think I'm something I'm not"?
Yet another level, then: is a journal a living document in toto (the sum of its parts) or is it a static record?
If static, then perhaps 'ownership' makes no difference; all posts and comments as they're made are to be considered as written down in permanent ink. The limitation as a static record renders everyone (but especially me, the journal-owner) as record-keepers. Deleting in that case defies the nature and use of the journal.
If a living document, then the entire journal must be taken as a whole. Rather than read from then to now as a chronological record of one's interior thoughts and personal life... it would be taken in any order, because all of it is consistent (or nearly so) with current events. A post from three years ago remains as active and relevant as a post from yesterday, and a post no longer relevant could be deleted just as I'd trim the dead branches off a bush in the front yard. The branch, or post, could be last week's or from six years ago; what's dead/irrelevant does not deserve to take up the space.
But how to readers interpret posts? If a random search or friend's link leads to a post buried in the back pages of the journal, does the reader check the date and affix a caveat to the post's contents? "This is four years old. The person probably no longer thinks like that, or cares about that, or is in that fandom, or has that hobby." I doubt it. I suspect it's more accurate to say that stumbling over an older post -- whether raving about a then-exciting piece of news or then-important snippet of information -- will color the reader's responses as the reader moves into more current posts.
In other words: from the reader's point of view, any given post in the journal is effectively occuring now, because that's when the reader is reading it.
I don't think the bias/response from a reader is intentional, but it's what I've observed. Maybe we do it without realizing, thanks to the medium. This is not a printed book, after all, where we know it went through gates A and B, was reviewed by editors C and D, ended up at the printers, got bound, and shipped cross-country to our local bookstore. An error in a printed book is going to stay right there, unless/until a second edition comes out and the error is amended.
I was going to say: after all, it's not like the author can sneak into your home at night and white-out the misspelling on page 147, in the third paragraph. But then I recalled Amazon's debacles with the Kindle and auto-updating for ebook purchasers... and I wonder how that affects readers' understanding of the text. If it's no longer set in stone, does the inviolability of a text become questionable?
Or does the text become 'living' if we know the author might amend/correct at any time -- or if we tell the author to, in enough numbers, to force that change? The text would be flexing and shifting according to reader pressures.
Of course, there's an amusing contradiction in there. If sixteen people respond to a text -- or a journal post -- arguing that a statement is wrong, there's no winning path, from what I've seen. If the OP edits, then this is erasing the history of wrongness. If the OP doesn't edit, then this is just going to cause even more people to speak up about the wrongness. If the OP is listening, after all, the OP would correct the statement; if the OP changes the statement, s/he is trying to hide the idiocy.
Perhaps the answer for that lies in the issue of the text's use as past-record or ongoing-tally. If the former, then editing is clearly contradictory to the journal's basic definition. If the latter, then not-editing would indicate the OP continues to feel the statement is an accurate illustration of the OP's position or opinion or argument.
Really, I have no idea. But everytime I edit a post -- even for merely correcting grammar, or clarifying a badly-worded statement, or culling excessive wordiness, or extending an analogy to improve communication -- I think of these questions. Am I negating the journal's purpose as a chronological record in time? Or am I keep the journal constantly evolving, so it reflects more closely where I'm at, in the now?
And who the hell really cares other than me, anyway?
Awhile back, I remember someone making the suggestion on DW's suggestion-comm that edited posts get a notation of some sort. This post was edited on ___. Either in the original suggestion or the comments, someone had the idea that wouldn't it be better to have a notation for every edit? This put the absolute fear of the intarwebs into me, and not because I'm all that bothered if people know I edit, but because no one would ever read my posts again. The pages would never load, because the last quarter of any page would be nothing but:
post edited: day/month/year
post edited: day/month/year
post edited: day/month/year
post edited: day/month/year
...for like twenty lines, probably concluding with:
this post has been edited so many times the database has run out of rows and now the INTERNETS ARE BROKEN and you know EXACTLY WHO TO BLAME.
Okay, that's a rather tongue-in-cheek poke at myself (because while I do edit, I'm not quite that bad, err, I think), but the issue of editing missives is one that I've tangled over privately many, many times. Like just about any other topic I bring up (short of pure opinion-posts or rants), I can see multiple sides to the issues, and I think each of the points has validity. The problem is that it seems like to address whether it's okay to edit, first I have to address what exactly a post is trying to do. Or maybe I should say, I have to determine when editing is productive and when it's counter-productive, but that means understanding just what makes a post 'productive'. Aaaand that's probably even more confusing than my first attempt. Bear with me.
This post will be full of related side-notes, I suspect, in hopes that might reduce any misinterpretation. If any of what I'm saying (unintentionally on my part, believe me) makes you frothing mad, save it. This is for consideration, not argumentation. Mostly that's because I don't see my opinion as having all that much impact in the grand scheme of things, so the effort required to mount an angry offense seems like overkill. Very little I'll ever write/say really deserves the full-blown stress of OMG someone is WRONG on the INTERNETS. I'm wrong plenty of the time. I know this already. I just think you've got better things to do than get mad at me, because that's giving me an importance I don't believe I deserve.
Side-note: I use silly examples because I've found that anything resembling a possible hot-button will bring out at least one person determined to argue that my example is wrong or bad or whatever -- when my goal in this kind of example isn't that I believe (whatever that means) that cars should have three wheels or seven, but to demonstrate a pattern of some sort. To me, arguing whether an analogous illustration is wrong or bad is somewhat akin to taking the statement, "on Wednesday afternoon, someone robbed the local bookstore" and responding with "but it was Tuesday morning, therefore, no robbery occurred at all and you are all wrong and therefore nothing else you say is worth considering!" Which reads as a pretty silly reaction in itself, except that I've gotten that reaction, and it's tiring. I know there's a label for that kind of fallacy -- arguing to the details, I think? -- but the point here is that the sillier the example, the less likely there'll be a hot button that'll prompt that kind of knee-jerk reaction.
Side-note to the side-note: I'm not saying that some analogies aren't offensive, or that someone is wrong to point out that an analogy is offensive. The problem is that sometimes this is the point of using that analogy, to demonstrate that when you look at it this way, wow, that's pretty offensive. (Like giving an example of a chauvinist reaction to something, as a way to get people to see why I find a similar statement about a different group to also be offensive.) Except that what I eventually realized is that I'd rather use silly analogies whenever possible, and avoid being jumped on just because someone didn't get the method I was using to argue or illustrate.
Here's a silly example of when communication fails because the writing isn't clear, and how this can misfire if signals start crossing. Slight exaggeration, but this is what it looks like from the writer's point of view. Well, if the writer is me, at least.
first version: After being whipped fiercely, the chef folded the eggs into the cake batter.
(A) reader good mental reaction: Ehehehe. I don't think the image I got was the image you intended.
(B) reader semi-good mental reaction: HAHAHAHA You're such an idiot. Do you realize what you just wrote?
(C) reader not-so-good mental reaction: HOW DARE YOU suggest that chefs should be whipped! You chef-hater!
(A) & (B) written response: *slight sarcasm/humor* So basically you think chefs should be whipped.
(C) written response: *barely holding back anger* So basically you think chefs should be whipped.
author: Uhm. Wait, that's not what I meant to say. I didn't put it well. Let me try again.
*author hastily edits for clarity*
second version: After whipping the eggs fiercely, the chef folded them into the cake batter.
(A) & (B) written response: that makes more sense.
(C) written response: Oh, great, now you're just trying to convince us that you're not really a chef-hater. You are just compounding your errors with your paltry attempts at editing! We know the truth!
Yes, a silly example, but I think it's applicable in cases where the OP (whether this is me or someone else) is just plain communicating badly. Does forgetting to put "not" after "would" -- and thereby making a statement that's the complete opposite intended -- mean that the mistake of thinking faster than fingers can type amounts to a revelation that the OP is being intentionally deceptive about his/her position? Or is it just that sometimes, communication breaks down and a sincere OP is therefore obligated to make every attempt to clarify, and reduce (if not totally remove) the misunderstanding?
Let's say the original statement had been really offensive (insert your own hot-button here as you re-read), and the revision were a gentler form. We've all seen the author-fails, where an author posts something pretty inflammatory and then backpedals. Should that original be saved as screen-captures, to remind readers (what readers, we maybe should also ask: to whom does this record have importance?) of the original version? I can see definite value in having someone be a record-keeper in the way that the fanwank-styled comms are often record-keepers, especially when things escalate to the point of deleted posts or replies.
Is editing therefore merely disengaging, and covering up one's idiocy?
Yet I can also see that in some cases, the record-keeping feels almost vindictive. That bothers me even when the OP is arguing things that I find strongly disagreeable. Maybe it's because I'm well aware I've had plenty of wrong-headed opinions and drawn wrong-headed conclusions in my time, and I don't have the energy to track everyone else's mistakes, too. Or maybe I'm just not the right personality to gloat over someone else being an idiot -- even if I know that doing so means I'll get to look like less of an idiot, for a little while, in comparison. (Would that be the Idiot Olympics variation on the Oppression Olympics?)
Maybe the question isn't whether it's right or wrong to edit but to ask: what's the purpose of an online journal? Who does it serve? In the long run -- with posts going back three, four, five years or even more -- who goes back and reads those older posts? If posts have value, over time, to whom do they have the most value? To the readers, to see the OP's thought processes and reflections and reportage over a great span of time? Or to the OP him/herself, to act as a record of one's thoughts, events, life in general?
Is a journal more honest if it tracks the changes and development of the OP's thoughts, and therefore editing (or deletion, now or later) effectively count as erasing a point in one's journey?
Even if the post deleted or edited is otherwise innocuous, to someone (anyone) -- like old to-do lists, or reports on how sick the cat is, or complaints about a job or lack thereof -- could it be that the position of the OP (that it's unimportant information and thus deletable) is contradictory to the audience position (that every bit of information should be saved as some kind of permanent record for future, uhm, generations)? The secret inner historian in me says, save it all! and the rest of me says, who really cares what I was doing three years ago on a muggy July evening? Who in twenty years will even be able to read this, and even in four years, who's bothered to read it? Why should it take up space?
Yes, I'm aware that space on the internet is not 'space' in the same way that, say, books on a shelf take up space. The amount of space available -- on the net, on my server, on my harddrive -- is far greater than I'll fill up, and I can always buy an external terrabyte harddrive. It's not an issue of space, really. It's an issue of weight.
Or maybe I should say, I dislike baggage. My brain is cluttered enough. I'd like at least one thing in my life to be relatively less cluttered... and a journal that records everything, that never cleans its closets, is a journal that takes up too much space. What value do those records serve, except to weigh me down?
At least, that's the sense of things, and it's one I can't shake.
Again, to be clear: I have no answers. I am asking these questions in hopes that if I keep asking myself, maybe I'll hit upon the right question to get enough of an answer that'll give me new questions. Expect repetition. It's part of the process of turning things over: it's all fundamentally the same box, just a different angle in each progression.
Does a cleaning-house deletion somehow damage this nebulous collection of communications? Why would it make a difference, to delete now versus to wait awhile and then delete? If a journal exists as a record for the purposes of the author's own use, then what value is there in storing/maintaining thoughts (or allowing them to remain presented as part of the 'authorial collection') if those positions are no longer accurate to the author's current position?
Is a journal effectively created by the OP but really owned (in a sense) by the readership? Are any attempts at removing once-aligned (but no longer) conversations/posts betraying the readership by altering or glossing a historical point in the author's internal progress/process?
It seems to me that when readers lambast an author for editing or deletion, the message is that the author does not, in fact, 'own' the material. The communications made are set in stone, and now 'owned' by the readership, who will maintain them for future reference. The commentary I see in threads about OP idiocy (among many other types) is a definite derision against the OP, as though editing or deletion is an attempt to somehow stymie the readers, pull wool over their eyes, fool them into thinking the OP has always thought this way.
That's possible. Some may use editing or deletion in that manner. But I also think of other significant track records or processes in my life, where I've chosen to remove elements because I now find them repulsive, uninteresting, redundant, or maybe just plain not where I'm at.
Something very concrete: for several years, I had my grandmother's dressing table. It's quite pretty, a repro Duncan Phyfe, and of course it held a great deal of sedimental value for me, seeing how many hours I spent at my grandmother's knee while she put on or removed makeup. In the end, though, I gave that dressing table to my sister, and if she'd not taken it, I probably would've sold it or given it away. Yes, it has major familial value, but it was no longer me. Once, I loved that style, then I grew up and realized my own style and realized that furniture didn't fit me anymore.
To me, retaining something in a journal that doesn't "fit" me anymore (like, I changed my opinion about that or figured out I'd drawn a very wrong conclusion in analysis or don't see reason to keep copious posts about a job I hated and am now glad to be rid of) is sort of like that piece of furniture. Do I keep it, anyway, just so you -- the theoretical visitor -- can see the tracks of where I used to be (style-wise, or content-wise) alongside the more recent parts?
Or do I say: if I have this, it'll give you a completely different impression of me, and I'm not that person anymore. Is it right -- is it fair, even -- to expect me to retain every little bit of where I've been, even if I know this means you might get a totally different (and needless to say, wrong) impression of me? I mean, yes, fine, it was a lovely dressing table, but I don't freaking wear makeup. And I don't even really like Duncan Phyfe all that much, either. Why on earth would I enjoy or even want to tolerate someone drawing the conclusion that I sit down every night and use cold cream to remove pancake makeup, and that I like pink-fabric'd seating benches? Hell, I don't even like escutcheons all that much.
That's what goes through my mind when I read people complaining or decrying someone's deletion of a post (new or old). It's a little knee-jerk, but I think what's really going on in there is the issue of who owns the post: me, as the curator, or the audience, as the consumers?
The issue of ownership also ends up smacking up against the issue of dirty laundry. If, for instance, that dressing table wasn't a pretty and girly mid-century repro of a Duncan Phyfe but was instead... oh, something really horrendous (to me, at least) like, hmm. Oh! Like the brown-and-cream plaid scratchy fake-wool knock-off La-Z-Boy that I inherited when my grandfather died. That thing was ugly, claw out your eyes ugly. (It was also, sadly, incredibly comfortable after being thoroughly broken in, but still, ugly with a capital Eww.)
Let's pretend that I have managed to grow myself into someone who treasures my italian design and my mid-century modern and my close-to-bauhaus. I might see having to retain that old plaid chair not as a record of my past but as, plain and simple, some kind of punishment. It's an embarrasment, and it's one I'm very glad I don't have still hanging around. It didn't fit me, I might say, with the same kind of "yes, I was there, and I'm not now, thank HEAVENS" that I'd say about, oh, maybe, the 'me' that once thought that all Yankees were crass and rude jerks without a lick of common courtesy.
What's the purpose of being guilted into keeping that chair simply because it's where-I-was, with no regard to where I am now? What's the value in being guilted about wanting to delete a post that spoke of where-I-was, with no regard to the fact that I, uhm, kinda married a Yankee (who has excellent manners, thank you). There's airing one's dirty laundry, and then there's the subtle pressures of being expected to keep one's laundry out, permanently.
Buried in the metaphor of "dirty laundry" is the hope that at some point, you wash it.
But is washing it -- editing my posts -- an attempt to cover up where I was? To lie about it? Or is it to say, "that's just not where I am, now, so why keep around this thing or attitude or representation that would make people think I'm something I'm not"?
Yet another level, then: is a journal a living document in toto (the sum of its parts) or is it a static record?
If static, then perhaps 'ownership' makes no difference; all posts and comments as they're made are to be considered as written down in permanent ink. The limitation as a static record renders everyone (but especially me, the journal-owner) as record-keepers. Deleting in that case defies the nature and use of the journal.
If a living document, then the entire journal must be taken as a whole. Rather than read from then to now as a chronological record of one's interior thoughts and personal life... it would be taken in any order, because all of it is consistent (or nearly so) with current events. A post from three years ago remains as active and relevant as a post from yesterday, and a post no longer relevant could be deleted just as I'd trim the dead branches off a bush in the front yard. The branch, or post, could be last week's or from six years ago; what's dead/irrelevant does not deserve to take up the space.
But how to readers interpret posts? If a random search or friend's link leads to a post buried in the back pages of the journal, does the reader check the date and affix a caveat to the post's contents? "This is four years old. The person probably no longer thinks like that, or cares about that, or is in that fandom, or has that hobby." I doubt it. I suspect it's more accurate to say that stumbling over an older post -- whether raving about a then-exciting piece of news or then-important snippet of information -- will color the reader's responses as the reader moves into more current posts.
In other words: from the reader's point of view, any given post in the journal is effectively occuring now, because that's when the reader is reading it.
I don't think the bias/response from a reader is intentional, but it's what I've observed. Maybe we do it without realizing, thanks to the medium. This is not a printed book, after all, where we know it went through gates A and B, was reviewed by editors C and D, ended up at the printers, got bound, and shipped cross-country to our local bookstore. An error in a printed book is going to stay right there, unless/until a second edition comes out and the error is amended.
I was going to say: after all, it's not like the author can sneak into your home at night and white-out the misspelling on page 147, in the third paragraph. But then I recalled Amazon's debacles with the Kindle and auto-updating for ebook purchasers... and I wonder how that affects readers' understanding of the text. If it's no longer set in stone, does the inviolability of a text become questionable?
Or does the text become 'living' if we know the author might amend/correct at any time -- or if we tell the author to, in enough numbers, to force that change? The text would be flexing and shifting according to reader pressures.
Of course, there's an amusing contradiction in there. If sixteen people respond to a text -- or a journal post -- arguing that a statement is wrong, there's no winning path, from what I've seen. If the OP edits, then this is erasing the history of wrongness. If the OP doesn't edit, then this is just going to cause even more people to speak up about the wrongness. If the OP is listening, after all, the OP would correct the statement; if the OP changes the statement, s/he is trying to hide the idiocy.
Perhaps the answer for that lies in the issue of the text's use as past-record or ongoing-tally. If the former, then editing is clearly contradictory to the journal's basic definition. If the latter, then not-editing would indicate the OP continues to feel the statement is an accurate illustration of the OP's position or opinion or argument.
Really, I have no idea. But everytime I edit a post -- even for merely correcting grammar, or clarifying a badly-worded statement, or culling excessive wordiness, or extending an analogy to improve communication -- I think of these questions. Am I negating the journal's purpose as a chronological record in time? Or am I keep the journal constantly evolving, so it reflects more closely where I'm at, in the now?
And who the hell really cares other than me, anyway?
no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 04:26 pm (UTC)Of course, this is all predicated on them being invited guests.
So then we have to wonder about the extent of invitation implicit in a public post. And I think that gets us back to what link compilers and even flists/rlists do to our assumptions about online relations--which I would say is to give a false impression of invitation. Some people really do post party-style. But I think a whole lot more don't.
no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 08:09 pm (UTC)I can't recall now who linked to the concept, and I can't even recall the concept's formal name -- I think it was something like "an argument for the benefit" or some unusual term like that. All I can recall was that it amounted to the position that in any given discussion, one should first apply the benefit of the doubt to the other party. I guess that would be like assuming that mistakes are due to ignorance/innocence (unintentional) rather than malice, or that the other party genuinely means well even if their words come across harshly.
In your analogy, I think sometimes it's as though the host says, "oh, no, the meatballs weren't cooked properly, I'm going to take them away and cook them a little longer." A guest reaction that does not apply the benefit of the doubt automatically assumes there's a reason the meatballs have been removed, and that this reason is due to malice on the host's part. Is it hiding one's flaws to remove the inadequate dinner, or is it simply being considerate of your guests in not making them put time/energy (or their stomachs) into an ill-prepared meal?
And I think you're spot-on about the linkspams giving a distorted impression of a journal's purpose. They act as advertising to a broader public than originally planned, but is bad preparation the fault of the host who should've planned for five hundred guests, or is it the fault of the person who xeroxed the original invites without warning the host ahead of time?
no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 06:14 pm (UTC)If I don't want something public, I have a lot of options. I might private-lock it, or write it in a Wordpad file on my computer, or write it out and then delete it before hitting Post, or put it in a physical notebook, or just muse about it inside my head. But once I've hit that Post button, it's a public announcement, and if I take it back I need to communicate that I'm doing that. And I need to be aware that if I take it back by deleting the entire post, or replacing all the text with a [post deleted due to being a moment of stupidity] or whatever, people might get annoyed. Some of them will read it as an apology; others will read it as me trying to pretend that I never said anything like that, nope, not me, go on about your business everybody.
Or, alternately, I might lock it to a specific subset of my friendslist. In that case, it's a little hazier. Is that public? Or is it a private matter I'm letting a specifically trusted group of friends in on? It's hazy, as I say, but personally I tend to think that if I'm making a clear gesture that this is a private matter, it's accordingly less public, and more owned by me as the author specifically. If someone deleted or private-locked an entry I'd previously been privy to, but under a tight lock of some sort -- well, I might regret it if for whatever reason I wanted to reread (and I do memory particularly insightful or interesting posts to reread), but I wouldn't feel as if it was erasing something they didn't have a right to erase.
Obviously, others disagree; this entire post is about that. But for me, I think that a public post is a public announcement, and taking it down isn't like, say, clearing up my laundry and putting it away. It's more like hanging my laundry out in the front yard, and then later saying "Nope, I never do laundry! Well, okay, I might have once, but you can't prove it." So it's interesting to me to hear about different viewpoints on the matter, because I have this completely automatic assumption that it's a public sphere, no matter how one feels about the details of deletion or whatever.
no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 08:21 pm (UTC)if I take it back ... people might get annoyed. Some of them will read it as an apology; others will read it as me trying to pretend that I never said anything like that...
See reply to Branch, above. I do think it's a far more common reaction (or maybe it's just that such a reaction is more likely to be expressed) for readers to be annoyed, and that speaks to the ownership issue. Casting something out into the public realm does (or does not?) make it the possession of the public. The assumption that it does, it seems, leads to the annoyance -- because it's no longer within the OP's rights to do anything about what's been posted.
But there's also an element of distrust, as though editing (or outright deletion) automatically means "trying to hide something". For me, the majority of my deletion amounts to, "that's boring, or that topic is no longer relevant, or I got the information I needed and I'm done". The rare times I've removed a post because it was totally wrong, yeah, I've done the same as you, replacing the original text with a note of removing the post to consider the topic more. The rest of the time, the posts are just 'worth saving' by some interior standard... yet I find it interesting that even such a minimal removal has been grounds for disdain. It would certainly make one think twice about even the lightest of topics, if there's any hint that down the road it could be used against you (or that your lesser interest and subsequent cleaning-house could be used against you).
Which brings us back to the issue of "using something against you" (of whatever level of import/impact). If a public post is effectively 'owned' by the public, and this perspective became dominant, what do you think it would do to online discussions? Would it have a chilling effect, or would we become tighter-knit by virtue of realizing our rights over others' participation?
no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 08:00 pm (UTC)If it helps, you're not alone. I edit MANY times. Sometimes I see a typo that's somehow managed to elude me until the entry was posted. Sometimes I type too fast and don't think about what I've typed until I've hit "post". Sometimes I think of additional information. Sometimes I realize I've worded something horribly. Sometimes I find out I've made a factual error through my faulty memory. The list goes on and on!
no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 08:06 pm (UTC)I don't delete posts unless leaving them up would harm someone. This has been my assessment in exactly one case since I began my LJ in 2001.
I absolutely do not assume that someone's old posts reflect their current thinking. In fact, my default assumption is that they don't. This may be a vestige of Usenet, where people's opinions were formed during discussions, and changed, often and publicly.
I am 100% fine with another person's deletion of their own posts: it's their journal, after all. It's NOT public property, despite some readers' feelings that it is. However, I want the author to acknowledge in future, if it comes up, that they held that position that has now changed, if that's the case. To use your chair example: fine, give away the chair. But don't then burn all photos that have the chair in it, and deny ever owning the chair if I come to ask you where it is.
My own preference is to note edits on the post itself, and leave the post where it is. Sometimes, my posts are linked from elsewhere and I don't want people getting a 404 on my pages. In the off chance that there's something I want to delete from a post, I might say "There used to be an essay about foo here. I now think bar, so I've removed the post. I was wrong, and hey, things change" or something similar. That part is just my fetish for clarity.
no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 08:35 pm (UTC)[Note: to be honest, with the exception of really big posts (often, for me, signaled by the sheer size of the freaking things), I don't count most of what I have to say as important enough to be worth saving. I put most of my posts in the category of "of little interest to anyone who does not share my brain", but that's also partly because such a low-expectation attitude means I get all happy when people reply at all.]
I tried doing that edit with strikeout to show changes... and quickly ran into the issue of not being sure how to show that I'd moved a paragraph, rearranged two sentences, merged this sentence with that one, or changed these words. That situation was in fact what provoked the seed of this post, because the hardline response (from the audience) seemed to be that any changes warranted as much transparency as possible... but I don't think they quite had "changes from an inveterate repeat-editing offender" in mind. I mean, my posts are already too long. Is it worth the burden on all readers to suffer through even more, with footnotes delimiting changes, just to satisfy those who would otherwise be convinced that I must have malicious intentions behind not showing my footprints?
In some lights, that may seem like an exaggeration, because my natural inclination is to think that no one really cares, that my words aren't worth that level of scrutiny. Then someone comes along who jumps on me, as has happened a few times, and I'm startled to discover that anyone could/would give (or has been giving) that much scrutiny, and that I've failed the test.
But don't then burn all photos that have the chair in it, and deny ever owning the chair if I come to ask you where it is.
I see your point, and agree. But in the case of that knock-off LaZboy, I don't think I have any pictures. I think I lost them all in the last move. NOT THAT I PLANNED THAT. Still, why is it the ugliest furniture is always the most comfortable?
I absolutely do not assume that someone's old posts reflect their current thinking. In fact, my default assumption is that they don't.
My impression has been that your kind of approach to older posts is no longer the norm. I wonder which is more prevalent, these days, or if that's something that's fading along with we who remember Usenet. Err, not that we're fading. But you know what I mean. I hope.
no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 08:54 pm (UTC)However, if I post in my journal "Kaigou had this horribly ugly chair once, and I think zie(*) painted it blue and sold it to clowns; that's the kind of terrible thing zie'd do!", then I'd be completely baffled if you came and denied ever knowing a thing about the chair. Better if you do what you did above, and said, "I did no such thing, no matter what you think. I threw it away because it was ugly." Or even ignore me, since obviously, I'm a blue-paint-obsessed clownophobe who doesn't deserve your time.
I think of posts as conversational transactions. I don't expect them to be around tomorrow, I truly don't. If they are, I'd like to know if they've changed in substance, and I'll be put out if I quote a post that now says the polar opposite of what it said last year, but mostly that kind of stuff can be hashed out amicably through the use of several tools of clarity: explaining, noting edits if you think it's appropriate, ignoring detractors who are asserting ownership of your words when they have no standing to do so, etc.
(*Just realized I don't have a pronoun assigned to you in my head. When I tried to assign one, my brain said "she", but then I was afraid of being wrong, so I went with gnp)
no subject
Date: 24 Feb 2011 09:11 pm (UTC)(And apparently it can't all be blamed on Poltergeist, either.)
"Conversational transactions" is a great way to put it.
no subject
Date: 2 Mar 2011 07:46 am (UTC)I think it matters, too. But what I think matters is what you're trying to present.
If this journal is all a constant work-in-progress, where you may change things at any point, to better match your understanding or express yourself more clearly, then that makes it a very unusual journal. So I think it would be nice if the journal had a note on the information page saying you do this.
Such a note may be there. If so, then that's cool.
If you prefer not to do so, then that's also cool, because it's *your* journal. I don't think the audience has any *right* to demand a change in how you present yourself, although I see that good things might come from audience members telling you what they like and dislike reading.
If the journal is a record in time, then I think adding 'ETA' notes (edited to add) for changes is a good idea.
no subject
Date: 3 Mar 2011 07:23 am (UTC)Completely seriously and purely out of curiosity: do you think that kind of presentation is really that unusual? Is it just unspoken (and I'm really bad with 'unspoken' stuff) that journals are meant to be entirely chronological and thus not back-edited or updated across its history?
no subject
Date: 3 Mar 2011 07:57 am (UTC)