Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Editing? It's Great!!
Author: Erik L. Neu Posted: 9/13/2000; 7:49:43 AM Topic: Discuss by email? Msg #: 21296 (In response to 21258) Prev/Next: 21295 / 21297
I LOVE being able to edit a message. Not to play stupid games to make myself seem smarter, but to correct stupid mistakes and otherwise improve the quality of my posting. It is so much more efficient than relying on multiple postings, especially when it involves a correction, as opposed to adding an entirely new comment. And yes, it is a very useful flame-retardance mechanism, too.>>And what about liable? (You ever been sued for this Dave?) Could someone making changes be accused of evidence tampering? It might look bad to a judge. >>
Ouch, I run into this mindset enough at work--don't do something that would otherwise make sense, because it might look bad if there were a lawsuit. I won't argue that this is SOMETIMES the most advisable thing, but it is not a situation to be celebrated and certainly should not be our default mindset, pervading every aspect of our work and writing.
My favorite example of this is email retention; it is occasionally very convenient to be able to dredge up a year-old email; even if you only look up every thousandth email, the convenience can easily outweigh the computer resource cost of saving all the emails you don't look up. But NO, the lawyers say you have to shred all those emails within 3 months because they might be mis-used if you were sued (note: I am not commenting on the tactical correctness of this position, that is not my point here).
The word "accountability" has been used. This is a lightly moderated, voluntary discussion group. Just who are we "accountable" to? I would submit that it is the opposing lawyer we imagine in our mind, overcrowded with fear of liability!
>>If we are talking face to face and you say it, you can't take it back. Those words are in my head and you can't get them back. You can apologize or change yout mind. But you can't erase what was said. Why should a written discussion group be any different? >>
It should be different because it can be different. I just don't understand this analogy. I noticed the original poster on this branch of the thread seemed to be from a journalism school--perhaps that explains their perspective (note: this is not intended as a slam against journalists).
Last comment--IF the desire were to have accountability, in the form of an unmalleable posting, that would be better accomplished through the addition of revision-tracking features, rather than the elimination of the fabulous EDIT THIS PAGE feature. So, if you really, really wanted to see what a person said originally, rather than the current, edited, better-thought-through version of what they want to say, you could go through revisions. (Note: I'm not saying that *I* think this would be particularly valuable in this forum, just that if you had to have it, that would be the way).
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