the editing comments conundrum
Believe it not, I only found out what ‘trolling’ is yesterday. I’m new to this world of blogging and have clearly been technologically out of touch for some time. So I’ve been fascinated to find blogs by trolls and read about Poe’s Law. I’m even more interested reading the comments they elicit. But that’s another story.
In my (blogging) youthful naivety, there’s something that bothers me. Why is there an option to edit comments that are posted? Why would I want to change what someone says? There’s an option to reject comments, for those who don’t want their artful space sullied with distasteful or poorly conceived ideas. But I imagine that the majority of bloggers are throwing their thoughts out into space to hear other opinions, to explore what the rest of humanity has to say about it (whatever ‘it’ may be).
Is it not an infringement on free speech in a public place for words in your name to be altered? As I’ve already said, people can disable or delete comments if they don’t want them. But editing … that’s a different matter. Can anyone enlighten me??
It can be done ethically: I had a comment, then another immediately after saying Oops that was a misprint, so I deleted the second and edited the first. I have considered correcting obvious misprints, but don’t, unless asked.
You could delete bits you found offensive, though I think you should explain why in square brackets. You could put your answer in their comment box, if you make that clear.
Or you could just write something opposite to what the person had written, for the lulz and the evulz. (I hope I am using this groovy terminology correctly, and that it is not too archaic just yet).
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Thanks for sharing your experience with this function. I do believe you that it can be done ethically, I just don’t see the point. I recently had a fellow blogger edit a comment I made and he very kindly emailed me to tell me so, but I was still left wondering why he would bother to do it. I would even leave offensive things as it’s a reflection of the person it came from, nothing to do with me, and I’m interested (so far) in what other people have to say. (You lost me with ‘lulz and the evulz’ – and Google didn’t help much)
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Oh! Lulz is just TV Tropes, a site describing and illustrating common patterns in stories. I had not known. Lulz is laughs, and Evulz is evil as an end in itself. TV Tropes is, unless you are very careful, a bigger time-sink than facebook.
I also edit my own comments, to improve the expression, add ideas and links.
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I’ve only edited one comment – because my mom posted a comment that included a reference to personal medical information that I hadn’t shared on my blog, and I felt that comment didn’t need to be included (almost like she didn’t realize what she was writing would be public, or she just didn’t get that the entire world could see it). I kept everything else she wrote, just deleted that one sentence. I’m blogging to share things openly, but I don’t plan to always be sharing the same things I’d share with my family!
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I totally agree, that sounds pretty reasonable!
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I’ve been thinking about this myself – I find it odd that they give us the option, but like other commenters have said I’ve used the feature to edit out typos before. Perhaps if someone did post something offensive then that could also be removed. I think that if someone’s comment is edited then he or she should receive a notification alerting them that the change has been made and what the change was exactly.
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That’s a really good point about notifications, and really weird that it doesn’t happen automatically. I did get one slightly (but very entertaining) offensive comment on one of my first posts, from someone who thought I’d written something I hadn’t, which must have been a totally overhauled, nevermind edited, comment. I had no idea.
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