Editing Weblogs – Dave Winer gives an online tutorial

Update: I’m going to leave the post below even though it is based on what I have learned was a mistaken assumption on my part that Dave had changed his post during the day. I think the question of whether posts should be edited in significant ways (without notice to the reader) is an important question. My mistake doesn’t make that question go away. And while it is possible that Dave’s freely given admission that he edits his posts without notice contributed to my mistake, I’m going to simply apologize for the mistake and agree that I could have discovered it if I had been more diligent. That said, I invite you to read Dave Winer’s comment and my response, along with the observations of others readers that follow this post in the comments section. Thanks.

Yesterday I asked, along with Rick Klau, when it is okay to edit your weblog in public? First off, I think it is a good idea to edit before you publish. “Editing” means examining your ideas closely and making sure that you are saying what you mean to say, and making sure that your thoughts won’t be misinterpreted. Today, in my news aggregator I saw that Dave Winer had posted these thoughts:

For the record, I believe in the power of editing. I practice it myself. I have an essay I’m working on today that I wrote two days ago but held up so I could edit it with a fresh perspective. What I don’t believe in, emphatically, is what comes after editing, and often is called editing — dumbing it down — the notion that some thoughts are too complicated for the audience. I quit the system that requires this kind of editing because, after editing, I was saying things I didn’t agree with. There’s no point writing for such a system, other than earning a paycheck. And they weren’t paying very much, not that that matters. At Harvard, at times, when it might appear that I’m speaking for the university, I have to be careful, and I always get approval for those things. But most of the time, “voice of the individual” applies. And unedited, to me, means you’re hearing what I think, not group-think

I disagreed with this description of ‘editing’ and I was going to link to it, but I found that the post no longer said what I quoted above (it was still in my news aggregator which is how I was able to copy it and post it). Obviously, Dave changed, er, edited what he said. Now his post says this:

NY Times: Online journalism comes of age. “But readers still rely heavily on professional editors from trusted news organizations to provide them with local, national and global context.” Heh, I wonder if one of the Times’ editors added that sentence? Seriously, when you read an article in a BigPub, don’t assume that the person whose name is on the article said or even believes what the article says. There’s a mechanism called Dumbing It Down or (more positively) Everyone Needs An Editor that keeps weird ideas out. No wonder people are doing it for themselves. Somehow the BP’s always miss this angle.

Perhaps Dave and others will see this differently, but the difference between these two posts suggests two things to me: (1) editing, whether done by the writer or someone else, is a good thing; and (2) editing is best done before one posts to something to the public, and not after. But, hey, that’s just one view.

Here’s another question that comes to mind after reading Dave’s two radically different posts: why have a ‘permalink’ to a post that has been radically changed? What’s the ‘perma’ part supposed to refer to? A permanent link to a place where editing is taking place? Frankly, I don’t understand Dave Winer.

Update: Apparently the 1st post by Dave Winer that I quoted above can be found here. (thanks to Stephen Bainbridge for pointing this out). I don’t know if he moved it or what happened, but as Rick Klau notes Dave admits that he edits his posts during the day.