De-publishing
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What are your thoughts on de-publishing?
De-publishing is removing posts from your site after they've been proven wrong, foolish or defamatory.

My $.02: I think de-publishing is acceptable when it's done for liability purposes. It's also ok if you've flamed someone and want to make amends. This medium is fleeting - eventually all of it will be de-published. There's nothing wrong with keeping your site tidy.

BUT... if you take a firm stand on some legal issue (say, a pending issue before the Supreme Court), and it turns out that you're on the losing end of the battle, you should not de-publish simply to save face.

Journalists don't get to take back their articles. Stand behind your words! This is a suitable segue into the next lesson on "Choosing Your Words Carefully."

Posted by Andrew Zangrilli at November 25, 2003 02:12 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Actually, online journalists DO get to change their words and their minds.

Sometimes a well-intentioned posting or article can contain information that, upon further reflection and/or fact-checking, is simply inaccurate.

From a copyediting perspective, the ease of editing text in already-published content is one of the beauties of the electronic medium.

Posted by: andy on December 3, 2003 03:49 AM

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