Dave Takes Issue With the Notion that Editing Blogs “breaks the Web”
If you wonder sometimes about bloggers echoing one another’s opinions on an issue of the day and you would like a different take on whatever the issue is, it’s a good bet you will find something informatively non-echoing about it on Dave Taylor’s Intuitive Life Business Blog. The subject of the item I posted on yesterday, about back-editing blogs and comments by Robert Scoble and others, is a case in point.
Dave’s post “Erasing posts does not ‘break the Web’, Robert!” is one which should be bookmarked by anyone looking at developing or refining a corporate blogging policy, from the biggest corporation through to solo microbusinesses.
Although I have to say it looks like Dave would not have much time for my musings about the risk of damage being done, through undisclosed, substantive editing of blogs, to what I see as a desirable and so far generally presumed trustworthiness of blogs as historically valuable sources. He writes:
Remember, corporations aren’t worried about “the historical record” they’re focused on profitability, on producing world-class products, getting them into channels and producing a share price increase to benefit shareholders and employees alike. That’s it.
Not quite a “history is bunk”* comment, but one that I believe could usefully have been qualified. Whether or not corporations are worried about the historical record is not quite the point. What is of concern to me and perhaps to others is whether corporations should be open to criticism for altering the blogged record without telling people clearly that they are doing so - or at least making a statement that they reserve the right to change anything, anytime. We would then know where we stood with a particular corporatiion’s blogs.
My view is that trustworthiness in blogs can contribute to a healthier social and business environment, without there having to be a consequent detriment to their business and perhaps actually providing the corporations with some benefit. Which means showing respect for the record and ensuring transparency when, for whatever legitimate or even worthy reasons, you choose to alter the record.
Tags: Blogging, blogs, Dave-Taylor, editing, Robert-Scoble* “History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we made today.”
Henry Ford, Interview in Chicago Tribune, May 25th, 1916
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Corporate, General, Policy, Risk Management, Small Business, Social Media
2 opinions for Dave Takes Issue With the Notion that Editing Blogs “breaks the Web”
Dave Taylor
Jan 18, 2007 at 9:50 am
Did I say ” damage being done, through undisclosed, substantive editing of blogs” somewhere in my posting, or otherwise suggest that substantive editing was an acceptable tactic? I think you’re putting words in my mouth, Des.
In fact, while legally a company owns everything on its servers and everything created by its employees, it would clearly be a terrible, Orwellian and ethically wrong move for them to change the tone or content of work attributable to individuals in the firm, be they current or former employees. I think George would have called that “historical revisionism” and been appalled…
Des Walsh
Jan 18, 2007 at 8:33 pm
No Dave, of course you didn’t say that or actually suggest it. And I apologise if somehow that meaning could be taken from what I wrote. I was going on your unqualified observation about the rights of corporations and what they might or might not “worried” about and suggesting that there were other issues to be taken into account by the broader community, including corporations.
But with the greatest respect I’m wondering now whether you had time to read my previous (linked) post on the subject, where I did try to articulate my concerns about whether or not corporate blogs can now - if indeed they ever were (moot perhaps)- be seen to be reliable, untampered-with, primary sources. My real concern was with what appeared to be alleged by Simon Phipps in the post that I think started this chase http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/entry/edited_out_of_history, and not particularly with Robert Scoble’s post in which he alleged an increase in the deathtoll among the kitten population (although the kitten has evidently done a Lazarus, according to the edited version of Robert Scoble’s post).
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: