The weather outside is sarcastically telling me to pick up writing again.
Be carefull! The website I linked to is old and not up to date.
Be carefull! The website I linked to is old and not up to date.
Aug. 16th, 2006
Edited To Add
Aug. 16th, 2006 07:48 pmBack in the day, when I first got this blog, I would get all rambly, because I didn't have anything noteworthy to say. Rereading those rather whiny posts, I'd delete them before my friendslist caught up with me, and could consider me a total idiot. It must have been the only occasion I actually deleted something I wrote. It wasn't even deleting an entry. It was more deciding not to write about something after all, because my readers wouldn't like it.
On my friendslist I have seen posts disappear and reappear. Sometimes because of editing issues, but also because of personal issues: the post was considered too personal, or it generated hostile comments. I can understand that people delete posts. The internet is a public environment, and things can come back to bite you in the ass. By deleting a post, you try to do damage control. When you've said something wrong, you pretend that nothing's happened. Maybe they didn't even notice your faux-pas after all. Or maybe you're doing the mutual cover-up where nothing happened. You had an argument, and now you're taking everything you said back.
But can you truly take it back when you had it written on your blog? It's what I wondered when reading a post on this subject by Kathleen Fitzpatrick, and what I replied to her in a text that I better had written on here, because it extended way beyond the common answer-etiquette*.
Everything I write on here gets mulled over in my head multiple times before I even consider putting my fingers to the keyboard. Especially the longer posts suffer from my hesitation to write things down. When I've found a good way to put things in a text, it's too late, and everything there is to tell has been told so many more times and so much better. What I do write, on the other hand, is right, and won't be taken back, unless I've made some blatant mistakes, or I want to add or clarify something. You'll notice that I sometimes use the "eta"-mark.
I don't think I'd ever go as far as deleting something that might wrong me or someone else. Even in an argument this holds. I can say that I didn't mean everything I said. But didn't I mean it at the time? When having a row, you should check why you said it. That's the important thing. You can take your words back and pretend it never happened, or you can explain why you said those things. Even if you delete the words and take them back, you'll have to explain, because readers don't always understand why a perfectly good, fun, witty, emotional post that's so totally you, suddenly disappeared. It's why I prefer to leave the silly entries where they are. If there are questions, I will answer them. If I need to clarify something, I will come back to it in a later entry. But I won't take back my words, because I meant them at the time, every one of them.
Since Kathleen Fitzpatrick asks some interesting questions on deleting entries, I'll also link to her in![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
salon_virtuel.
* What is, in fact, the proper reply-length, before you best consider taking the discussion to your own blog and simply linking back to it in your reply?
On my friendslist I have seen posts disappear and reappear. Sometimes because of editing issues, but also because of personal issues: the post was considered too personal, or it generated hostile comments. I can understand that people delete posts. The internet is a public environment, and things can come back to bite you in the ass. By deleting a post, you try to do damage control. When you've said something wrong, you pretend that nothing's happened. Maybe they didn't even notice your faux-pas after all. Or maybe you're doing the mutual cover-up where nothing happened. You had an argument, and now you're taking everything you said back.
But can you truly take it back when you had it written on your blog? It's what I wondered when reading a post on this subject by Kathleen Fitzpatrick, and what I replied to her in a text that I better had written on here, because it extended way beyond the common answer-etiquette*.
Everything I write on here gets mulled over in my head multiple times before I even consider putting my fingers to the keyboard. Especially the longer posts suffer from my hesitation to write things down. When I've found a good way to put things in a text, it's too late, and everything there is to tell has been told so many more times and so much better. What I do write, on the other hand, is right, and won't be taken back, unless I've made some blatant mistakes, or I want to add or clarify something. You'll notice that I sometimes use the "eta"-mark.
I don't think I'd ever go as far as deleting something that might wrong me or someone else. Even in an argument this holds. I can say that I didn't mean everything I said. But didn't I mean it at the time? When having a row, you should check why you said it. That's the important thing. You can take your words back and pretend it never happened, or you can explain why you said those things. Even if you delete the words and take them back, you'll have to explain, because readers don't always understand why a perfectly good, fun, witty, emotional post that's so totally you, suddenly disappeared. It's why I prefer to leave the silly entries where they are. If there are questions, I will answer them. If I need to clarify something, I will come back to it in a later entry. But I won't take back my words, because I meant them at the time, every one of them.
Since Kathleen Fitzpatrick asks some interesting questions on deleting entries, I'll also link to her in
salon_virtuel.* What is, in fact, the proper reply-length, before you best consider taking the discussion to your own blog and simply linking back to it in your reply?