Should Bloggers Correct their Mistakes?
There’s a great discussion on Cranky Geeks that rolled over to TWIT this week that’s near and dear to me with my respect for journalists. Bloggers are not journalists in the traditional sense of the word but we are journalists when viewed from a consumer viewpoint.
Corrections are important and should be dealt with, but it depends on the mistake that’s been made.
Old posts are still ‘alive’ in search engine results and there are comments associated (often) with the information discussed. Dvorak thinks it’s crazy to go back and make edits to old posts… he believes it’s spilled milk and because no one usually reads it, it’s over and done and the user should move on. Leo discusses that he’s compelled to correct the post, especially if any comments may appear to be disassociated with the edit after it’s made. I agree with Leo!
- Attribution – if I miss attributing an image, quote, article, etc. I will immediately make the necessary edits regardless of the age of the post. It’s essential (if not legally compelling) that we ensure we provide credit where credit is due.
- Errors pointed out by Comments – when a reader of my blog finds an error in the post, I will usually correct the error and respond via comments that it’s been both corrected and how much I appreciate the information they’ve provided. This provides a written record of the change as well as shows readers that I’m not only human, but I care about how accurate my information is.
- Errors I find – I will use the strike tag in HTML to indicate the error and the correction.
The strike tag is simple to use.<strike>The words to strike</strike>
- Grammar and Spelling – When I actually do figure out that I’ve made a grammatical error (usually someone else has to tell me), I will make the edit and I don’t disclose it. Since this doesn’t change the accuracy of a blog post, I don’t feel the need to disclose how terrible I am at grammar and spelling. After all, my regular readers already realize this!
I correct every mistake that I find or that my readers point out to me. You should, too! Unlike a print journalist, we have advanced abilities in online editing that don’t require us to ‘republish’ a post.
I don’t ever believe it’s necessary to push a note in a later blog post describing the edit to a previous post (as John Markoff suggested in the Cranky Geeks show!), blogging is more of a conversational and streaming style of communication. Readers will accept mistakes… unless they go uncorrected altogether.
It’s about credibility, authority, and accuracy that I make it a habit to correct my blog’s errors. A blog doesn’t have any power unless the readers believe the information that is there and reference it. I believe that if you ignore correcting your mistakes, your credibility will falter – as will the number of readers you have and the number of sites that reference yours.
I’m with you I correct my errors. I can’t stand leaving them after I see them!
I so agree that mistakes should be corrected ASAP…is that because my high school English teacher drummed that into our heads? Yes, but it’s also because it’s the right thing to do, imho.
Your blog posts interest me…I like that they are short, concise and helpful. Thank you for your contributions AND thanks for bringing new posts to our attention via Twitter!
http://www.motherconnie.com
http://motherconniesez.blogspot.com
I agree you should correct your mistakes. Thanks for pointing out the HTML strikethrough. What is the code to pull that up?
Hi Lamar,
The HTML is <strike>The words you want to strike</strike>
Doug
I updated the post with an example.
Douglas: I agree for factual errors. If you leave them you potentially do future readers a serious disservice. OTOH, if you take a soapbox position and get called to the carpet on it, I think it is disingenuous to rewrite history. JMTCW anyway.
My main pet peeve for blog errors center upon grammatical errors – it just grates my eyeballs, for example, to see the WWSGD plugin display:
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ARGH! ‘course, that’s not relevant to old posts, but it’s the first thing that came to mind.
I’ll always correct my posts when necessary – it’s part of being a responsible blogger.
Happy Sunday, Barbara
Thanks Barbara! I hope you can put up with (and point out) my grammatical errors.
I only seem to recognize them after the embarrassment of someone like yourself catching them and letting me know. I’m always embarrassed because I both know better and have been educated – it’s just a flaw of mine.
With care, practice and proofing, I have significantly reduced the number of errors, though. It’s one of the reasons I force myself to write daily!
I usually correct my mistakes just as you mentioned but this leads to another important question:
Shoood you korrect misteaks in peeple’s kommints?
Hi Patric,
Great question and I’ll fully admit that I have corrected spelling and grammar mistakes in comments, too! Even though it’s ‘user-generated’, it’s still content on my blog. As such, it has the same value and gets the same attention. I do not do anything that changes the original theme of the message, though!
Doug
If it’s a grammar or spelling error — as if I ever have any of those! — I’ll fix it without calling attention to it.
But if it’s a content error, I think it should be corrected. A blog entry is a historical record of sorts. It’s not a newspaper that is read and then discarded. Errors should not be corrected in a standalone entry. Blogs, just like the rest of the Internet, are permanent, and should be corrected to stand, well, correctly.
How they’re corrected is up to the individual blogger. Personally, I’ll fix the error, and if it’s big enough, point out that I corrected it. If it’s a small thing, like getting a wrong city, I’ll fix it without notification.