This post has been in my drafts forever so I thought that it was time to send it out. I was hoping that I would have some brilliant flash of genius that would make it a world class post, alas, no flash.
The concept is pretty simple: Damon writes about Software Configuration Management, and he started it through is love for that science as opposed to his love of the blogosphere as those who blog for hobby tend to do. As he is not a blog fanboy, he missed that whole “never go back and change posts or comments” voodoo that tends to be perpetuated by tree-hugging hippie types (the same type of people that say podcasts should never be edited, and the web has been ruined ever since they allowed graphics).
As a result he has no problem with retconning or going back and cleaning up posts that are not read often (he presumes that he needs to be clearer in his writing, as opposed to the average blogger’s hubris that would see it as a sign that the general public just doesn’t appreciate their genius). The idea that the entire blog can evolve, including the back posts, rather than the linear changes most blogs go through, was something that changed the way I look at blogging as a whole.
Any blog that eventually gains traction depends on the back catalog of content. Why shouldn’t it be the best it can be?
One reply on “Damon’s Blog – Always in Flux”
I think the practice of modifying previous entries with strikethroughs or a big “Edit:” statement at the end is pretty common. Editing for clarity and general writing is probably a lot less common, if for no other reason than lack of time to go back and do that.