[WikiEN-l] Blog Entries (Bauer fork)

[jayjg]

On 3/28/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
> jayjg wrote:
> >> There are two questions that matter here.
> >>
> >> 1) Is Teresa Nielsen Hayden a source worthy of citing in matters
> >> related to publishing?
> >> 2) Does Making Light definitely contain material by her?
> >>
> >> The answer to both is unquestionably yes. Here endeth the discussion.
> >>
> >
> > Not really. Blogs have no editorial oversight, and their contents are
> > ephemeral - that is, they can change without notice, leaving evidence
> > of that change.
> >
>
> What sort of editorial oversight do you believe is in place for an
> interview in a normal publication?

The fact checker checks that you said it; the editor decides whether
or not the magazine or newspaper will fact a lawsuit if they print it.
The latter, in my view, is fairly criticial.

> As to the latter, there's no technical barrier for web publishers of any
> sort, blogs or magazines. The main protection is convention; in both
> realms it is customary to note changes on the page, and you risk
> ridicule if you don't do that. But the original text is not sacrosanct.

It's better than nothing, though.

> To overcome this would it be sufficient in your eyes to cite from the
> Internet Archive or WebCite?

The odds of either of them actually catching some change on an
individual blog are very, very low.

Jay.