Imagine this scenario – you just wrote and published an entry for your blog. An hour or two later, you get a notification e-mail that a comment for that entry has been posted. Naturally, you excitedly look at your blog and see what your reader (or readers, for that matter) has to say. Sometimes, you can merely comment on the comment. Other times, though, the comment might require a more extensive reply or a change in the entry. What do you do then? Does it make more sense to merely edit the entry or is it better to write another entry from scratch? There are several considerations to this. For example, if the changes required are merely in regard to spelling, punctuation, or something similar – that is, the context and content of the entry are not really affected – then I would say that you merely have to edit your existing post. There is no point in creating another entry if the content will be the same. On the other hand, if the overall meaning of the entry is going to change because of editing, then I suggest that you create a new post and clearly state the reason for doing so. Another important thing is to let your readers know what you have changed. This is especially important if you going to edit the same entry. You can make use of editing tools such as strikethroughs to indicate the changes in the entry. The bottom line is that you decide what to do in order to make your posts better and let your readers know about the changes as well.
Originally posted on December 14, 2007 @ 12:36 am