The New York Times...Not That Again?
Contributed by John Werntz
[Content deleted -- See explanation below.]
Webmaster's note. All available evidence indicates that your friendly neighborhood webmaster Murthad up and lost part of this post trying to move it "below the fold". My apologies to all. I've emailed John to ask if he still has the rest of the post in his files but if he composed directly in TypePad he won't.
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Friends and neighbors, your friendly neighborhood webmaster Murthad up big time. To mark this propitious occasion, maybe it's time to explain a little about the webmaster's "editing" function on Old War Dogs.
Your friendly neighborhood webmaster does not:
- Decide what gets posted on the site. Each Dog's posts go directly to the site and I see them for the first time the same place you do.
- Delete posts from the site. Old War Dogs has no "Memory Hole." Should it ever become necessary -- it hasn't yet nor do I expect it to -- I might replace the contents of a post with a "webmaster's note," but you have my promise never to remove all traces of a post. Any guest author caught doing so will be banned from the site -- A threat I'm confident I'll never have to enforce. (Dogs: I'll forgive you for changing something back to "draft" status temporarily if you realize after you posted it that doesn't look like you expected it to. If you decide it's beyond salvation please replace the post contents with a note to that effect. If you "come to your senses" later and decide you don't like something you wrote, please add an update to that effect -- Do not delete what you wrote earlier.)
- Delete words or sentences or rewrite posts for brevity or clarity, etc.
Your friendly neighborhood webmaster does routinely:
- Correct minor typographical and obvious spelling errors
- Add additional relevant information as addenda to occasional posts. Such addenda are clearly marked as such.
- Adjust the portion of each post above and below the "Continue reading ... " break to suit his mood of the moment. In particular, when a post is selected as a "Best of Old War Dogs Featured Post" the "above the fold" portion of the post is usually shortened somewhat.
So, here's what happened in this case: John wrote what I considered to be an excellent post and I selected it to be a "Best of Old War Dogs Featured Post." Shortly after midnight this morning I attempted to move part of it "below the fold" and backdated it to move it to the top of the site. In the process I lost a substantial part of the post but didn't realize I had. John saw the remainder of the post at the top of the site a few hours later and an email exchange ensued. Since neither of us has a copy of the portion of the post I lost John has asked me to remove the remaining portion, which I've done, since without the missing portion it really isn't a very good post. My apologies to all, and to John in particular. The fault for what happened was all mine.
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