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As is normal for me, i do most of my reading of stories on this great site late in the evening, so that means when i come to make comments i'm kinda tired,which explains why the following morning you'll find me busy editing out all my stupid mistakes from the previous night is it just me trying to be too perfect or do other commentors do the same?
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I Tend Toward...
...the other extreme, reading over my comments several times before posting, no matter how sleepy I get. (I tend to write long comments when I have something I want to talk about, so that can take considerable time.) A few times I've decided to erase the whole thing and shut up.
Every few weeks or so I post and then second-guess myself afterwards, occasionally getting out of bed to make a correction or to convert it into a PM, more often figuring that I'll see how I feel in the morning. (In one case I actually had to ask the administrators to delete a paragraph, since there'd already been a comment attached to mine so I couldn't alter it myself. Turned out the author hadn't seen it and didn't know why I had PMed an apology to her when I woke up.) In a couple of other cases I've made changes a day later because I stated story facts incorrectly -- I referred to Germany instead of Switzerland in my comment on one of the May Day stories, I think -- but I normally don't make significant changes if people have already had time to read the note.
(When I started on the previous BC site I twice felt so embarrassed by a comment that I made that I left and didn't return, once for more than a year, once for about six weeks. Turned out, as far as I can tell, that one of the authors was amused by my analysis and the other at least wasn't bothered.)
Not sure if that helps you or not.
Eric
This is an excellent observation...
>> I Tend Toward... by Eric
I'd noticed it myself, but had not been moved to say anything.
I suspect that quite a few conscientious writers go back and correct responses, either after reading other posts, or after rethinking (possibly with a bit of intervening research.)
A direct reply *fixes* a post in relative stone, so it might be thoughtful to avoid "Reply" in favour of "Add a new comment."
The reply function has to account for multiple levels of reply and indirection in any case, so it's quite common to see replies to a given post so far down the page that it's hard to put them together without a hint more obvious than the indenting level.
A "new" comment with sufficient information included to identify the post which prompted it is both easier to decipher and more polite to the author, since it allows that author access to the post if it seems advisable to expand upon it, or even retract it, without impinging on Erin's time, or that of her deputies.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
editing comments
The interesting thing I have noticed when a commentor edits a comment is, that it will show up on the 'my stories' page as a NEW comment. several times I've accessed the new comment to find that I've already read it, and that something might either be missing or the wording changed a bit. It used to throw me off until I figured out that edited comments just show up as a new one, althought it doesn't add to the number.
I hope that all made sense.
A.A.