Google Apps Hacks

202 GOOGLE APPS HACKS

HaCK 84:

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Visualize the difference between past and present.

When a news blogger makes substantial changes to a blog post a while after it has been posted,

netiquette says that the blogger should mark or disclose changes accordingly. This can be done by

adding an update to the post, or by using the <del> and <ins> tags in the post to mark up deletions

and insertions, which typically render as strikethrough and italic, respectively.

The reason for this is that every blog post can grow to become part of a larger online discussion, and

when other bloggers reference a post or the post collects comments, and it then changes behind

the scenes, things become confusing. Although your mileage may vary, amending the introductory

sentence of a post from “Adam stole my car” to “Adam bought my car” half an hour after posting (for

example) would be a potentially confusing change if left unmarked; if, on the other hand, you correct

a mere spelling error a couple of minutes after posting, it may not justify a special disclosure.

On the other hand, behind-the-scenes changes, such as the removal of a sentence to hide it, are

hard to pull off online anyway. Or, as NewsRadio’s Joe Rogan once put it, “Taking something off the

Internet? That’s like taking pee out of a pool.”

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If you read something in Google ...