Sunday, March 16, 2008

Reposts

In my (almost) first post, I wrote that 1. I would be reposting items from my blog at OregonLive; 2. These posts might be rewritten; and 3. I would provide a link to the original post. I also pointed out that the archives at OregonLive only go back to April 2007, but archives going back to 2004 are still at their older site.

Well, OregonLive has understandably removed the content from the old site, so I can no longer link to posts from it. Fortunately, I saved all of them on my computer (aren't you lucky!) so I can still repost them. What I can't do is link to the originals, unless it's from the new site. So from now on, reposts will have the same little statement at the bottom (reposted from OregonLive), but without the link.

Another point: I don't think there's anything inappropriate in rewriting reposted items, since I'm the original author. Before now I could also add that I was linking to the original version, so you, dear reader, could see what exactly was changed. That last step is no longer possible. Nevertheless, I still maintain it is entirely appropriate to rewrite them, for the same reason that it's appropriate for an author to rewrite a book even after the first edition is no longer in print. At any rate, most, if not all, of what I'll change will just be comments that date the post. But if anyone wants to compare a repost with the original, just e-mail me, and I'll send you the original version.

Update (April 8): I'm working on a post that will actually bring together two or three posts from the old blog. So changes to reposts will probably cover more than just comments that date them, despite what I wrote above. Also, if I repost a quote -- that is, something from a book or essay by someone else -- I won't mark it as a repost, since the content is not original to me.

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