Remember how I recently wrote about my penchant for anonymizing (I know that's not a real word, but it should be) my stories? Well, it turns out that some of my earlier writing had not followed this rule. I clearly didn't remember some of these posts at the time when I wrote the linked post. Worse yet, I actually wrote that people had permission to smack me if I started doing so. Crap.
Well, that wasn't good. The real question, though, was what to do about it. Overall, these posts were a tiny minority of the blog. I could just ignore the discrepancy, and hope that no one would notice. The odds that someone would actually do so were pretty small, so it's not like it'd be a huge risk. On the other hand, I could go back through all of my writing and make sure I edited out the names. This second plan would obviously take more of my time, and it would be far more tedious.
Maybe a recent "This American Life" episode about a retraction influenced my thinking, or maybe this was just my natural detail-oriented tendencies coming through. Either way, I decided that my martial art defense was nowhere near the level it'd have to be for me to risk that kind of wide-spread smacking. So, I figured I'd do the right thing by doing some retroactive editing.
It was an interesting stroll down memory lane. I relived many a laugh in the process, and laughed at myself on more than one occasion. I even managed to fix a typo or two, including a few places where my self-editing could have used some work ("I accidentally a word" a couple of times). However, a non-trivial part of the editing involved Mild Ex'es, so I suppose it was more than a tad bittersweet.
In the end, though, I was reminded of one of my favorite xkcd comics. The (alt) text you get when you hover over the comic sums up my mentality perfectly: "you don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right." I, my friends, strive to be a scientist.
Of course, some small part of my brain was also motivated by the fact that upon finishing I would be able to type the following: neener-neener-neener, you all can't smack me any more. Here's hoping I didn't miss any entries.
Well, that wasn't good. The real question, though, was what to do about it. Overall, these posts were a tiny minority of the blog. I could just ignore the discrepancy, and hope that no one would notice. The odds that someone would actually do so were pretty small, so it's not like it'd be a huge risk. On the other hand, I could go back through all of my writing and make sure I edited out the names. This second plan would obviously take more of my time, and it would be far more tedious.
Maybe a recent "This American Life" episode about a retraction influenced my thinking, or maybe this was just my natural detail-oriented tendencies coming through. Either way, I decided that my martial art defense was nowhere near the level it'd have to be for me to risk that kind of wide-spread smacking. So, I figured I'd do the right thing by doing some retroactive editing.
It was an interesting stroll down memory lane. I relived many a laugh in the process, and laughed at myself on more than one occasion. I even managed to fix a typo or two, including a few places where my self-editing could have used some work ("I accidentally a word" a couple of times). However, a non-trivial part of the editing involved Mild Ex'es, so I suppose it was more than a tad bittersweet.
In the end, though, I was reminded of one of my favorite xkcd comics. The (alt) text you get when you hover over the comic sums up my mentality perfectly: "you don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right." I, my friends, strive to be a scientist.
Of course, some small part of my brain was also motivated by the fact that upon finishing I would be able to type the following: neener-neener-neener, you all can't smack me any more. Here's hoping I didn't miss any entries.
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