Do longtime Web writers have to worry about consistency vs. evolution of thought?
those of us who write on the internet have to be hyper-aware of what we’ve said in the past, an ever-pressing challenge as we age. (I have a really terrible memory and always have.) Tagging helps. But if we change our minds or evolve our perspective about certain things, we need to acknowledge it as it happens. Otherwise it looks to a reader — fairly! — like the sort of hypocrisy Times writer Jonathan Dee describes.
In fact, let’s raise the stakes. If you read Post X, a reasonable reaction is, “Hmm, I wonder what else this writer has produced about the subject.” And then, googling backward from the date of the post (or even forward, I suppose), a reader can rather naturally inspect associated posts through the prism of both the tone and substance of the first one s/he encountered, recontextualizing the actual historical record from the point of encounter of Post X. That method of reading privileges consistency over evolution of thought, particularly if a reader disagrees with what s/he encounters.
