On Removing Content
I wanted to share some thoughts on removing content from a public blog.
A couple of days ago I published a link to a post by Matt Mullenweg about the whole WordPress vs WP Engine drama. In that post, I ended with the following comment:
You should probably take this post down, Matt. It’s fucking awful.
I later received an email from Manu about the topic (I really enjoy my email exchanges with him). At the top of the email, he said this:
Hard disagree. He should leave it up because that’s how the web remembers.
I replied to Manu, but subsequently thought about this and I wanted to share my thoughts here. I've talked about deleting old content in the past, but that was more focussed on social media.
Generally speaking, I don't delete content from this site. Having said that, if I posted something that I later feel is particularly egregious, I think I probably would. I personally don't think that a website should be a permanent record - how can it be? Nothing last forever.
Does that mean we should throw caution to the wind and delete anything we subsequently disagree with in the future?
Probably not. But I do think it's ok to delete stuff from your site from time to time.
What do you think? Use the email button below to let me know.