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.
Want more?
So you've read this post and you're still not satisfied? Ok then, here's some other stuff for you to do: