Like this post, posts on this blog are generally notes I expose for feedback, discussion and shareability. Every note is like a whiteboard; sometimes the drawing is perfect at once and never needs to be touched again, sometimes it evolves with parts getting ereased, restructured or added, based on the provoked discussion, updated ideas or the need for more structure.
In some extent like the way knowledge is fluid, fast and enriched on Wikipedia, but in blog style, by one author and from the start of existence pinned in history by means of the publishing date.
Basics of a blog.
Let’s believe Wikipedia describes a blog in the right manner;
A blog (a truncation of the expression weblog)[1] is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (“posts”). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.”.
Read the entire wiki here.
Conflicts of evolving knowledge with posts.
As described in the wiki about blog posts, a blogpost emerges at an certain point in the timeline (of this blog), with the most recent published first. When pinned in history at the publishing date, how, in any way possible, someone can decide a certain note (on the whiteboard of this blog) is finished and ready enough to share with the world. The post might already be lost in time, pinned at the historic date of the publication, when the best part emerges.
Connecting to or updating the “old” posts.
Adding new posts is easy, connecting them to the old published knowledge is difficult. As simple as the encyclopedia style of explaining words works on Wikipedia, as difficult we make it with titles that need to explain the content behind it. Those titles invite, carry meaning, provoke or just simply provide summary for scanning readers. They are not built for simple indexation of past knowledge and reconnection or availability for the present.
Solution.
The obvious solutions are also present;
- When the update is important enough, not only update the old post, but write a new post with the updated content and reference to the old. In some case re-expose the old post by means of the new.
- Manners like connecting “Tags” to content provide some relief with finding and indexing old posts, but are a problem itself with structuring and maintenance.
Derived from these problems;
- How to know, remember, realize there is existing content about the subject that needs to be updated and referenced to.
- When is the update important enough to create a new post on this blog and not only update the content.
For in the timely matter of this post the rule will be “I decide” when to post, how to post and connect tags. Maybe the future will bring some A.I. that can help me crack the problem.