November 11, 1996
With News on the Web, Timing is everything
By Bob O'Donnell
Judging from Web traffic patterns, it is probably pretty safe to say that the most
important app of the Web is news - despite my obvious bias. Let me illustrate how both the
good and bad sides of this combination can come into play with an example that happened
here on InfoWorld Electric.
About a month ago we ran a review of Hockware's VisPro for Visual Basic 1.0 on
Electric. We were able to post it on the site about a week before it was scheduled to run
in the print version of InfoWorld because of the lead time involved with the
Product Review pages.
The article was somewhat critical of the product, prompting Hockware to contact InfoWorld and challenge
certain elements of the review a very common occurrence in the computer press.
Unfortunately, in this instance, because of some very unusual configuration problems on
the machine the product was tested on, it turned out that there were some inaccuracies in
the article.
As a result, we retested the product and wrote a revised review based on the new
results. Because the mistakes were caught early enough, the revised article was finished
in time to make it into the Oct. 21 edition of InfoWorld print. The inaccuracies
never appeared in print. In addition, we replaced the older review on InfoWorld Electric
with the revised
one.
Even that much is interesting, but the story isn't over. During the few days that the
original review appeared on Electric, a freelance writer working for Fawcette Technical Publications' electronic newsletter,
"Visual Programming ++" downloaded the inaccurate review and submitted it as his
own for the newsletter. The plagiarized, inaccurate article ran in the Oct. 29 edition of
that newsletter. To its credit, Fawcette quickly took responsibility, apologized for the
plagiarism, and said it will include a retraction and second review of VisPro in the next
newsletter.
Let's set aside the plagiarism and copyright concerns. The fundamental questions of
accuracy and reliability of material on the Web are fascinating -- and none has easy
answers. For example, we and most of the other news sites I checked on the Web do not have
a corrections area. We simply correct and update stories as we go along, in the same way
that the traditional broadcast media updates information as it becomes available. In the
VisPro review, we did not point out that we'd posted a revised review -- we simply put it
up as a new article. We also deleted the old review from our archives (although not
immediately), so that searches would only return the accurate article.
The difference, of course, is that we're constantly updating the equivalent of a
printed page, a luxury unavailable to traditional print publications and one that readers
may find somewhat disconcerting.
At the moment we don't have a mechanism for informing readers when articles change. But
discussions of this incident and the general principles involved have encouraged us to
move in that direction. So, for example, in addition to including the time a story is
originally posted, we're considering adding a stamp for when a story is modified in any
way, be it correcting a typographical error or updating the article with new information.
There will, undoubtedly, be some messy gray areas in the middle, but we think this will
prove to be a reasonable approach.
The whole question of archives is another huge issue. What should a site keep as part
of its "record" and include in its searchable archive? We're actually taking two
different approaches. Our Week
in Print section is an exact, word-for-word reproduction of the text that appeared in
the print version of InfoWorld, warts and all. We even include the For the Record
corrections section. The Electric archives, on the other hand (which are found via the Search function),
contain only the final version of the story -- previous iterations are simply overwritten.
As a result, searches will only find the latest (and hopefully most accurate) version.
A few years from now, we may look back at the formative years of the Web and laugh at
all the issues we had to wrestle with. But our goal is clear, we want to present the best
of both the print and broadcast media.
Electric On The Road
On an unrelated note, I'm pleased to announce the return of Electric On the Road. In
conjunction with the upcoming Comdex trade show in Las Vegas we've put together a section
here on InfoWorld Electric where you can quickly find all the breaking news from the show,
as well as information about show events, exhibitors, Las Vegas attractions, and more.
Whether you're attending the show or not, you're bound to find some useful information, so
check it out.
©
Copyright 1996, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a
subsidiary of IDG Communications, Inc. Reprinted from InfoWorld,
155 Bovet Road, San Mateo, CA 94402. Further reproduction is prohibited.
