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posted by n1 on Sunday May 24 2015, @06:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the unedited-perspectives dept.

Myself and other submitters have noticed that articles are being edited to change the tone and intent of our stories.

Soylentil McD has suggested that "Minor edits, spelling corrections, and such, are no problem and to be expected." but "I think soylent editors should adhere to a policy of not putting words in the submitter's mouth".

I agree with that. If the editors want to add their own two cents, they can respond inline like the rest of us. Their role here is to be responsible, not privileged.

The stories we submit are a reflection of our enthusiasms and beliefs, the tone and character of those posts is as much part of the submitter's story as the actual content. The community is what makes sites like SN and Slashdot before it, an eclectic community with a wide range of opinions, styles and passions will always be more active and interesting than a bland monoculture. SN's editors should embrace and encourage that diversity, not sabotage it to appease some corporate interests.

So what do other Soylentils think? Should the submissions be allowed to stand as a clear reflection of the community's intent, or should the editors change our submissions to suit their perception of suitability?

 
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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday May 24 2015, @09:57PM

    by VLM (445) on Sunday May 24 2015, @09:57PM (#187368)

    If you submit copy to a publication with an editor you'll get edited. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

    Usually for the better. At least professionally if I were a better editor than the editor, I'd be the editor. I've seen some pretty hideous peer output in college writing classes.

    It would be very interesting to see the quality level of raw unedited submissions. Its hard to decide what to advise if we're in a vacuum about if we're any good or if we suck. My gut level feeling is we don't totally suck but we give editors enough gray hairs that they get in the habit of "fixing" things which is mostly excellent and occasionally a disaster, just like most other human manual labor.

    It would be interesting to test for a week, do no editing at all other than the most trivial of filtering out spam.

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