Agreed. I guess this is one of the which is the less evil problems. For me the less evil is correcting the posts because I'm mostly concerned by the syntax errors, but for the community as a whole your argument outweights.

I'll try to be more careful and use the preview button.

Forums have addressed this for years. Forums simply date/time stamp the post and add a line (automated, cannot be changed by the author) showing that they edited the post and when.

So you have this:

Greyzone
Feb. 3, 2006, 3:56pm

The big brown dog ate the little grey mouse.

After editing, it becomes this:

Greyzone
Feb. 3, 2006, 3:56pm

The big brown cat ate the little grey mouse.

Edited by Greyzone, Feb 3, 2006, 4:01pm

Now reading a thread, I can see if someone has modified the thread and therefore understand that I am not looking at the original post. Further, forums often allow "quoting" which automatically copies the original post precisely so that a reply can be compared directly against the post. Such a quote cannot be edited, and thus demonstrates the difference between what is currently posted and what was originally posted.

In that sense, blogs are a step backwards when used as community platforms for communications. As expressions for a single individual or even a few individuals, they work very well. What has occurred here at TOD is the evolution of the blog into a wider community of posters. Perhaps one solution would be to install a forum and disallow further direct comments to the blog except by the TOD team itself. Then community participants (like us) could comment on a thread in the appropriate forum opened by the original poster and which would have a link back to the blog entry.

Reader B may then feel compelled to quote Reader A's comments in his responses, in case they change, but Reader C will accuse Reader B of misquoting.

If editing left the original text, but allowed strikeouts and bold or red-colored revisions, that would be fine.  But I doubt those features are available, and enforceable, in this software.