oldtime (print) proofreading marks; via nisus.se

It’s a couple months old but still a worthy topic of debate. It’s ex-Microsoftie Michael Kinsley bitching about how the Web has brought forth an explosion in written content—much of which is tons of total dreck.

Even a lot of professionally written online stuff, Kinsley gripes, is poorly thought out, poorly constructed, and sloppily assembled.

I say that’s just what happens with an explosion of activity in any “creative” field, from neo-punk bands to televised singing contests to self-published horror novels.

The trick is to (1) have a way to find the good stuff, and (2) encourage folks to strive for better work.

As for the first part, there are tons of aggregation sites and blogs (including this one) that link to what some editor thinks is “the good stuff.”

The second part still needs work.

One problem is that so much of the Web is run by techies. Dudes who know the value of tight, accurate, effective code, but who might never have learned to appreciate the same values in words.

A bigger problem is that, even at sites run by “content” people, there’s intense pressure to put everything online the second it’s written, and to slavishly avoid taking the time or staff money to edit anything.

It would help if more sites felt an incentive to put out better stuff. (A big incentive would be to maybe, just maybe, even pay writers and editors a living wage).

Don’t think of the ol’ WWW as code and wires.

The Web is words (and pictures and sounds), distributed via code and wires.