When is the best time to remove a web article or comment from a website? That is the question three writers at the journalism website, Poynter.org, raise. As a former editor of an online news website, I have been faced with the same question. Should older articles be removed even if they receive numerous hits? If I no longer hold the same views should I try to hide the fact that they ever existed? Further, with the explosive growth of Web 2.0 and especially blogs, how is this issue being handled?
Since I used to write a lot of commentaries on current events and other hot button issues, I had many articles that had an extremely long shelf life. It wasn’t odd to have people respond to articles written years ago as if they were written yesterday. In addition, our organization was faced with former posters who wanted to have previous comments removed due to some ‘pressing issue.’ The writers at Poynter address these questions and asks for answers in their article:
Removing Content: When to Unring the Bell?
Bakari Akil II, Ph.D. 