Note: all mistakes in this article were intentionally added to motivate the reader.
Don't you hate it when you write a good article, and only after it gets attention you notice stupid mistakes? Fred Wilson shared the value that empowered readers add via comments in From Blog To Forum, I'm wondering if they should contribute updates to the post itself.
O'Reilly Errors by lawgeek
The Stupid Mistakes
Having friends able to fix typos and grammar mistakes should be automatic. When Henrik or Pam find bugs in my writing, they should be able click the paragraph to convert it to a light-weight editor (perhaps just a textarea). After typing their changes they can click suggest which sends me an email, or if I trust them, they can click update to apply the change immediately.
Readers know you are asking them to point out mistakes, freeing them feel bad pointing out your blunders. Changes are emailed, so you can learn from your mistakes. The goal is to streamline the correction process, not allow facilitate sloppy writing.
Footnotes for Larger Changes?
The problem could be require substantial changes. If the person spends a significant amount of time reworking your article, you might feel pressured to accept a change which while correct, isn't what you were trying to say. Perhaps by allowing readers to suggest a footnote/link to their comment that would alert future readers to in-depth discussion. The value of footnotes becomes larger as the comment count increases, (especially with threaded comments).
Attribution & Revisions
Your article is now more like a wiki but Wikipedia style revision history & attribution is overkill for readers. Adding a "thanks/contributors" sidebar would show your appreciation to readers who took the time to correct you. And having a personal "wall of shame" where you can see mistakes you made so you can try not to make them again.
Hands off! This is my blog
One worry is that changes will be need to be rejected/revoked because they subtly change what you are trying to say. Perhaps here you can address the issues in your comments if it is just them, or by re-writing it yourself with input from your readers on their confusion.
Perhaps this is overkill and all we need is an easy way to say WTF without having to manually send a message to the author. Select some text then click the WTF button that appears. What would you like your readers to do? What would you want do to help others?
