Many people think the sole job of a magazine editor is fixing typos — essentially, serving as a human spell-checker. What they don’t know is that we spend much of our time curating. In other words, we wade through submissions, weeding out historical pieces that present illogical conclusions, technical articles that teach impractical moves and self-defense stories that offer bad advice.
On the internet, however — and especially in forums — there’s little or no curation. And in the right place, that’s fine. Unfiltered comments from average Joe’s and Jane’s have their place. Problems crop up, though, when people see such comments as authoritative. And this happens a lot — which is why everyone loves to say, “I saw it on the internet; it has to be true.”
Recently, I…
