Blog Methodology Footnotes

Instant messenger interviews: Interviews are done over an instant messenger program, e.g. Google Talk, and are logged. The transcript is then spellchecked and slightly edited for clarity, e.g. by adding line breaks, adjusting case, or including relevant links, and it's also HTML'ified. Parties have the chance to make private comments in [square brackets] and do minor changes later on if required. Sometimes the interview process changes over time, so not the same rules may be true for all interviews.

Email interviews: Email interviews may take place during the course of several days, upon which a list of questions is sent out to a person, and after receiving answers, more questions will be sent. The interview is then chronologically sorted and where necessary spellchecked/ edited for clarity.

Source identity withheld: In some cases, a source is known to the writer of the article but doesn't wish to be publicly identified. This may also be indicated by crediting "A." ("A." meaning "Anonymous").

"HTML'ified", text converted to HTML: A source text has been changed to make use of HTML features. For instance, when the original contains the sentence "*everybody* says so" the final version may read "everbody says so" (replacing the asterisks with an italic word). Also, whent he original contains e.g. "you can find out more at http://www.example.com" the HTML'ified version may read "you can find out more" (the latter being linked).

Updates: In general, updates are marked as such. There are a couple of exceptions; for instance, sometimes the article is slightly edited within the first few minutes of its publication. Also, simple spell-checkings or grammar corrections may be done at a later time, usually indicated by an update notice in the comments (and/ or the "ins"/ "del" tags); "Digg this" add-ons may come and go; also, credits are often written out in the form of "John D." before receiving permission to share the full surname, upon which the credit line is changed to "John Doe" (also, other people may be added to the credits over time). Any substantial change other than that however is marked either by an update/ edit notification within the revised part (making use of strike-throughs and such), or by adding a summary of the edit at the end of the article.

If the article is a live-blogging post, it will be marked as such, and different rules apply.

Live-blogging: A live blog post is a post that starts out with little content and will then be continuously expanded during a certain event, as new information comes in. The whole article may undergo many revisions (including its title, but not its permalink) and will be constantly republished. If someone is out attending a live event, the post may also be live-edited by a second person.

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