(This teeters right on the brink of being either gossip or a pissing contest. I want to document the facts in a permanent way, but I won’t be in the least offended if you press on without reading this.)

One of the interesting defects of the enblogged globe is the de facto Memory Hole effect. If I change the appearance of a weblog, every page will reflect those changes, as though they had been that way forever. If I change a post, it’s changed forever, with no reference to its past form. There are various web-based Wayback Machines, but there is no built-in version history so that you can track what I have done — perhaps with an eye to judging my motives.

It could be there is no Memory Hole at Redfin.com’s weblog.

From a comment by Glenn Kelman at Rain City Guide:

Regarding that reference, I had tried to explain that we deplore a particular tactic, not real estate agents, and I apologized. Later, before returning to this blog, I removed the reference from the blog, and inserted an apology with the same prominence as the original reference. This is because I respect Dustin, because I regretted the implications of my own statement, and because we all believe in fair, civil discourse.

And, indeed, this is the way that particular text appears on the Redfin.com weblog’s home page and at this permalink:

But there is no Memory Hole. The original entry is still on-line:

The reader comments are copied from the old version to the new, but the old version has not been supplanted by the new version, but, rather, duplicated and then edited.

I am drawing absolutely no inferences from this, simply taking note of a body of facts.

Further notice: I just went to set the trackbacks for the two separate permalinks — and they’re the same.

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