CircleID

A concern has been expressed by Thomas Roessler regarding the headlines of opinion pieces that are presented on CircleID. (Thanks Thomas, this is indeed a valid point that deserves attention and a careful consideration.) In addition to the meaning and reflection that a headline can portray on the related article or opinion piece, headlines also play a very important role in the world of "online" publishing. So I'll start by explaining why we have developed the "bad habit" of sometimes changing headlines of opinion pieces from their original format before having them published.

First, it would be useful to point out that, an important part of CircleID's mission is to provide a service to DNS related communities and professionals—many of whom maintain weblogs. In other words, we spend much of our time ensuring that experts are recognized and read as knowledgeable professionals and webloggers in the industry—much beyond the micro-communities, committees, and organizations who are often up-to-date and informed of historical aspects of DNS. So when considering a particular headline, we try to keep our mass audience in mind (think, for instance, decision makers of telecom companies, web hosting providers, ISPs, Governments, etc.). We often find original headlines of weblogs (rightly) assuming certain issues that may have been discussed previously within their closer circles of readers but 'vague' when presented on CircleID or other sources that feed off of CircleID.

Other factors that play a role in deciding the wording of headlines include clarity, length, better reflection of the issues discussed in the article, as well as important keywords that help search engines in better indexing of topics discusses. In other words we try to help each expert get maximum presence and readership while keeping his or her piece and opinion intact. Also, we rarely change the actual content of the articles unless there is an obvious issue with clarity in which case approval of the author is sought.

Of course, this is not to say that we are always right—as Thomas has pointed out (see possible bloopers for instance here and here). This is why communication channels on CircleID are open. Much like every other valuable accomplishment on the Web, it is not the individual effort but the collaboration and collective effort of all that generates valuable results—be it sharing of information, opinion, or otherwise.

Your feedback is much appreciated. We read them all and give them all careful consideration.

Thank you.