Right, when a simple footnote in the piece would have clarified the matter rather than derailing the whole piece. If only there were some way to rectify such t

Right, when a simple footnote in the piece would have clarified the matter rather than derailing the whole piece. If only there were some way to rectify such things on the Internet, where words are not physically committed to paper. We might call it "editing". It need not even require a professional editor. Some people might even do it in trivial forms such as message board comments. Do you see where I am going here? For less effort than you and I and the author expended discussing the flaw, it could have been corrected in situ and the piece itself can become stronger. This is why good writers revise so often. It is astonishingly rare for the first version of a piece to communicate exactly what you intend to exactly whom you intended, and even then it may turn out that your opinions have evolved or your audience has broadened or shifted. It is more efficient to incorporate constructive criticism than to rebut it, in some situations. Given the mutability of words on the Internet, the only two real explanations are "I meant to do that" or "I don't care enough to edit it".