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> That's because the editors they worked with, and others he discussed such things, had a pattern to cross off specific things (regardless of whether both autho

> That's because the editors they worked with, and others he discussed such things, had a pattern to cross off specific things (regardless of whether both author and editor agreed they were bad), and those "crossing offs" revealed not just an editorial hand, but also an underlying ethics/ideology behind what they chose to focus on... That's obviously not exclusively true. Otherwise the sole purpose of the editor would be pure ideological shifts. That would be dumb. Ergo I conclude most of the edits are just competent editor edits. > Way to miss the whole argument. And I'm saying the author seems like a sensitive soul that has jumped the gun far too quickly. His argument is incorrect.

coldtea 4y ago
>That's obviously not exclusively true. Otherwise the sole purpose of the editor would be pure ideological shifts. That wasn't the argument I've made. I didn't say every edit suggestion was based on ideological shifts. I said that (actually, merely summed up the author's experience) they discovered a tendency for editors to also (keyword: also) make suggestions that not only result in ideological shifts, but have an ideology/ethics and not "how best to serve the text" or aesthetics as the underlying drive. And some those corrections can even coincide with a "better expression" edit. To make the claim perfectly clear: (1) editors make mainly "better expression" edits (2) they also make a certain class of ideology/ethics edits. Some of them they make them explicitly with ideology in mind (e.g. they find situation X, that is acceptable to a French sensibility as yucky because of their culture), and other times unconsciously as mere not understanding the point of the text (but again, not because it doesn't have one, but because of conceptions rooted in their culture about what is included, not some "universal" needs of the text). (3) they make enough of the latter that the writer can see a pattern - also shared/expressed by other writers of the same culture as him (different to the editor's culture) (4) many people reading about those, can't even understand that the latter kind of edits are of that kind, not only because the change might be suble subtle and they can't understand what's at stake, but also because they share the same ethics/ideology (in short: culture) with the editor.
- spywaregorilla 4y ago
  I don't really care about your argument here. Mine is very simple. If you write a crap sentence a good editor will flag that sentence for being crap. Maybe the editor cared about ideology. Maybe they did not. But if they didn't flag that sentence they would be a bad editor. Because it was a bad sentence. For us to assume that there is additional reasoning behind it would be pure conjecture. It's not a convincing piece of evidence to point out that an editor removed a nonsense statement as evidence that the editor has ideological motivations. It's not proof that they don't have ideological motivations. It's just an irrelevant edit of a bad phrase. This feels like the classic Community scene in which Chang is trying to pitch "Bear Down for Midterms" as the school's slogan, and everyone says "What does that mean?" to which he tries to defend by asking if their issues with it are a race thing. The author's thesis can be correct even if his evidence and persuasive reasoning are bad.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >I don't really care about your argument here. Mine is very simple. If you write a crap sentence a good editor will flag that sentence for being crap. Maybe the editor cared about ideology. Maybe they did not. But if they didn't flag that sentence they would be a bad editor Well that's how editing works. I'd be charitable and say that, certainly, both I and the author know this. On top of that, basic function, however, an editor can have other causes in mind for flagging a sentence (either explicit or unconscious motivation), besides it "being crap". And if they do this frequently enough, one can spot a pattern. To put it another way, sure, a cigar is something people smoke. And sometimes "a cigar is just a cigar" as the quote goes. But also sometimes a cigar is NOT just a cigar. It was put conscisously as a phalic symbol, or even uncosciously so. Similarly, an edit it's not always an edit - sometimes it's imposing an ideology behind the editing - even if it thinks it just removes a bad sentence. Now, about the "no evidence" part. Part of the essay is about how for some of those cases there's no evidence, but you can see it if you come from the right (constrasting to the editor) background. And where it's more obvious, there's still "plausible deniability". It's more about about the emerging pattern of editing decisions that you get a feel for. So, there's no "evidence" or "proof", in the sense of a court case or math, the same way you can't prove a comedian is funny to someone. They either find them funny or not, and there are no real arguments and explanations that can change their mind. At best you can point that many agree with you and find said comedian funny (though, of course, that wouldn't convince anybody that the comedian is funny - it might just give them some doubt about them finding them unfunny, or merely make them think those "many" have no good humor either). >The author's thesis can be correct even if his evidence and persuasive reasoning are bad. Certainly. Tho in this case, I think he makes a good case at the literature level: how what's conveyed changes by the proposed edits they point out. And how even when the sentence is not good, the suggested edit doesn't propose an improvement that removes the "bad expression" and retains what's conveyed, but completely removes what was conveyed. Not because they're a bad editor and don't have a feel for improving phrases while retaining their meaning in general, but because they have a different mindset/culture. That is, the editors can handle the "improve-but-keep-meaning" fine for phrases where the ideology is not an issue, but get a "blind spot" when it is...

coldtea 4y ago

>That's obviously not exclusively true. Otherwise the sole purpose of the editor would be pure ideological shifts. That wasn't the argument I've made. I didn't say every edit suggestion was based on ideological shifts. I said that (actually, merely summed up the author's experience) they discovered a tendency for editors to also (keyword: also) make suggestions that not only result in ideological shifts, but have an ideology/ethics and not "how best to serve the text" or aesthetics as the underlying drive. And some those corrections can even coincide with a "better expression" edit. To make the claim perfectly clear: (1) editors make mainly "better expression" edits (2) they also make a certain class of ideology/ethics edits. Some of them they make them explicitly with ideology in mind (e.g. they find situation X, that is acceptable to a French sensibility as yucky because of their culture), and other times unconsciously as mere not understanding the point of the text (but again, not because it doesn't have one, but because of conceptions rooted in their culture about what is included, not some "universal" needs of the text). (3) they make enough of the latter that the writer can see a pattern - also shared/expressed by other writers of the same culture as him (different to the editor's culture) (4) many people reading about those, can't even understand that the latter kind of edits are of that kind, not only because the change might be suble subtle and they can't understand what's at stake, but also because they share the same ethics/ideology (in short: culture) with the editor.

spywaregorilla 4y ago
I don't really care about your argument here. Mine is very simple. If you write a crap sentence a good editor will flag that sentence for being crap. Maybe the editor cared about ideology. Maybe they did not. But if they didn't flag that sentence they would be a bad editor. Because it was a bad sentence. For us to assume that there is additional reasoning behind it would be pure conjecture. It's not a convincing piece of evidence to point out that an editor removed a nonsense statement as evidence that the editor has ideological motivations. It's not proof that they don't have ideological motivations. It's just an irrelevant edit of a bad phrase. This feels like the classic Community scene in which Chang is trying to pitch "Bear Down for Midterms" as the school's slogan, and everyone says "What does that mean?" to which he tries to defend by asking if their issues with it are a race thing. The author's thesis can be correct even if his evidence and persuasive reasoning are bad.
- coldtea 4y ago
  >I don't really care about your argument here. Mine is very simple. If you write a crap sentence a good editor will flag that sentence for being crap. Maybe the editor cared about ideology. Maybe they did not. But if they didn't flag that sentence they would be a bad editor Well that's how editing works. I'd be charitable and say that, certainly, both I and the author know this. On top of that, basic function, however, an editor can have other causes in mind for flagging a sentence (either explicit or unconscious motivation), besides it "being crap". And if they do this frequently enough, one can spot a pattern. To put it another way, sure, a cigar is something people smoke. And sometimes "a cigar is just a cigar" as the quote goes. But also sometimes a cigar is NOT just a cigar. It was put conscisously as a phalic symbol, or even uncosciously so. Similarly, an edit it's not always an edit - sometimes it's imposing an ideology behind the editing - even if it thinks it just removes a bad sentence. Now, about the "no evidence" part. Part of the essay is about how for some of those cases there's no evidence, but you can see it if you come from the right (constrasting to the editor) background. And where it's more obvious, there's still "plausible deniability". It's more about about the emerging pattern of editing decisions that you get a feel for. So, there's no "evidence" or "proof", in the sense of a court case or math, the same way you can't prove a comedian is funny to someone. They either find them funny or not, and there are no real arguments and explanations that can change their mind. At best you can point that many agree with you and find said comedian funny (though, of course, that wouldn't convince anybody that the comedian is funny - it might just give them some doubt about them finding them unfunny, or merely make them think those "many" have no good humor either). >The author's thesis can be correct even if his evidence and persuasive reasoning are bad. Certainly. Tho in this case, I think he makes a good case at the literature level: how what's conveyed changes by the proposed edits they point out. And how even when the sentence is not good, the suggested edit doesn't propose an improvement that removes the "bad expression" and retains what's conveyed, but completely removes what was conveyed. Not because they're a bad editor and don't have a feel for improving phrases while retaining their meaning in general, but because they have a different mindset/culture. That is, the editors can handle the "improve-but-keep-meaning" fine for phrases where the ideology is not an issue, but get a "blind spot" when it is...