I strongly endorse editing the HTML of old LW posts.
I’ve looked at that HTML, and almost invariably been horrified; it’s often an absolute mess. I don’t think that changing the semantics of the post is a serious danger, for three reasons:
It’s usually quite clear what it should be.
The way it’s displayed currently is already not the same as the way it was displayed back then, and there’s no remedy for that; better to make it right and proper going forward, than to compound old mistakes and the effects of an awkward transition.
You can (and should) archive the un-corrected version, in case there’s a need to revert anything.
I think users that are used to Markdown will often use single bold words as heading
Really? I haven’t seen this… but if it’s true, it shouldn’t be encouraged!
Some content is submitted to us via RSS feeds from people’s blogs, where we obviously have no control over their HTML, and I would also prefer to not modify it.
This is understandable, but in general I think it’s better to do it right in the majority of cases and to either make an exception or to allow imperfect outcomes in a minority of cases, than to do it wrong in the majority of cases for the sake of consistency. (How much of this RSS’d content is there, anyway?)
Some aspects of the conversion can, and should, be scripted. Some should be manual.
There is no reason to go through each post. Prioritize them: if someone comments on an old post, clearly it’s active, so edit that. If a post is getting a lot of traffic, edit that. Otherwise, leave it alone until there’s a reason to edit it, or you have time to do so.
(Also: crowdsource this stuff. Let trusted volunteers submit edited HTML, then drop it in as a replacement if it’s good.)
I strongly endorse editing the HTML of old LW posts.
I’ve looked at that HTML, and almost invariably been horrified; it’s often an absolute mess. I don’t think that changing the semantics of the post is a serious danger, for three reasons:
It’s usually quite clear what it should be.
The way it’s displayed currently is already not the same as the way it was displayed back then, and there’s no remedy for that; better to make it right and proper going forward, than to compound old mistakes and the effects of an awkward transition.
You can (and should) archive the un-corrected version, in case there’s a need to revert anything.
Really? I haven’t seen this… but if it’s true, it shouldn’t be encouraged!
This is understandable, but in general I think it’s better to do it right in the majority of cases and to either make an exception or to allow imperfect outcomes in a minority of cases, than to do it wrong in the majority of cases for the sake of consistency. (How much of this RSS’d content is there, anyway?)
Are you imagining a manual process where you look at each post and edit it? I was assuming Oliver had in mind an automated script.
Would you expect it to be easy to script the conversion?
Some aspects of the conversion can, and should, be scripted. Some should be manual.
There is no reason to go through each post. Prioritize them: if someone comments on an old post, clearly it’s active, so edit that. If a post is getting a lot of traffic, edit that. Otherwise, leave it alone until there’s a reason to edit it, or you have time to do so.
(Also: crowdsource this stuff. Let trusted volunteers submit edited HTML, then drop it in as a replacement if it’s good.)