Mistakes Were Made

Human error is one of the natural consequences of publishing this site by hand, while I learn enough node.js to build a blog engine. Most of these mistakes will be temporary, and many will affect readers differently.

Yesterday, I did my normal publishing routine correctly, right up until I edited my RSS’s .xml file. At that point, I left in place the prior day’s <description> content, which provides the full post content in an RSS reader. Anyone who checked their feedreader yesterday saw the wrong content with the correct title.

Maybe some of you clicked through and saw the correct post on the site. Maybe a some of you noticed the error and shook your head at my carelessness. Maybe no one checked the feed yesterday. At this point, I have no idea. The feed is correct now, but part of the “fun” of RSS is that individual readers may still show the old content. *sigh*

This whole thing is a good reminder for me to worry most about continuing to write, because I think it is good for me. If I sweat mistakes here and there, or worry about external markers of success like reader-count, I will quickly lose my motivation. That’s what ended all my prior projects.

Instead, I will daily try to get better. I will occasionally publish a post that’s pretty good. Sometimes folks will even read it. Periodically, I will make mistakes. When I catch them, I will make myself be okay with that, and I will probably ask for forgiveness here.

Management regrets the error.