Can editing be crowdsourced?

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson hoped aloud on his blog for a software application that would allow his readers to edit and proofread his content after it has been posted.

The idea of audience-powered editing is enticing, and at least one company, gooseGrade, is betting on its popularity with both bloggers and readers.

The technology will certainly be welcomed by authors who find the process of revising their own content a chore. But will it be widely adopted by mainstream publishers? What implications does this technology have for the editorial process, and how would it change the nature of news and blog content?

This software will probably be popular with certain kinds of bloggers—ones who publish primarily personal, non-professional blogs and whose writing is already pretty strong—but would create more problems than it’s worth for news-oriented and similar kinds of blogs, especially ones that rely on revenue for survival.

The following points are just preliminary thoughts about the potential challenges of such software. Of course, we are a company that provides editing services to blogs and news websites, so take these points for what they’re worth.

Brand and image

Crowdsourced editing would essentially make editing a collaborative enterprise. But for many bloggers and news outlets, publishing ideas and information in complete and polished form is their bread and butter. Content would already have to be in good shape by the time it’s published for them to continue attracting the amount and type of visitors they expect.

First readers lose out

Editing would occur over an indefinite period of time, and those editing a post wouldn’t necessarily be its earliest readers. If a piece of content has a few ambiguous or convoluted sentences, the author risks confusing those readers who read it before crucial edits are made.

Does it save time?

Most publishers would be concerned about new errors being introduced by readers or vandalism being done to their content and would probably want to moderate edits. But the time they would be required to invest to review and approve changes may negate the time saved from skipping the editorial process at the beginning. Having a professional take care of editing right at the outset may end up being more time-efficient.

No guarantees

Audience-powered editing would be a good supplement to professional editing, but alone may be unreliable. The publisher has no guarantee when or if any editing will be done. They would be presuming not only that competent editors actually read their blog but that they would be interested in making edits and willing to do it consistently.

Good editing is harder than it looks.

Editing has always been one of those things that some content publishers, and certainly most audiences, haven’t given much thought to. If editing is done well, no one notices it—but it’s hard to do well. Changing “there” to “their” is easy enough, but teasing out meaning from a mangled paragraph is not. Audience-powered editing would help with cosmetic errors, but substantive clarification would need the eye of a professional.

A distraction?

Most blogs are intended to facilitate dialogue: the author posts a piece of content that contains an interesting idea or piece of information, the readers follow up with their responses, and conversation ensues. Introducing the opportunity to make corrections to the original post may distract readers from where the author wants their attention: reflecting on the ideas themselves, not the grammar.

Crowdsourced editing seems to be a fundamentally different kind of interaction. Blogs are used to disseminate opinions and information. Comments from readers in response to those opinions are, of course, integral to the process, but audience-powered editing relies on readers to help clarify the initial opinion itself.

Blogs are a call-and-response kind of medium. Crowdsourced editing turns it into a call-fix-the-call-then-respond medium. The technology may ultimately handicap the dialogue that blogs are meant to facilitate.