Now and then, someone makes a truly embarrassing mistake online. It happens to everyone. First, you do what you can to correct it, of course. If apologies are appropriate, waste no time making them.And, although the following advice (from my post to a message board) applies to people who are writing articles for online content providers, it applies to everything that we write online, in blogs, at message boards, and on lists.

First of all, this isn’t the Great American Novel, nor are we necessarily working for Pulitzers here. I have re-read some of my own articles, winced at how much better I could have written them, and then… Well, I just let it go.

It’s wise to shrug these things off. We all make mistakes. Try not to expect superhuman standards of yourself or anyone else.

A few errors here and there can be human in a very good way.

While we don’t want to write articles that are filled with GE3K 5PE3K (geek speak) or look illiterate, sometimes people deliberately leave a few errors in their webpages… it’s a subtle reminder to the reader that we are real people on the other side of the keyboard.

It’s easy to lose that sense of personal connection, online. So, think of it as an asset if you can.

While the content of our articles should be adequately researched, reasonably well-written, and informative, form needs to follow function (as they say in design).

The function of these pages is to rank well in search engines, provide people with useful information in a reasonably condensed form, and sell advertising… not necessarily in that order. If the article is also entertaining and well-written, that’s fabulous. However, sometimes functional is “good enough.”

I really do wonder how many mistakes online are left there on purpose.

In offline advertising, especially billboards, one way that you find out how many people are actually reading your copy, is to leave (or put) a mistake in it. Then you see how many people contact you to correct you. You multiply that times 1000 (or so) and it tells you approximately how many people are reading your ad or whatever.

I have no idea if this is in practice online, or if the numbers relate at all, but it’s something that goes through my mind when I see a blatant error.

The bottom line is, nobody should write (or post online) when they’re tired to the point of poor judgment. But, sometimes that “poor judgment” is exactly what keeps us at the keyboard when we should have gone to bed, or out for a walk.

Add pressing deadlines into the mix, and we all work longer than we should… especially me!

There are always be ways that an article could have been better. Five years from now, you may look at articles that are online from this era and wish you could change your name to escape embarrassment! (I’m in that category when I look at things I wrote and said, many years ago.)

But, sometimes articles are like bad high school yearbook pictures. We have to let them go and accept that nobody is perfect.

Researchers, writers, editors and webmasters all make silly mistakes that they wouldn’t when they’re sharp and on top of the game. A few minor goofs in articles is okay, relatively speaking.

Hey, it took Cher years to get past her tarnished reputation after she misguidedly did infomercials.

And I wonder how Madonna will explain her rather, uh, stylized book when her kids grow up and see it.

Most people agree that Clint Eastwood probably shouldn’t have made Paint Your Wagon. (I liked most of it, but I have quirky tastes in movies.) Britney Spears’ serial blunders, Ted Danson’s roast appearance in whiteface, some celebs’ unfortunate home videos, and… well, this list could go on & on.

We all make perfectly awful mistakes now & then, and in contrast with this celeb list, a few articles with grammar errors or typos… It’s embarrassing, but something that we all do. If you’ve made a mistake in an article or a website, you’re in good company.