Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Just as changing "Dago" to "Levantine", or "Ten Little Niggers" to "Ten Little Soldier Boys" is. Language use and meaning changes.
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I'm repeating myself, but since you are also: an entity with a financial stake in a copyrighted work changing it to maximze its return is quite different. It's understandable and sometimes it's unfortunate and sometimes it really is necessary.
But while I get a profit motive, I don't get wanting to fiddle with a classic text, whether it's for perceived stupid readers or brainwashing or whatever ill-considered or malevolent reason. If someone does make such changes, I'd like to know. I think finding such works in the MR context would be surprising, but I accept it can happen. I'd like to have a community belief that such things are unacceptable and to be discouraged where possible.
I also know that in this particular case, the uploader puts a lot of effort into his books and that he meant well, but made what I consider to be a poor decision. That's the kind of change that could be affected by a few simple guidelines. With the truly malevolent, obviously they wouldn't herald their changes, but that's also the type of thing that is more readily detected (and the bemused downloader could post in the upload thread to alert others), as opposed to a slight dumbing down which will more likely pass muster. I just don't care to read it.
You do what you can in these situations. Again, I would think that those who spend a lot of time verifying every comma and em dash before uploading would like to discourage deliberate textual changes (without noting it) to the extent possible, especially when they don't care to read such works, either.