What Should I Do When I Break My Blogging Rule?

Yesterday I broke my Easter Course Correction blogging rule with my entry titled Engaging FFOZ: Did Corrupt Priests Rewrite Parts of the Torah? My rule is as follows: "I am going to allow myself up to five entries a day, all published at noon local time, and all made up of as many paragraphs as needed, but each post must be limited to a single main topic." I broke this rule by classifying my FFOZ entry under two separate topics, also known as tags or labels: Torah Inerrancy and Third Temple. To write on a single main topic per entry means only one label or tag per post, at least as I was thinking about it on Easter. This restriction is challenging, and it may ultimately prove counterproductive, but I will do my best to follow through with it for the rest of the week. 

Resolving to do better moving forward is straightforward enough, but what else should I do if I break one of my blogging rules? Perhaps the first thing I need to do is publish an update that I am aware of the issue. Hence this entry, for example. Then I need to think about when to make discrete edits versus public corrections; when to make retractions; and when to make apologies. Finally, there are times when I may need to change my Blogging Rule itself.

All of this will become more pertinent, and more complex, as I get deeper into the articulation of my Blogging Rule. I am thinking in this regard about mindful speech in the Buddhist tradition. Here is the Fourth Precept from the 1993 edition of For a Future to be Possible by Thich Nhat Hanh:

"Aware of the suffering causing by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small."

This is a powerful precept with many implications for the development of my Blogging Rule.