LA Times Wikitorial - RIP? I went to check on the progress of the LA Times Wikitorial today and found this:

Where is the wikitorial?

Unfortunately, we have had to remove this feature, at least temporarily, because a few readers were flooding the site with inappropriate material.

Thanks and apologies to the thousands of people who logged on in the right spirit.

This is unfortunate. I was reading it over the weekend and thought that it was really starting to become a great forum for thought (especially since my edit was still there!). This is the problem with the wiki in general: its complete openness gives power to those who want to cause trouble. Why doesn't this happen to Wikipedia? It probably does, but it is immediately policed by others who feel a sense of ownership to a particular topic.

I hope the Times does not give up. Possibly requiring a more rigid registration would help. Or maybe moving to a blog/comment type format where the original editorial is kept intact but others are allowed to comment and possibly create branching entries.

As I said before, time will tell...

Categories: LATimes, Wiki, Wikitorial  ¶ 9:18 AM 0 comments