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Editorial Wiki Debuts At LA Times
jgarzik writes "The L.A. Times newspaper has launched a new form of editorial, the wikitorial. The LA Times editorial staff introduces the new feature in this editorial, and the first wikitorial, War and Consequences , has already been posted. Is this an innovative new way to interact with readers, or will it be constantly defaced by reactionaries?"
As opposed to the actual sheets of the LA Times, which are continuously defaced by radicals.
I would think that comments to a news editiorial would do pretty much the same thing. What's the benefit of being able to edit someone else's opinion?
Why would radicals not also be capable of defacing it? And why use the word "deface" anyway? Are any opposing opinions automatically supposed to be "defacing" it?
...because when radicals do it, it is simply another form of honest protest.
You're either for the war or you're not. I never understood the point of disscussing it. Theres a 5% chance someone will change their mind about their views on the war, and if they do, what does it help?
You can be a "member" of LA Times and let us fill your mailbos with shit, or you can not be a "member" and read our articles off the google cache.
Thanks, I think I'll stick with Google.
Shouldn't that be wiactionaries or blogactionaries? Oh what a brave new world of glorified messages boards we live in.
What's currently important is not the question of "will it be defaced?", but "will it help removing some of the trenches that are in the US public opinion? Will it add positively to a constructive dialogue between the people?"
I think that it will not, because the predominant circles active on the internet today fall pretty nicely in line with the LA Times readership, so there are not that many dialogues between the rivaling parties. But add a editorial wiki to a bible belt newspaper, and there will surely be dialogue going on indeed.
I'm off to go deface it right now!
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Wikis are good if you're trying to build something that does not contain opinionated material. Or at the very least you want to contain the editors to have pretty similar opinions. If you open it up to the public, there is no way you can come up with a coherent, opinionated view, because by definition people have their own opinions. The Wikipedia works because it has as one of its most fundamental rules the Neutral Point of View. Additionally, it's an effort to build an encyclopedia, which is meant to represent facts as they are. Wikis are also good for building documentation, which is pretty objective in its matter. Wikitorial has none of these qualities.
The only difference between the newspaper and the wikitorial is that the parakeet can read and take a dump on the newspaper at the same time. If the parakeet took a dump on my LCD monitor while reading the wikitorial, the cat would have a special treat.
In using wiki to maintain editorials, the paper is effectively telling the users to alter the content to match their own opinions and beliefs (since that's what most people would tend to do). Digestion of news is usually best done through reading many different opinions, each with an accredited source, to be able to form your own from the information. One 'unified' article in the wiki style doesn't seem to fit with this model, and I'm concious that a lot of people are trying to force wiki's to become the new 'blog' style phenomenon of internet publishing.
To me, a traditional comments thread would be far more appropriate for news reporting. A clear example of the suitability of these two methods can be seen here on slashdot as using wiki for a substitute to comments.. clearly something that would be cumberous at best, and most likely completely hopeless at effectively digesting stories.
Business Voyeur
You mean like Slashdot's mod system?
what a sad attempt to ride the buzzword bandwagon... opinion pieces are suppose to be just that, someone's single opinion (hopefully with thought-out points to back up their argument) a mass of varying opinions, all editing the same page (especially on heated topics) is just going to produce chaotic garbage.
Wake me up when they let me correct facutal errors in actual news stories.
This is either a diversion away from, or a test of, such a system. But considering how pissy reporters get about their own fellow staff members editing their work... I wouldn't want to be in that newsroom when the LA Times wikifies their news.
"The elections may have represented progress; the violence does not."
Oh. Yeah. Show me where in history cases where violence idicates the failure of progress.
When you combine a pathetic editorial with a wiki, you get a pathetic wiki.
The circles YOU go to may be in line with the LA Times but many of them are not.
You will also find that Republicans are far more tolerant of other people's ideas than Democrats. See, Red States don't have the luxury of hiding from Blue State ideas. They are constantly exposed to them via TV, Film, Radio, etc. Only Blue Staters have the luxury of isolating themselves from opposing points of view.
Case in point, the Speech Codes in force on most US college campuses today. These Codes expressly restrict speech (often at government run institutions) on threat of expulsion. These Codes are meant to close down the free marketplace of ideas and protect the entrenched majority at colleges FROM ideas. These speech codes create what Orwell called Thought Crime.
I assume you are correct that a Bible belt newspaper would have a more open dialogue than the LA Times. The reason being that there would not be enough Blue State Bigots. It is often impossible to debate ideas with these people because the Left has become so intellectually bankrupt that they can no longer debate ideas. Instead they instantly resort to tactic common in infantile children either pie throwing (see the recent rash of instances involving guest speakers at colleges) or name-calling (Bu$Hilter Chimpy McHaliburten).
The Democrats have devolved into being an group of people driven by hatred. They are just angry all the time. It is impossible to have a rational debate with people that reached this level of paranoid mania. They engage in a daily 5 minute hate ritual (usually over lunches) where they talk about how Evil Bush is and how Hillary will save them (ala Orwell's Goldstein vs Big Brother).
In the Bible Belt, they have to learn how to deal with people who think differently from them. In LA and NY you can just live in your own little homogeneous ghetto and never be exposed to new ideas.
This anus allows L.A. Times readers to extend or argue cocks with editorial positions taken by the newsboner. It uses wikipedia syntax for erecting penises. -- http://www2.latimesinteractive.com/wiki/index.php/ Wikitorial
Yes. Kind of like how a crazy shit who agrees with me is an activist, and a crazy shit who disagrees with me is a radical or extremist.
Reactionaries?
I think, given the prevailing opinion base of both the LA Times and the Internet, that it is far more likely to encounter trouble from radicals.
Has anyone noticed that Wikipedia has reached 600,000 articles?
Do you play with your Willy?
Who cares? The Game released part 2 of 300 Bars tonight. that's some motherfuckin' news
Newspapers need to embrace the Web, but not like this.
When we reporters go out and gather information and write a story, there needs to be a way for readers who know the topic to say, "hey, this is wrong," or "hey, you forgot this key point." After all, the reporter is almost always less knowledgable on any given article that he writes than his sources and certain readers.
I could see a wiki or wiki-like technology being useful in correcting news errors (*cough* avoid jayson blair *cough*) or adding new perspectives (*cough* slashdot writ large *cough*) or even gathering story ideas. What's more, such technology would turn newspaper websites from electronic reprints into something even better than the print edition.
But an editorial is supposed to be the voice of the newspaper itself. It is supposed to be an opinion with special significance, informed by all the reporting and editing the newspaper does over time, backed by an awesome institutional storehouse of knowledge.
In short, the whole point of an editorial is that it represents one particular viewpoint, whether you agree with it or not. If the Wall Street Journal as a collective entity repeatedly slams Congressional Republicans for pork-barrel politics and fiscal irresponsibility, as it has in recent weeks, that carries particular weight, because the WSJ backs the Republicans more often than not and because it arguably keeps closer watch on the intersection between the economy and government than anyone else.
Likewise, there is reason to care when the LA Times forms a new opinion about California government, the entertainment industry or myraid other subjects at which its expertise is authoritative. If you disagree, fine. You can write an op-ed opinion piece, or letter to the editor. You should certainly be empowered to post a comment on the LA Times website or a trackback to your own weblog post.
But why on earth would I, LA Times reader, want you monkeying with the actual text of the LA Times' editorial? Why would I want to read a version of the editorial you defaced? If I care about your opinion -- maybe you're a film director who disagreed with the LAT on an entertainment industry editorial -- I would much rather read something you wrote from scratch than your own "version" of the LAT editorial.
This seems misguided and frankly I am baffled why opinion editor Michael Kinsley, who used to helm Slate.com -- does not know better.
Parent poster ::= Dumbass
Off the top of my head, the rise of organized crime through violence during Prohibition. The Barbarian invasions of the Northern Roman empire, furthering European decline into the dark ages. I'm sure there are more.
After all, I am strangely colored.
How about: ::= A man who takes action through falsification of real word facts.
Fabricationist
You can argue about the value of taking down a dictator, but at what cost to the truth? We weren't told that we went to Iraq solely to remove a dictator. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that was the third reason given, after WMD and terrorist ties were proven false.
And if we are in the buisness of removing regimes solely for oppression, we had been better suited to go to Sudan.
I've been looking through the diffs, and I see nothing but back and forth trollery from both conservatives and liberals. Instead of constructive thinking, it just looks like pointless, egotistical "I'm correct, you're not" bickering back and forth. With all this bickering, nothing is actually getting accomplished.
A truly democratic-like society requires action, not just constant, self-righteous argumentery. But that won't happen as long as the Big Media continues to push for the liberal/conservative dichotomy, the whole "You're either with us or you're against us" attitude. We need to remember that we are all humans, and we must work together for real change, rather than just bicker on some experimental wiki.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
"The world is divided into the righteous and the unrighteous, with the righteous doing the dividing."
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Chickenhawk = person who wants to see brutal dictators ousted but who won't do anything to help, not even protesting against the stripping of social program benefits (education, health care, etc.) from those brave enough to actually go out and make it happen.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
This Wiki has been vandalized by several vandals, including me! Guess this Wiki is going down!
Do you play with your Willy?
Didn't take long for a Wikipedia in-joke to spread over there. The article Wikitorial is now at Wikitorial on WikiWheels.
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"Glorified message boards"? I don't think that's a very accurate description of what this is. Message boards have the horrible stigma of being moderated[1]. Remember, moderation is a form of censorship, and censorship is used by despotic regimes to limit free thought. Perhaps a better example to use would have been that of Usenet. At least newsgroups are more difficult to censor or moderate, similar to wikis.
References:
[1] See sites like slashdot.org, gamefaqs.com, fark.com, somethingawful.com, kuro5hin.com, osnews.com, amongst others, for examples of message boards that are known to be against the idea of free speech.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
OK so the the Op Ed page will just be whatever the loudest assholes say it is.
The only time the left is concerened about the truth is when it agrees with their version of reality.
This is the real problem with web forums, wiki's and other user generated/interactive media in general. The medium self selects for people that don't wan't to hear their positions contradicted or indicted. When the unreasoning positions of the dominant group are indicted you usually see a mammoth shout down of the dissenters.
The original post indicates bias and unreasoning hatred by the left. "Defaced by reactionaries", this in itself can be considered primarily jingoistic and a reactionary use of reactionary. Politically speaking reactionary only applies to those seeking to reverse the results of a revolution. Unless you view the L.A. times as the vanguard of some yet unrealized revolution, disagreeing with them is not reactionary but meerly dissent.
Once again "cost to the truth" is a loaded and meaniningless term in this context. Everyday nearly everyone in the world takes action on incomplete and sometimes erroneous information. Acting on your best interpertation of the available data. "Cost to the truth" has become nothing more than one of the slogans that might have been taught to the sheep in animal farm.
It would be much more appropriate to ask what have forums like the CBS news under dan rather, the washington post, the la times, and the New York times cost our societys abillity to have a reasoned discourse that informs the population. When you have the "Credible and Respected" information outlets slanting the news in manners that are as subtle as 2 ton weights and obvious even to coma victioms, it is no wonder that both sides of the argument have taken a don't bother me with logic attitude.
Allowing the unwashed masses to comment on news? That'll never work.
Although I am not sure of what the poster means by "reactionaries" (anyone who disagrees with him or is not a social revolutionary? ;-) , I think that this will be defaced in short order, and will fail. As exemplified by /. itself, there world is full of psychotic trolls.
Most Wikis have an NPOV policy. This wiki doesn't so is prone to abuse.
Do you play with your Willy?
[1]Too many Iraqi troops have deserted, been overrun or are so poorly equipped that they should not be counted as trained forces
[2]But today you have a new option: Rewrite the editorial yourself, using a Web page known as a "wiki," at latimes
[3]For that reason, when you click below to enter the wikitorial area, you are acknowledging that the Los Angeles Times is not, and cannot be held, responsible for the words or actions of other readers on these pages
None, and it's a form of negligence depending on how they deploy it.
The whole point of an editorial page is that the newspaper filters interesting or informed opinion. If the newpaper is overwhelmed by the volume of input, they should try something like the Slashcode and let the public decide which opinions are best. Ultimately, the public does just this with the opinions they are presented with. Reporters for the paper and their editors, however, are supposed to have a good enough grasp on the world to be able to select which opinions are worth publishing.
Wiki is a great tool but it's not the tool for this job.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Perhaps this is just a tool to stir up strife. Remember, the LA Times main interest is finanial: they are they there to make money. Their goal is to deliver advertisements, both in paper and online. Providing news is secondary. Indeed, by moving the strife and controversy machine onto the consumers they are fostering a greater effect.
Soon their wiki pages will become a "battleground" between your dichotomic "liberals" and "conservatives". They'll battle it out, trying to prove each other wrong. But in the end the LA Times will be able to deliver far more ad views for each page loaded and edited during these continual battles. That'll lead to increased revenues for them, and more strife for the rest of us.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
The project has already been forked, by Jimmy Wales himself, by starting a counterpoint editorial. Making room for different viewpoints may stave off edit wars. But the real issue is Terms and Conditions inherited from print.
riots in the 60s?
There's already a revert war in progress between some user Jim Hall, who wants to title a section Downing Street Memo: The Left Questions Bush's Intentions on Buildup to War in Iraq) and another user Alainbloch who wants to title it Downing Street Memo: An Intent to Deceive?. The changelog contains comments such as "removing falsehoods" and "adding fair commentary". I predict this is going to devolve into an all-out edit war from between both "liberals" and "conservatives" with too much time on their hands -- like what happened to the George Bush and John Kerry entries on Wikipedia during last year's election, but magnified by a hundred times because of the LA Times' higher visibility. Wikis are useless for contentious topics meant to be reader-editable; each reader will inevitably inject his own bias into the article -- some will even try to eliminate what they perceive as existing bias. On Wikipedia, say in an article about the history of Macs, a fanboy may end up putting in too much of Steve Jobs' bio...relatively harmless. Here, in the Colosseum of the LA Times Wikitorial, gladiators from the left and right will battle it out over "falsehoods" and "fair and balanced"...to no end whatsoever.
So there are no more skies, just an atmosphere....
That's a very idealistic way of looking at things. Perhaps the claim is that it is to maintain "polite discussion" or to keep posts "on-topic". But that is nowhere near the truth. Indeed, most of the forums I listed are moderated by people who have basically failed in the real world, and therefore feel the need to moderate others to make themselves feel worthwhile. Funnily enough, many of them claim to be "true Americans" and claim that they support "free speech", moments after deleting messages and banning users. The Founding Fathers would cringe in pain if they knew that Americans were partaking in such censorship and tyranny.
"Trolls" are defined as individuals who intentionally disrupt the natural flow of discussion. Indeed, that is exactly what moderators do! They remove content in order to limit discussion. The real trolls are the moderators. They are the true enemies of freedom and liberty.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
News flash: most humans act like this. It's not specific to "the left" (whatever that is). I mean, just look at the way the government only accepted "facts" about WMD that agreed with their already-made decision to go to war. Even though these "facts" have shown to be distorted and outright false, they keep lying to justify their ideological posittion. Same with the right-wing religious types who want evolution and sex education to be banned, and creationism to be taught in schools, or want to ban stem-cell research.
It amazes me that you seem to believe that the government has any interest in facts, when it doesn't agree with their political, social and corporate agendas.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I think it's a stupid idea to use wiki for an opinion page. Your garden variety message board comments system is a much better way of getting everyone's opinion heard, which I assume is what their goal is. If you post a comment, it's pretty much there forever. People with differing viewpoints can discuss or argue. If you post your thoughts on a wiki someone with different thoughts can just come along and replace your message with his, leaving no trace of what you'd written. Wiki is just going to be like "King of the Mountain".
The only benefit I can see is to the LA Times if they have ads on the page. Since the content will change so often people can visit over and over and read basically a different article each time--and maybe they'll click some ads.
...they really didn't fully understand how wiki works when they launched this.
I find the implications of being able to change someone else's input very easy to see and should be not considered lightly for what will be called "editorial" content.
I am sure more than one will take the "wikitorial" content as the L.A. Times official stance on whatever topic it contains, and some are very delicate.
UgaBuga!
Traditional dead-tree newspapers these days are scared to the death about their own survival because online news sites like Google News are luring Joe and Jane Click-Happys away from them. Putting aside the stern journalistic theories, LA Times might be onto something by creating this "Wiki Wrestling Arena" for political partisans to congregate and fight it out, thereby boosting its sagging readership.
Wiki is a fascinating technology. The jury is still out on its virtue. Will it some day replace blogs? Personal journals? Social networking sites? Or perhaps instant messaging? We'll see. I've recently begun to test a free wiki hosting service called "PBwiki", which has a unique function -- it has a password-protection mechanism that lets the creator of the account decide who can edit his wiki pages. I've created a test wiki at: http://sunandfun.pbwiki.com/, which has a link to the page where you can create your own account with them.
Sun and Fun
... most humans act like this...
You are doing also it, which I thought was quite funny. Thanks for the laugh.
My impression of Wikis are they're great for maintaining loosely-structured text, but not more structured data. So a question tangentially related to this topic:
Can wikis have components where one wiki page refer to 'slices' of another wiki page?
For example, the wikipedia.org pages on Uruguay and Paraguay are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguay
Each page has a table at top right on vital stats for each country. However, the tables on these pages seem maintained by hand and differ subtly - For eg: the table for Paraguay is missing an entry for "GDP", but the table for Paraguay contains.
It would be better for both tables to be 'slices' of a huge wiki table where vital stats of all countries were maintained... somewhat Aspect-Oriented-Programming-ish. Perhaps one wiki page could include in specific element/sub-elements from another page using named DIVs or XHTML? Do existing wikis support this?
Wikipedia is not the only information storehouse to suffer from this problem - pretty much any site that claims to present third party facts and analysis suffers from bias and factual inaccuracy. Snopes and the Darwin Awards seem to be particularly bad for this, sometimes using very weak reasoning to dismiss alternative viewpoints that do not back those of the site editors. Their presence as almost being gospel in the minds of the wider public makes it somewhat difficult to refute their content sometimes.
Dead tree volumes and people are also subject to the same, such as errors in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the Downing Street Memos, revisionist historians, Holocaust deniers, dissenting scientific viewpoints, dissenting historical viewpoints (such as the Armenian massacre - check out the Turkish version of events, and some Western versions).
The Internet gives a layer of anonymity to people who otherwise would not have a viable outlet for their opinions, so the street corner preacher has the same footing as the Pulitzer winner in an anonymous forum, and their arguments rest on their ability to describe them, and the prevailing bias of the forum.
InfoSec that matters, when it counts.
they make you jump through a lot of hoops before you can even get close to seeing the document's history, let alone make changes...
Defaced by "reactionaries?" A bigger problem would be a newspaper's wiki being defaced by advertisers.
Why is there air?
Has anyone atually clicked on the link for the wiki page on the link? You might be surprised by what you see... DO NOT CLICK IF YOU ARE NOT 18 OR OLDER... latimes.jpg
up
FROM THE LA TIMES WIKI:
Also, if you are under 13, you may look, but not participate in, this wiki.
I think after hitting the wiki and immediately being confronted with 20 pictures from goatse I feel that maybe the wiki thing was a bad idea.
Things like this are a prime example of why large companies rarely innovate first. But so what? Obviously they misunderstood the nature of a wiki, but I'd rather have companies trying things that fail than just sitting around waiting for smaller companies to innovate (and then copying them once they are successful). I mean, sure it's funny how bad this is turning out, but I hope it doesn't discourage the LA Times and other companies from experimenting more liberally.
Just PLEASE have someone take down the wiki while you figure out how to stop people from inserting... "images".
LWH
In other news, Pravda staff found running Slashdot...
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Wikicompany is a free-content, worldwide business directory, with many interesting features.
Just try browsing the hundreds of company profiles at: http://wikicompany.org/wiki/Category:Companies
Just go check /b/ of http://www.4chan.org/, moderators there only remove child porn. If you truely claim that freedom to say and post almost anything is The True American Way then I really don't want to live there. The hueg Xbox might crush my PENIS if I did.
Kind of like how a crazy shit who agrees with me is an activist, and a crazy shit who disagrees with me is a radical or extremist
No, no... the word is terrorist now...not extremist.
Looks like the LA Times decided their experiment wasn't working after a few vandals decided to deface it with porn and goatsex images.
Before that, it was a back and forth between various camps pushing their viewpoint or trying to keep a more neutral tone to the editorial.
Now what is interesting is the google cache has one version of the wiki - making it appear to be the consensus version when it is only one of many edited versions. Which means, unless you cache every edit, Google will not provide a very robust view of the dialogue inherent in a Wiki; yet people will view their cache as authoritative.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The only time the left is concerened about the truth is when it agrees with their version of reality.
Whereas the Right has no version of reality, and thus has no use for the truth at all.
Not finding proof of something does not prove the opposite.
WMD was not proven false. In fact, it would be very difficult to prove false, as that would require someone to figure out what the Iraqis did with their stockpiles of WMD. After ten years of dodging the question I doubt it will be discovered anytime soon.
Terrorist ties were also not proven false. In fact, as the US swept through Iraqi officials' offices they discovered more and more documentary evidence linking Iraq to terrorists.
Terrorist ties were also not proven false.
References, Please?
Without pretty iron-clad substantiation, this is pretty much just blind ranting, similar to such things as "There is no proof we ever landed on the Moon" and "America is full of terrorists just waiting to strike".
Given the documented attempts at false reporting such as the Jessica Lynch "rescue", and our ability to chase down Saddaam Hussein (who was a lot easier to hide than a bunker full of WMD), one has to look upon your statements and wonder exactly what planet you come from.
Unless of course, your response is just a troll and I have bitten into it hook, linke and sinker.
The Los Angeles Times Wiki is currently closed.
Don't stereotype Slashdot. The membership consists of people who are barely into middle school and those who have their Ph. Ds, and just about every single person you can think of in between.
Not only that, but (like usenet before it) the membership contains a mix of old hands and newbies - including a continuous flux of the latter.
The old hands have gone through the arguments, changed some of their opinions thanks to the insights of others, and now are pretty stable in their current mindsets (pending NEW data or insights.) The newbies arrive with only the opinions they have formed on the basis of their own reasoning and the data and interpretations they have observed elsewhere, ask the same old questions or spout the same old arguments, and are presented with the same old revalations. Many of them absorb some of the insights and become enlightened (in one or more of the many ways available). Some of them contribute conter-insights, and the consensuses are honed. After a while they to become old-hands, ready to present the latest rev of enlightenment to the next round of newbies. And some of them take their newly honed memes to other forums (fora?),
To a viewer who makes the three standard media mistakes of assuming a static population, homogeneous in experience and in opinion, much of the traffic appears to be an infinite-loop debating society, rehashing the same old arguments with no progress whatsoever. In fact there are multiple sets if ideas (often competing) among subpopulations of members and an ongoing process of learning, improving, and spreading the successful arguments both to new participants and to a broader external audience.
Much like a university. Or an interacting collection (NOT a single instance) of political parties or religious/philosophical organizations.
And (like usenet before it), the occasional set-in-his-ways gadfly who NEVER learns and ALWAYS brings up the same old, discredited arguments whenever his hotbutton subject arises, serves a valuable function. He provides a periodic opportunity for the other participants to dissect the errors of the stock arguments and present (and hone) the refutations - bringing up the old subjects (when external events have made them interesting again) so the new participants can see all sides of the issue. You can't count on the current crop of new players to raise the strawman and have it blasted apart every time it's topical. As we used to say in usenet: "If didn't exist we'd have to invent him."
Indeed, very occasionally someone did. But a real true-believer would do it SO much better. So it is fortunate there would usually be at least one of the genuine article hanging around. B-)
The web is teeming with information. Unfortunately, most of it is probably worthless.
Sturgeon's law: "But 98% of [Science Fiction] is [excrement]". "Madam, 98% of EVERYTHING is [excrement]".
It's the 2% that is important. Music hasn't gotten worse since the Classical stuff was written. There was just as much crap back then. But only a few exceptional masterpieces are still being played. Yet there are enough of those to keep orchestras and classical music radio stations in business worldwide.
However, don't become so pessimistic. I don't think that the level of national dialogue has declined. It's probably stayed the same. The internet has just given more ignorant people an easy way to express themselves.
IMHO - honed by half a century of observation - the level of national dialogue has been vastly improved by the unlimited access of the internet.
Yes it gives the ignorant-yet-opinionated an opportunity to spout. And EVERYBODY is BORN ignorant, and at first absorbs a set of opinions from his/her parents, acquaintences, and local authority figures. So unlimited access means there's a LOT of ignorant-but-opinionated spouting. (Fortunately ignorance does NOT equal stupidity OR pig-headedness, and ignorance can be cured very simply.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It doesn't always work. Sometimes urban myths and other popular misconceptions can be found. Before believing anything you read there you had better be sure to get confirmation elsewhere.
...
But that's also true of commercial encyclopedias, both printed and electronic. Sometimes it's even deliberate, with the editors pressing a political position as fact.
You ALWAYS have to get confirmation elsewhere, no matter WHAT your source.
At least with a wiki there's no pretence that the authors credentials are checked and he's necessarily unbased. So you KNOW you have to check it.
By the way: Ditto with other sources of "truth": newspapers, broadcast news, dictionaries, university courses, textbooks, religions,
Even technical manuals and data tables need to be checked. I hear that automated theorem-proving software exposed errors in a large percentage of the standard integrals in the tables found in the back of textbooks - mainly those not used for much of anything practical, the latter having been debugged by use and failure. And the breakthrough in building a computer-predictor of the horribly complex behavior of water at various pressures and temperatures came with the discovery that a section of the "steam tables" - a fundamental tool for the design of engines and power systems from early railroads to modern nuclear generation plants - was flat-out wrong.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is either a diversion away from, or a test of, such a system.
Or perhaps it's another attempt to discredit competing media outlets.
By setting up an open wiki over opinion pieces they're creating a situation where the result will be hash. Then they can point to it and say "See! Wikis are hash when it comes to anything important. You can't trust them as a source of accurate information. (You should be reading us instead. B-) )"
They might just leave it up as a glaring example of what happens. But I'd give odds that there will be a big news piece about it in a couple weeks, once it's had a chance to ferment.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Is this an innovative new way to interact with readers, or will it be constantly defaced by reactionaries?
I AM a reactionary, you insensitive clod!
-- I could tell right away that she was impressed with my HUGE Slashdot Karma.
Thanks and apologies to the thousands of people who logged on in the right spirit.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la- wiki-splash,0,1349109.story
They can not maintain it. They drop it already!
Total failure!!!!
Look, the world is full of message boards, but it's NOT full of intelligent people. When you overhear two people talking in a restaurant, they're often steadfast on a position they know nothing about, much like the masses you'll find at any message board.
Don't stereotype Slashdot.
So I'm not supposed to stereotype Slashdot but it's OK to stereotype "people talking at a restaurant". Did you ASK those people for the background on what they were talkking about?
That seems like the very definition of irony to me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"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."
You obviously don't know that little shit of a kid Patrick Renna. I had the misfortune of spending a few years at the same junior high as him, and he was a complete asshole. If he hadn't out weighed me by a hundred pounds I might have been able to do something about it, but as it was, he could flatten me with one swing.
Supposedly the slashsdot effect is to blame: "Nothing bad happened really until after midnight on Saturday," said Michael Newman, deputy editorial page editor. At 8:32 p.m. Saturday, a posting on www.Slashdot.org, which bills itself as "news for nerds," directed readers to the Times wikitorial.
"Slashdot has a tech-savvy audience that, to be kind, is mischievous and to be not so kind, is malicious," Mr. Newman said. "We were taking stuff down as soon as it went up and staving them off. Finally we had to go to bed. Someone called the newsroom a little bit before 4 a.m. and said there's something bad on your Web site, and so we just took the whole site down."