Slashdot Mirror
LA Times Pulls Wikitorial, Blames Slashdot
ubermiester writes "The LA Times pulled down it's "beta" wikitorial after people began inserting obscene content faster than the editors could remove it. Though there is nothing on the LA Times editorial page or in the general coverage, the NY Times notes (free reg req) the fact that the bulk of the vandalism occurred after a posting about the wikitorial appeared on Slashdot and goes on to quote a member of the LA Times editorial staff as saying, "Slashdot has a tech-savvy audience that, to be kind, is mischievous and to be not so kind, is malicious". " Apparently Michael Newman thinks that all half a million daily Slashdot readers are malicious, although I personally would guess more like a 60:40 split myself *grin*.
And you're proud of that? I'm not sure it's as funny for everyone who might have benefitted from the service that's been taken down.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Lets face it, slashdot breeds trolls. I see two reasons for it:
1.) The using a shotgun to kill mice method for banning users. To paraphrase: Banning entire subnets to catch a single troll, and, therefore, banning tons of innocents in the process. They use vinegar to lure bees instead of honey. Lets face it, the moderation system isn't good, and its just forcing more and more malcontent and loss of posting.
2.) AC's. Really, that's what kills slashdot. If AC posting was removed, there would be a lot less crap. Making an ID is free, easy, and doesn't require you to give out any personal information. Why not tie stuff to an ID so its easier to get rid of the crap? Instead of IP bans, you can setup an IP 'greylist' that means if you create an account from the greylist, they can't post much or have to wait a couple days after registration to post.
Instead of trying to suspend everyones posting to stop trolls, how about we use a little insight and postive effects to combat trolling and crapflooding?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Wiki's have their purpose. Collaborative story writing? Sure. Editorials and news stories? Maybe not - after all, an editorial is suppose to be a group of people's opinion, so in that case you want a "read-only" wiki with "write" ability to a very small subset.
What the major newspapers should do however is allow comments (a la slashdot style - include user moderation and some basic spam/troll protection). This would let them to two things:
1. Make more money off of ads (Google or otherwise) as people come back to see who's commented on their comments.
2. Readers can point out errors or omissions - yes, this can have an echo chamber effect such as when a group of liberals and conservatives fight it out about who's got the bigger penis and/or breasts, but overall it might be useful if a anonymous commentator could point a reporter towards another source or more information, or bring another opinion in.
Again, wiki's can be a great thing, but perhaps the format they chose was not the best one. And to blame Slashdot readers is a little silly - I'm sure there were many, many other people who wanted to just grief the article to death. Slashdot just helped people know about it.
Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It's funny, because /. itself went through much the same thing. But by careful filtering and moderation, it's been kept reasonably useful. You still have all kinds of morons posting here, but you don't ever have to see them if you don't want to. And we don't even have editors, really.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I mean, when middle school kids are hacking Wikipedia sites, it's not like it's secure in the first place.
/.ers for it should realize that's a Troll and Flamepost mod, and shouldn't be surprised by people's reactions ...
That said, the person blaming
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
A few of you bad apples ruined it for the rest of us.
I hope you're happy.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
wikipedia doesn't have these problems /. links to them. ;P
with
maybe the LA times needs to take a lesson
on content management from a open source project.
The *why* is quite simple, their techs and point-haired's have probably gone nuts trying to get accurated site-visitation numbers, and every time a story goes up on slashdot, we simply obliterate the accuracy of their logging. So I don't expect them to be happy with slashdot.
While I perfectly understand why that would piss off people at the NYT, and how Slashdot is known for obliterating webservers in minutes, calling Slashdot malicious because of the famed Slashdot Effect is like calling an elephant malicious because it steps on a hamster.
Yup...
I'm all for pushing the boundaries, collaborating, finding new paradigms, whatever you want to call it. But most people I've met shouldn't be let anywhere near an editor's desk.
That said, it's good to give them a shot. An online community of sufficient size is clearly capable of producing quality content and dealing with constant vandalism. Slashdot and Wikipedia are examples of this. There are just too many people watching to let bad content stay around for long. It's too bad they got hit so early; if there had been a chance for more people to get involved, it probably would be self-regulating.
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
Slashdot is not group think. Some people who visit slashdot may have done that, but don't lump me in with the assholes that do this kind of crap.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
From the BBC article ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/technology/411 4312.stm ):
The online version of the paper started its "wikitorial" experiment last week. It was meant to give readers a "voice".
It was suspended after it was bombarded with inappropriate material.
The grad student who taught a tech for pre-service teachers class the semester before I took over was researching the use of wikis for his thesis. He kept preaching about how wikis give everyone a voice.
It was finally one of my history teaching majors who pointed out, "Wikis only give a voice to the last person who spoke."
Yes, you can look in the document history and all that, but who does? If the last person to speak was a liar, or wanted to put up some p0rn, or even wanted to spam the page with viagra adverts, that's what you get.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Furthermore, Wikipedia does well in spite of vandalism.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
At least they called us savvy. But then again, that's what they get for posting a WIKI on one of the world's most populace web sites. And even though the timing of the vandalism was suspicious. The evidence is still only circumstantial. In the future, they might want to try to use a technology that's easier to control. A blog section would be a good example. I might even use it. But to say that Slashdotters are evil... well, yeah, we are kind of. ;P
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Every wiki has these problems, linked to by slashdot or otherwise.
Not foreseeing that this would happen proves that the LA Times knows nothing about the internet. The opportunity to post pornography on the website of one of the biggest newspapers in the country would certainly never be overlooked by the Beavis and Buttheads of the world.
Blaming Slashdotters for it is even stupider.
Talk about a failure to accept responsibility!
The most important 'bug' being that they depended upon a small, hired set of people to monitor and upkeep a single page which was going to be high-level traffic and dissent no matter what. If you look at the page from wikipedia about the same thing, you will notice that it has been through 500+ edits. Wikipedia has NOWHERE NEAR the readership the Times does, AND they have a 'user login' based system where reputation means something.
This was a disaster from the get-go, and someone should be fired for blaming it on the software instead of their own bad decision making. They WANTED a blog, not a wiki. A wiki is for information management, and information management takes time.... It's not a commentary system like they wanted.
My little site.
That would only be viable if we didn't have so many mods with their own agendas. There have been many times where posts have been made (and a few by me) that had no malice or intent to start any kind of war. They were merely opinions that just so happened to go against the /. grain, but not presented in an adversarial way. It didn't take any time at all for them to be modded as troll, flamebait, or overrated simply because they were not going with the flow of the /. majority.
As long as these kinds of intolerant mods exist whose sole purpose (so it would seem) is to censor down those posts that they merely disagree with, which of course goes against that person's karma, culpability is not necessarily a positive thing. I know that the metamod functionality is meant to keep this sort of thing in check, but considering how quickly non-inflammatory yet dissenting posts get censo^H^H^H^H^Hmodded down, there should be a better way. Apparently, many mods have decided to ignore Slashdot's recommendation to save mod points for elevating those posts that should be elevated.
I agree that trolls need to be kept in check. In that case, those with excessive, provable trolling (above and beyond just moderator opinion) should have their accounts locked completely; however, I also think that mods who use negative moderation frequently (or even exclusively as many mods claim to do) should not be given mod privileges as often. Being cuplable for what you post is one thing; being targeted because your post doesn't necessarily agree with the Slashdot grain is another. It's difficult to have the former when you're subject to the latter.
Just wait and this post will likely become proof of that. I said something negative about certain mods in this post, so it will most likely be shot down in rating.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Fact: The trouble started after a /. posting about Wikitorial.
So what? All this proves is that the Slashdot posting and the malicious kiddies happened to coincide. Unless the LA Times editorial staff has proof that the people who posted the obscenities WERE, in fact, /. readers, they don't have much of a case.
Nothing to see here, folks; move along.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
It would have happened sooner or later, they should thank us for finding the bugs right away.
Well a big fat thanks to the hordes of slashdot, eh? Mischeivious, us? No, not really, we're as much victims of the same sort or maliciousness. Ever seen the trolls here before they get modded down? You think these people actually get something out of slashdot other than some place to post their rubbish and feel 1337?
To allege these crimes are from the actual readership or slashdot is tarring us with a brush and I don't much care for it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is that the fault you find in this? That some people are idealistic and would like to live in a world without assholes?
Yeah, how dare they.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Even if they used slash code, the same exact problem would have manefestied itself.
/. mod system only works as well as it does because /. is, as you say, a community and the "sane" outnumber the "jerks" by probably 100:1
The
Just throwing up a wiki does not immediately create a community. It could takes weeks, months or years befoire the sane community outnumbered the jerks.
The stated problem was that vandalism was ocurring at a rate that was faster than the sane people could prevent it. Until there was a sufficient number of people that cared enough about the site to actually perform the required level of moderation, the vandal problem would be the same.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
To make this work you need to have a majority of readers that are sympathetic to your site and a certain critical mass of readers.
Needless to say, a politician has neither.
the pun is mightier than the sword
The problem is they used a freakin WIKI, how do you moderate a WIKI? should have used slashcode; set up their own karma system, establish a group of super-mods, beta by invitation until they get to critical-mass and don't let it go super-critical.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
If there is one thing that I can say of a Slashdot reader, it is that that reader has the freedom to chose what they want to read and how they want to interpret it, rather than the 'pre-digested' and outright biased reporting that is available from the media at large. This openness is the key to developing the independent, 'out of the box' thinking; the generalists of the evolving age of Information and Knowledge.
So kudos to Slashdot and their outspoken and many faceted readers.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
There really are a lot of assholes online. People say and do things they never would in person. Some delight in trying to be as big a jerk as they can and causing as much trouble as they can. If you aren't used to that environment, it can really shock you. The RvB PSA on teh topic is particularly appropriate, but I can't find a link to it right now.
At any rate, while they shouldn't be scapegoating Slashdot, I don't blame them for being supprised and angry. It is amazing the amount of crap some people online will spew and how far they'll go to wreck things for everyone else.
How about getting lectured on reading comprehension?
(and since the moderators obviously missed that one... it was the NY Times quoting the LA Times)
Dijkstra Considered Dead
I started out caring about karma, eventually realized it made NO difference, stopped moderating and meta-moderating, and now I'm much happier.
I can still find the interesting and insightful content on Slashdot and I'm convinced NO moderation system on a public site like Slashdot could ever make any difference.
There is still good content, and still lots of trolling, but I just ignore the trolling.
And I'm happy. Happier than I would be if I gave a crap and started trying to "fix things".
That way lies madness.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Amazing what a well-publicized 2/40000 failure rate will do to your reputation...
I believe that trolls that age have more free time on their hands now that school is out.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
And why start out with a controversial topic like the Iraq War?? It was Father's Day, they should have started out with a 'Thank You to Dads' or some other softball to see if the wiki-concept could handle that.
Personally, I can't see a wiki working for an editorial. A wiki could work for movie reviews or restaurant reviews maybe... but what's the value of using it for an editorial?? What they should do is model evil old slashdot and its moderation system... heck maybe even use the slashcode itself... or better yet hire Taco as a consultant. They could post their staff editorials with slashdot style discussion. Maybe even experiment by modifying the moderation to mark a comment red or blue.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
just what they are doing. Those who have build successful online communitiy discussion sites (and yes I consider Slash to be very successful) have invested a lot of time and energy getting it right.
One would think a high profile exercise like this would be worth a few bucks getting some real talent in on the ground floor to insure success.
They saw some buzzwords and jumped in and got wet.
Blogging because I can...
Nevermind that it was badly done, the message is it can't work. People often blind themselves.
This is totally true. And if you newcomers to the site dig through the archives you can find many valuable in insightful discussions on this and other topics.
AC posts are good for:
- leaking info that might have consequenses to the person doing the leaking
- challenging the groupthink
- theraputic posts (face it, we need 'em sometimes)
- capturing casual insights that we might otherwise miss if registration were a requirement.
It's all been hashed out here before. The mod system and later the filtering system were designed to allow each user the choice necessary to get the experience they need from Slashdot.
The primary idea was to keep the discussion totally open to all who want to participate. Closing things down with registration, etc... hurts in that we miss out on potentially great things. So it's all here, ASCII art and all. I've personally benefitted from a few AC gems in the time I've been reading. (And that's nearly the entire time the site was up and running --just put off getting an account.)
This site embodies the concept of free speech and set the bar long ago for how it should be done. Rather than dumb down a great community, dig in and learn from it and be better for it.
Blogging because I can...
Research shows that most serial killers, terrorists and used car salesmen read the New York Times.
The road between democracy and tyranny is paved with secrecy in the name of security.
Just because an individual is a member of a group does not mean that all memebers of that group resemble that individual.
Mental pain is as real as physical pain. People lose their jobs, drink, do drugs, even kill themselves over mental anguish.
Now you are correct in that what effect words have on someone is in part dependent on that person. There are people who just let insults wash over them, there are those that find a way to take even the nicest compliment as a rebuke. However it's not all internal. Words have meaning, and the speaker has a communicative intent behind them. intent behind them. If you are trying to make your words caustic and hurtful, they are very likely to be so.
This line of reasoning that "words don't hurt" is just used by bullies and social misfits as an excuse to be assholes when someone calls them to account for it. Words can and do hurt, and while people need to work on developing skills to ingore and cope with it, that does not give you the right to be an asshole all the time, nor absolve you of responsibility if your words cause pain.
In nature, animals without assholes simply regurgitate waste orally. Hence a world without assholes would be full of people talking shit. Therefore, I can conclude that there are no assholes on Slashdot and the LA Times is incorrect in implying otherwise :-)
Editorials are inherently unsuited to the wiki-type format. Wiki collaboration is good for setting out objective data. Where there isn't much heated disagreement as to its content, experience shows that the content will tend to be refined upon and not 'defaced'.
On the other hand, posting opinions -- especially on heated topics -- is likely to cause the exact effect the LATimes observed. It's the same effect you see on wiki pages on other controversial, opinion-heavy topics like abortion and Israel. You are often not going to have a happy middle, but two or more polarised camps each hating the other and 'defacing' the content they don't agree with. It's just human nature.
This is all the more so when the original slashdot story contained the line about the anti-war editorial being ''defaced by reactionaries'', basically tempting anyone who is pro-war and who does not consider themselves ''reactionary'' to go and edit the content.
If the Times had stuck to a wiki about the LA area, or some similar thing, I predict it would have worked. Choosing to make an editorial a wiki is IMHO simply stupid.