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LA Times Pulls Wikitorial, Blames Slashdot

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-thats-a-little-below-the-belt dept.

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*.

6 of 678 comments (clear)

  1. They should have ridden it out... by winkydink · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After the novelty wears off, the juveniles move on to the next place. Here in CA, school just got out for the summer. Coincidence?

    --

    "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  2. Re:Can't say I disagree by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There are limits to using technological solutions for social-cultural problems. A lot of Slashdot readers are poorly socialized jerks. There's no workaround for that. There are plenty of non-AC trolls.

    Ultimately, the best you can do is to try to encourage people to not be jerks. User-specific blacklists might help, too.

  3. Re:What did they do? by GMC-jimmy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's two worlds here. Real life with real people, and then a fantasy where everything is as it should be.

    I wonder which world they're living in ?

    Now the only left after that is to find someone to blame when things aren't as thay should be.

    --
    __________________________________
    Free your mind - Flush your toilet
  4. Re:I can finally say... by Nos. · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Let's face it, there is a definite kind of web/mob (wob?) mentality here. Generally, we like wikipedia and google. We don't like Microsoft, NY Times (reg req'd) etc. I'm not really sure how we feel abuot the LA Times. There are obvious exceptions to the above, but I think generally, this is a true statement for slashdot.

    So, given that mentality, its natural to assume that given a proper target, the wob would attack. Remember the spammer who got bombarded by snail mail after headlining a slashdot article? (I'm sure someone can provide a link.

    Now, I don't know if the resulting spamming of the LA Times was a direct result of slashdot or not, but lets face it, there are a good number of trolls and such here that would take advantage of a wiki.

  5. Re:wikipeida by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Interesting
    wikipedia doesn't have these problems
    Wikipedia *routinely* has these problems - but the 'pedia is so big that the average user is unlikely to encounter them.
  6. Re:LOL by mnemonic_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wikipedia has NOWHERE NEAR the readership the Times does

    Are you sure about that? Alexa's ranking puts Wikipedia at number 41, while latimes.com isn't even in the top 100. Netcraft somewhat confirms it, giving en.wikipedia.org a site rank of 122 and 894 to www.latimes.com. Wikipedia's probably more popular than you think.