Well, you knew this was coming. The Times has taken down its first experimental wikitorial, explaining:

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.

Even before this, it seemed to me that instead of functioning like a true wiki, where facts get refined, the test case had deteriorated into a wholly predictable, no-win argument over the war. Same as you can already find and participate in at numerous well-read blogs. Sean at Blogging.la posts some advice for the LAT: "Welcome to the world that we have to deal with every single day in blog-land. So now they've met Mr. & Mrs Troll, wait until they meet our neighbors the comment spammers!" * Update: Somebody kept posting child porn, I'm told.

Related: In Sunday Opinion, Editor Bob Sipchen ran a little box headlined "The End is Nigh!" promising the section's new design will be rolled out "soon." He plays it cagy about the name, but I'm told that the section being discussed is called Current. The Opinion name is being ditched in part so that reporters can be invited to write for the section without crossing into the realm of, well, opinion. As it is, Foreign Editor Marjorie Miller had a Commentary page piece on Sunday revealing that her kids go to The Oaks School in Hollywood and that she doesn't want her daughter to start down the path of "casting calls, auditions and almost certain rejection."

Women on op-ed: Attention Susan Estrich, today's lineup includes Molly Ivins and Sandra Tsing Loh.

© 2003-2009   •  About LA Observed  •  Email the editor
LA Biz Observed
4:03 PM Fri | CBS and ABC have far bigger fish to fry - namely whether their stations can get back the auto and retail advertising that fell off a cliff in 2009.
Native Intelligence
Jenny Price | Recycling!
Veronique de Turenne | And there's still time to take part!
Phil Wallace | Searching for answers after a third loss this year.
Deanne Stillman | Jihad and cash offers meet American soldiers during the Gulf War, and beyond.
Iris Schneider | After a tough year financially, the Museum of Contemporary Art put on a gala party to celebrate with 1,000 of its closest friends.
Jenny Burman
Thinking more about buying less.
Here in Malibu
Seriously -- turn out the lights.
Sponsors
Jewish Journal logo
The California Wellness Foundation
Playa Vista ad
Blogads

Blogads Los Angeles network

Get RSS Feeds
of LA Observed
LA Observed publishes several Real Simple Syndication feeds for easy scanning of headlines. If you wish to subscribe to a feed, most popular RSS readers will do it for you. You can also enter the web address from the XML button below or click on a specific feed. For more help with RSS, try here or here.




Add to Google