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LA Times Pulls Wikitorial, Blames Slashdot
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:35 AM
from the now-thats-a-little-below-the-belt dept.
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*.
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What did they do? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What did they do? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:What did they do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, how dare they.
Parent
Re:What did they do? (Score:5, Funny)
In a world without assholes, everybody would be full of shit.
Sorry. So sorry. The pun was just too easy to ignore.
Parent
Re:What did they do? (Score:5, Funny)
In the land of the assholeless, the one-assholed man is king?
ok, someone needs to reply with a joke about thrones.
Parent
Throne into the mess (Score:5, Funny)
In that case, the king is the man sitting on the porcelain throne. He's also the only one who gives a shit.
Parent
LA Times unbellyfeel Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
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 :-)
Parent
Well, to their credit (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
PA Link (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Well, to their credit (Score:5, Insightful)
I do. If they put up an unprotected database, or IRC server, or open mail relay, or unsecured HTTP proxy, then people would use it to do bad stuff. When you design an Internet-facing application of any kind, you have to assume people will try to break it. Always. There are no exceptions.
Slashdot goes through great pains to keep idjits from gumming up the works. Wikipedia has people who monitor it 24/7 to fix mischief as quickly as possible. I have to watch my own little TWiki site like a hawk to keep link farmers off of it. What hopelessly naive sysadmin at the Times thought "it couldn't happen here"?
I'm not saying that it's right or OK for people to try to ruin the digital commons, but I have little sympathy for people who run such a public resource and expect it to take care of itself. That's not the real world, and I don't know why the Times thought it would be different for them.
Parent
Re:Well, to their credit (Score:5, Insightful)
Words are just words. They don't hurt like a stick or a stone. People should feel that they can say anything they want to, at any time.
This is wrong. First of all, words do hurt (as clearly shown in the example of the NY times, which was "hurt" or damaged by the words of internet users to the extent that they had to take down a product that they had spent a lot of time developing and now will likely have to scrap).
Second, it seems like everyone assumes that social constraints are generally bad things. That is wrong thinking. Social constraints exist so that we can live with each other as humans in a fashion where the amount of pain that people have to go through is lessened. Almost all situations in which these constraints are removed tend toward decay.
You need to think further through your ideas about society. People are afraid to say things in person because they know those are wrong things to say and they know they could be held accountable in person, but not online.Parent
Re:Well, to their credit (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't think I don't sympathize with you; I do, because I also have at times been unconfident in the way I speak, have been afraid of being hurt. I was an unpopular guy in elementary, middle, and high school, and at a lot of times, it was not a good experience.
On the other hand, I learned that the person to blame for my problems was not the nebulous society that was oppressing me, but me myself. I am still in the process of learning this, but I feel like I have come a long way already. Looking to things outside myself to find a target for blame would not have helped me.
What I'm trying to say is that it's not good to go online and look for ways to vent, but rather to eliminate that which makes you want to vent. Getting rid of social constraints, though, is not the solution (Nor will it ever happen anyhow, even if it is the solution, so it's kind of pointless to talk about it.).
PS: Physical hurt is not the only kind of hurt that exists, nor is the assertion that NY Times was not physically damaged sufficient argument to back up the idea that it is fine for them to be damaged in the way they were. They tried to do something that, in my opinion, would have added value to the world, and it was destroyed by a bunch of idots who wanted to "express themslves." That kind of expression is worthless. As to the real life question: are you saying it's OK, then, for people to be dicks to each other in real life? Of course not: it's wrong in real life, and it's wrong online.Parent
Yes, they can (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
LOL (Score:5, Funny)
It would have happened sooner or later, they should thank us for finding the bugs right away.
Raydude
Re:LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:LOL (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you sure about that? Alexa's ranking [alexa.com] puts Wikipedia at number 41, while latimes.com isn't even in the top 100. Netcraft somewhat confirms it [netcraft.com], giving en.wikipedia.org a site rank of 122 and 894 to www.latimes.com. Wikipedia's probably more popular than you think.
Parent
the toppic was a stupid choice (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Designed to fail ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevermind that it was badly done, the message is it can't work. People often blind themselves.
Parent
Re:LOL (Score:5, Funny)
You misspelled "misspelled".
You misquoted 'mispelled' as "misspelled" to indicate that 'misspelled' was misspelled as 'mispelled'.
Parent
Re:Not quite.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It has to be this way because its free. Or at least as free as anything can be. Its almost as free as in air, even if its just free as in beer.
The innocence and idealism which created the internet to be open and available to anyone with access to a modem or university network in that late sixties and early seventies has been pushed aside by a harsh reality. People behave in evil ways when there are no constraints. They do so until they choose to stop.
That is the cost and the benefit of freedom.
In the long run its worth it, but right now, because there are so many who strike out looking for attention and who love creating disturbances, the internet is a bit like the old west: untamed and just a bit out of control.
What happened with the LA Times is they simply didn't think it through. If they had asked any guy on the street what would happen if they let anyone edit an article on the internet, his quick and non-surprising answer would be, "Oh someone will put up porn!"
Well Duh! Everytime someone invents a new medium, what's the first content?
Porn. Its always porn.
If someone invents a holodeck kind of thing, you can bet the first thing he makes with it will be a walk through porn movie.
LA Times should have thought it through. I think the idea can still work, they just need to put in more safeguards...
Raydude
Parent
I can finally say... (Score:5, Funny)
(wipes tear from eye)..
I just knew someday, you'd make something of yourself...
Re:I can finally say... (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.
Parent
Re:I can finally say... (Score:5, Funny)
I would like to congratulate Andrew Kerr on the coinage of an excellent word. I declare that henceforth, we should all refer to any web based mob behavior as 'wob behavior'.
Spread the love, people.
Parent
Re:I can finally say... (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia is self moderating. The end users restore defaced pages. There was even an article in Wired a couple of months ago about it. On average, defacements are cleaned within a few minutes by other users, and the repairs are so fast that vandals quickly get discouraged.
Parent
Re:I can finally say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Needless to say, a politician has neither.
Parent
More Post Mortem on 'Wikitorials' (Score:5, Informative)
Post Mortem: LA Times lacking common sense (Score:4, Funny)
How about reviewing each wikitorial submission *BEFORE* it gets posted on the web site?
I know, I should've patented this idea before suggesting it but Amazon already filed for it an hour ago.
Parent
They should have ridden it out... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't say I disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
1.) The using a shotgun to kill mice [slashdot.org] 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?
Re:Can't say I disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
Ultimately, the best you can do is to try to encourage people to not be jerks. User-specific blacklists might help, too.
Parent
Re:Can't say I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that AC posting isn't limited to trolls. New readers just wanting to chime in, people who don't want to say something that will be linked to them (you see a lot of non-troll AC posts in threads dealing with personnal, hard issues... depression/suicide, sexual preferences, etc).
Parent
Re:Can't say I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
What is interesting to me is that /. has some defenses against crapflooding and trolling. These defenses have been built up over years and years to react to new threats. Then the /. user population was unleashed on the LA Times page, with no defenses. Of course it was a disaster. /. bred trolls against a brand new site. Good luck.
I hope that this experience doesn't end the experiment for the LA Times. Maybe they need to build some anti-crap measures into their system first and be ready to react.
Parent
Maybe they should hire some people who know (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Can't say I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Can't say I disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Can't say I disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
If you experienced the BBS days of old, you know that Slashdot has zero to do with creating trolls.
AC's. Really, that's what kills slashdot.
Speaking as someone with Excelent Karma and who moderates /. about 1x/week, I have to say nope.
Annonymous Coward posts (like this one) start at zero. If you browse at 1 or 2, you will not see this post unless it gets modded up. At that point, maybe it's worth reading?
Parent
Re:Can't say I disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
And for what it's worth... Slashdot is not geared towards discussion. You will not find discussion much further past the front page (the archive navigation to this very day is garbage). Slashdot is designed for quick, ADD-riddled posts that have little depth.. so don't be surprised if you get what is designed for.
Parent
AC or culpability? I'd rather take AC - for now. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
It was a silly idea in the first place (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Slashdot giveth, and slashdot taketh away (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot giveth, and slashdot taketh away (Score:5, Insightful)
On most other subjects moderation seems to be pretty reasonable. The more tech related the subject matter is, the better the moderation is. Of course, it's also easier to detect trolls, dimwits and other degenerates, which helps.
There's no perfect system, on
Parent
You're welcome! (Score:5, Funny)
So, now the problem is... (Score:5, Funny)
Damn you Taco! How does one reply to a post about slashdot trolling properly?
In soviet russ...
goatse.. no..
***USER BRAIN OVERLOAD. CORE DUMPED***
Wikis do not give equal voice. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Stupid LA Times (Score:5, Insightful)
Blaming Slashdotters for it is even stupider.
Talk about a failure to accept responsibility!
Re:T'ell w'tem all! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Great attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
The only protection they had in place for dealing with the masses of the Internet was, "gee, I hope we don't get popular." Slashdot has a readership of about a half million. What if they were featured prominently in the NY Times, and on CNN, and a few million people realised that they could say "Bob wuz here." Slashdot wasn't the problem. You don't have to be tech savvy to edit a wiki.
They could have made a system of moderation like slashdot has. They could have allowed a trusted community of editors. They could have done something more than expect that a few official editors could keep track of a public space in the Internet, and keep it clean. Bad web developers, no twinkie. Imagine if Commander taco had to remove every troll post from slashdot by himself!
Parent
Re:wikipeida (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Mischievious and Malicious??? (Score:4, Insightful)
(and since the moderators obviously missed that one... it was the NY Times quoting the LA Times)
Parent