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*.

Dammit Taco!

[Anonymous Coward]

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*.

Dammit Taco! Which are the malicious ones, the 60% or the 40%? Argh!

What did they do?

[FriedTurkey]

I bet the entire article was changed to "frist post".

LOL

[RayDude]

Those mean old Slashdot readers, pointing out the obvious all teh time!

It would have happened sooner or later, they should thank us for finding the bugs right away.

Raydude

I can finally say...

[MyLongNickName]

I am proud of Slashdot

(wipes tear from eye)..

I just knew someday, you'd make something of yourself...

slashdot hah

[kalpol]

Myself, I bet it was the Crips.

Mischievious and Malicious???

[selectspec]

Getting lectured on ethics from the staff of the New York Times is interesting.

Bah, He's Just Jealous!

[deadtree9]

It sounds like Michael Newman is just jealous that Slashdot has a MUCH larger viewing audience than his rag!

Sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

That was me, sorry about that. I thought I was on Wikipedia.

LA Times wiki

[ChrisF79]

It's as censored as a Chinese blog... and congrats to slashdot. THis may be the first time a site was taken down by slashdot users without it being a bandwidth issue.

Re:Dammit Taco!

[CKnight]

That depends on many factors.

- The day of the week
- Access to caffeine
- PMS

Taking those variables into account will always swing the Mischief factor.

You're welcome!

[digitalamish]

Just think, we gave you over a year's worth of experience in about 24 hours. We're not malicious, we're efficient!

It was me, sorry.

[OctoberSky]

I spent 3 days pounding that site and all I get is a link to NYTimes?

I cant beleive they took that down

[Anonymous Coward]

It took me an hour to discretely put in links to 'hello.jpg'....

That is such BS

[chowdmouse]

You make a editable page available to the PLANET and then are surprised when there's lots of problems with people posting "unacceptable" content?

BS I say...Put that in your required registration and smoke it.

Re:Bah, He's Just Jealous!

[badmammajamma]

Actually the L.A. Times has a MUCH larger viewing audience than /.

I hate to break it to you but there are more "normal" people than nerds. Return back to your cave now.

So, now the problem is...

[Mr. Flibble]

Now the problem in replying to this article is that if I troll in my reply am I trolling or being insightful? Or, if I try to be insightful about trolls, am I trolling?

Damn you Taco! How does one reply to a post about slashdot trolling properly?

In soviet russ... ...err.. no...
goatse.. no.. ...PROFIT!!!! err...

***USER BRAIN OVERLOAD. CORE DUMPED***

Re:LOL

[TheViffer]

Those mean old Slashdot readers, pointing out the obvious all teh time!

You mispelled "the". :-)

Re:Can't say I disagree

[holzp]

Who are you calling poorly socialized you dick!

Blame it on Slashdot?!

[AtlanticGiraffe]

I, for one, blame it on the boogie.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

You mispelled "the". :-)

You misspelled "misspelled".

Re:LOL

[kernelfoobar]

You mispelled "the". :-)

You misspelled "misspelled".

You misquoted 'mispelled' as "misspelled" to indicate that 'misspelled' was misspelled as 'mispelled'.

Re:Can't say I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it was a disaster. /. bred trolls against a brand new site. Good luck.

Holy cow, you're right: this just totally wrecks our reputation for mores, decency, etiquette!

Seriously, I would like to see a poll along the lines of

( ) Yes. It was me. I screwed the LA Times wiki.
( ) Like above, but repeatedly.
( ) Like above, but repeatedly and I let my friends take a stab as well.
( ) No. It wasn't me. So where was CowboyNeal at the time?

Re:What did they do?

[Golias]

Is that the fault you find in this? That some people are idealistic and would like to live in a world without assholes?

In a world without assholes, everybody would be full of shit.

Sorry. So sorry. The pun was just too easy to ignore.

Post Mortem: LA Times lacking common sense

[Kurt Gray]

Here's a radical idea for LA Times:

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.

Re:I can finally say...

[ahem]

... there is a definite kind of web/mob (wob?) mentality here. ...

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.

How dare they....

[chriswaclawik]

Blame slashdot? I think we all know who the real culprit is here...

(dramatic pause)

KAHNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

Re:LOL

[Bingo Foo]

At least they called us savvy.

...to quote a member of the tech-savvy Slashdot audience as saying, "the LA Times editorial staff, to be kind, is mischievous and to be not so kind, is malicious".

Re:What did they do?

[Silent_Shadow900]

If everybody was full of shit, we'd all get along wouldn't we?

PA Link

[danl125]

I believe this [penny-arcade.com] is the one you where thinking of.

Re:Great attitude

[v3rgEz]

"Imagine if Commander taco had to remove every troll post from slashdot by himself!"

Seriously, C_Taco can't even remove all the trolls from the News Submissions!

Re:What did they do?

[infinite9]

In a world without assholes, everybody would be full of shit.


In the land of the assholeless, the one-assholed man is king?

ok, someone needs to reply with a joke about thrones.

Re:So, now the problem is...

[oberondarksoul]

In soviet russ... ...er..

You mis-spelled 'Russia'.

Throne into the mess

[Zancarius]

ok, someone needs to reply with a joke about thrones.

In that case, the king is the man sitting on the porcelain throne. He's also the only one who gives a shit.

In Soviet Russia...

[MattWhitworth]

dead horses beat YOU!

Sorry, had to be said :)

Re:Dammit Taco!

[Sj0]

If these supposed geeks were any good, they would have written a program to send out warnings automatically. If they were a bit better, they would have found a way to get the GPS transmitters onto the women so they could be avoided. If they were even better, they would have mounted sensors in the womens cubicles to detect the exact start and end of "that time of the month".

And if they were great? They'd rig up a bit of biotech to cancel the effect altogether. :P