The LA Times has temporarily shelved its plans for running “wikatorials” – editorials that any reader can edit – due to a flood of “inappropriate material.” The whole experiement with wikis was a risky move for a well-established newspaper to take, and it’s not surprising that they immediately panicked once the riff raff showed up. It’s hard to establish an open, collaborative environment from the top-down. Whereas, if you start from a point of low stakes, with little prestige on the line (as Wikipedia did), then the enterprise can evolve slowly, embarrassing missteps, spam and all.
Someone should start an experiment: dump the LA Times content in a non-affiliated wiki and try the wikatorials there. Give it time, let the community build, work out the hiccups, and then give the LA Times a call.