"Wikitorials" may make a comeback

Despite the sudden end of the "wikitorial" page at the Los Angeles Times last week (see previous posting), reader enthusiasm and high levels of participation have encouraged the daily's editors to give the experiment another go. General manager of LAT interactive Rob Barrett said optimistically "As long as we can hit a high standard and have no risk of vandalism, then it is worth having a try at it again." The original experiment was met with both praise by those who champion newspaper innovation as the saving grace of the medium, and criticism from traditional editorialists who staunchly opposed the idea of a "collective intelligence" op-ed piece. For the "thousands" of curious readers who checked out the experiment, the Times' editorial page editor Andres Martinez, said "I was heartened by how seriously people took it... It's not a total shock it ended up this way. Now we will evaluate what this means." If launched once again, LAT wikitorials may be limited to a specified group of contributors or a member of the Times' staff may be assigned to monitor changes to an article before they are posted.

Sources: Los Angeles Times and The New York Times