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The LA Times has abandoned an experiment with reader-generated content after users posted obscene material to the site.

The news site had made an editorial on 'War and consequences' accessible as a 'wiki', an open publishing tool that allows readers to edit and add to content.

Around 1,000 people signed up to the experiment and editors were struggling to manage the amount of material being submitted. The project was pulled when explicit photos were posted to the site.

Citizen journalism pioneer Dan Gillmor gave the paper credit for the experiment, and described the saboteurs as 'bottom feeders' on his blog this week.

"I wish the newspaper had gone ahead with its experiment, however, because in the end there are more good people than bad - and eventually the good folks would have made the vandalism a pointless exercise."

More news from dotJournalism:
Wikinews trumpets online revolution
Gillmor goes it alone
Grassroots site goes stellar from the start

Tags (click tag to find related articles; click icon for feed):
la times | dan gillmor | news site | online revolution | open publishing tool |

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