This is so fascinating -- thanks for sharing. I think about this a lot between my job and my freelance writing, and I know that many readers don't stop to think about the implications of their comments before posting them to the Internet -- they just want to be first to make a point or break the news.

On balance, I think user-generated content is a good thing -- and we've seen the best of it come out of situations like the political tumult in Iran. But there are few rules about the ethics of this. Back in the days of print, you'd purposefully select the most thoughtful/compelling critiques and comments about something and publish those. Obviously, that's an obsolete model now. But does that mean that editors of sites -- whether it's Wikipedia or the New York Times -- are being anti-democratic by exerting some control over what gets published?

I sincerely hope the person in Florida trying to edit the page saw this article and feels like a jackass for so adamantly trying to be the source of breaking news.