While everyone probably has an interesting story to tell, a lot of the interest lies in how it is told. Which leads me to the Chicago Postal system. But the author, Jonathan Franzen, wrested a riveting tale out of the bowels of one of the country's biggest bureaucracies. This makes him more talented than most writers and me more inclined to read his words. And besides sheer entertainment value, with so much info floating through the mediasphere and the increasing ease with which anyone can add to it, attribution and accuracy and all of those dread standards become possibly more relevant.
Members participate with great energy.
On the other hand, I've enjoyed the most conventional approach of all, in Suck, where they just select their favorite feedback and stick it on a letters page. The recent Observer piece was a definite sign that the question has ceased to be interesting. As the Web increasingly competes with other Internet technologies, and as games and broadcast-style media come on line, I think we'll see a very wide range of solutions. At HotWired, I expect we will go several directions at once. Live chat will be more and more important.