I THINK MARK GOODACRE is spot-on in everything he says here about the megasites concept.

UPDATE (25 January): Torrey Seland comments. He's right that setting up the software shouldn't be difficult, but I'm less confident about the following than he is: "But I am not as afraid as he is of the possible patchiness of a megasite. If it was run by a general editor, having strict guidelines on how to edit and post on the site, this could be handled." Given the success rate of general editors at, for example, getting commentary series completed on time, I don't see that having a general editor over a megasite would keep it from getting patchy. Ultimately, general editors has very little power. All they can do, really, is to take away an assignment from a dilatory contributor, and this is a very tough step that could generate bad feelings and few want to take it. And if they do, they still have the problem of finding a new contributor.

But that's just my view: if Torrey feels differently and wants to do the organizational work, he should ignore my skepticism and go ahead. There's plenty of room for experimenting in cyberspace.