The BBC has an article describing the pending decision that "page edits will no longer be immediately applied to pages but will instead have to be approved by an administrator before they become visible." If this decision is put into place, it would then make Wikipedia simply another ordinary website, where users have some level of participation, but it's certainly no longer a true wiki at that point.
Anyone who has ever run any kind of community-based site eventually comes to the realization that spammers will do their best to ruin it. Whether you have a popular blog or forum or any other type of site where users can participate, you'll end up with a ton of jerks trying to take advantage of the situation. So far, technology can only do so much to stem the rising tide via automation. Manual editorial control has to come into play at some point. It's a shame that it has to be this way, but such is life.
One of the greatest experiments in Internet history may soon be far different than its founders envisioned because of spammers. Whether you appreciate Wikipedia or not, it will be sad to see it turned into something it was never intended to be...just another website.