Seth Finkelstein wrote:
Look at it this way: Why *does* someone join a cult? And more importantly, why do they *stay*, doing free labor? Stark coercion, of the sort if-you-leave-we'll-hunt-you-down-and-kill-you, is extraordinarily rare. Much of the process is about manipulating a psychological need. Transcendent purpose, internal status, external dangers - these are all deep human triggers.
Interesting notion, and one I hadn't considered.
Measuring Wikipedia against a couple of cult evaluation frameworks, I don't think Wikipedia scores very highly:
http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm
So I'm going to take your notions more as an interesting metaphor than a serious criticism.
William