On 1/9/07, Christopher Thieme cdthieme@gmail.com wrote:
Something like that would probably explain a lot about the bitterness, control issues, the incessant desire to be "right", etc. that some people have when approaching the subject of editing.
There's a goodly amount of ego involved, I think. Being able to say "I wrote that, it's on Wikipedia" is pretty cool, to me, and I imagine other people feel much the same way. Add into that a desire to feel "smart," and the need to feel right and accepted among these other "smart" people is at least a bit explained.
Something along these lines, perhaps: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?AttentionSeeker
Or, there's always Penny Arcade's take: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
But yeah, a more serious study of some sort would probably have some nifty results. I'd be interested, at least.
-Luna