David Gerard It surprises me when our odder critics claim Wikipedia is the personality cult of Jimbo Wales. I really can't imagine L. Ron Hubbard putting up with the crap Jimbo does ...
Hey, I resemble that remark! :-)
More seriously, the problem in your statement above is that there are different types of personality cults. Apocalyptic cults which commit mass suicide get a huge amount of publicity. But for obvious reasons, they tend to be self-limiting. Despite jocular references to "drinking the Kool-Aid", Wikipedia is NOT a doomsday type of cult. It's more of "New Age" cult. They're different.
But being any sort of cult leader is no easy task. You can't just sit back and expect the followers to come to you. They've got to be recruited, and that's a tough job. Then the followers need to be retained, as at least some of them are going to get unhappy with selling flowers at the airport or working in the fields all day (or reverting vandals), and want to leave. Cults tend to use both physical and psychological means of control, though most people just hear about the lurid physical elements and don't consider the manipulative psychological elements.
Wikipedia is really interesting in a way, since it doesn't have any physical aspect, so it has to rely entirely on psychological aspects. Which, in fact, means the leader putting up with a lot of crap.