[WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway? - personality cult

[William Pietri]

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