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

[William Pietri]

Seth Finkelstein wrote:
> Strawman #1 in this discussion, repeated several times now:
>
> 1) Assume all cults work only by hate and fear
> 2) Assume Wikipedia is filled only with love and happiness
> [Bang! Pow! Down goes the strawman!]
> 3) How silly it is for anyone to speak of the good Wikipedia like the bad cults
>   

The way I figure it, either you have a sincere and well-considered 
point, or you're one of the many people with an irrational fixation on 
Wikipedia. Many of those obsessed seem to be irrationally positive, but 
there are some obsessed with the negatives. This list attracts an 
unfortunate number of both.

The suggestion that Wikipedia might be cult-like doesn't push the score 
either way; it's an interesting notion, and how Wikipedia really works 
is not yet well explained. But your unwillingness to describe your 
notion in detail loses you points. Your failure to answer reasonable 
criticisms directly or to come up with actual evidence loses you more. 
And your claim that politeness prevents you from engaging while you 
continue to repeat the loaded word "cult" makes you look, frankly, like 
someone more interested in causing disturbance than having an actual 
discussion.

At this point I would normally file you under "loon and/or troll" and 
move on to something more likely to be productive. However, you're a guy 
whose work I've respected in other contexts, so I'm not quite ready to 
flip the bozo bit on this thread. A few quick questions:

   1. What do you mean by cult? And in particular, do you believe
      Wikipedia scores highly on either of those two cult evaluation
      scales I sent earlier?
   2. Do you have any historical comparisons? The ones I've studied most
      are the new-age and Christian ones, so those would be the most
      helpful to me.
   3. What evidence are you basing this on? Luckily, almost all of
      Wikipedia's communication is logged, so this should be an easy one
      compared with your average cult.


Thanks,

William


--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri