Alright, let me make myself more clear:

First off, I don't mean to install a system of literal feudalism, as I have stated before. This means that I am looking toward the concept of feudalism rather than the actual practice of it.

Now let me make myself clear by what I mean by the concept of feudalism and what I mean by the practice of feudalism. What you, Guac, are referring to is the practice of feudalism, that is how it was implemented and practiced in Europe (which, needless to say, was a mess). But what I am referring to is the mutualistic concept of feudalism (the way that it was supposed to be implemented).

Obviously the difference between the concept and practice of a governmental system, is not exclusive to feudalism. Socialism and communism are both examples of governamntel/political constructs that weren't met well when implemented.

So how can the concept of feudalism, which reflected the needs of serfs, lords and vassals, be implemented in a wiki, a virtual community of semi-anonymous users. Well, the answer is quite simple when we eliminate the idea of wealth/land and replace it with the urge to edit (even if voluntary), and relate the concept of feudalism with the relationship between administrators/staff and users.

If we equate users with serfs, and admins with lords, for sake of the argument, we are met with a relationship of admins exploiting editors. Correct? Well, only partially, that is if we are referring to the practice of it as it had been practiced in Europe.

However, if we are referring to the concept of feudalism the reality would be much different. Administrators would exist for the benefit of those who edit on the wiki. What benefit could that be? Well many things such as catering to the needs of the community and general regulation.

So in this manner admins and users have a mutualistic relationship. Is this really feudalism, I then hear you asking? Probably not, but it does draw a fair share of ideas from it.

On any note, I think I'm taking this far too seriously :P ... But I enjoy nothing more than a good argument, even one as aimless as this.

Basically you're still asking for the bureaucratic dictatorship I told you earlier: a small oligarchy makes the decisions and in return the users have the reward of using this wiki.

It sounds better when you don't use the word dictatorship :P

...the Argument Clinic would have been useful for quote chains like these as well.

Alemas2005 wrote: ...the Argument Clinic would have been useful for quote chains like these as well.

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Too bad it was removed...

feudalism does not sound better than dictatorship at all

Well, that's subjective.

Understand that Guac's a Marxist and Marxism itself was designed more or less to directly combat feudalism. Feudalism is a system in which the lower classes are essentially slaves to knights, lords, and kings, with levels of wealth and control over production rising with one's rank. To use the word feudalism here is to imply that the admins will make absolutely all decisions and the users will be left with basically nothing but the incentive to edit.

Which, by the way, is a dictatorship (one person) or oligarchy (multiple persons).

this, except i'd like to broaden the term dictatorship; metaphorically, it can be used to denote the absolute power of a larger societal body than just one person. for instance, weydemeyer and, after him, marx and engels coined the term 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. 

edits: clarification

Please move discussion about dictatorship/feudalism/etc to a message wall or chat, I am closing this thread as no more constructive replies have been given.