StackOverflow, and Wikipedia even more so, are real life Stanford prison experiments on the inside. Power, in whatever form, seems to attract abuse and catalyze a bit of megalomania in the holder.
You do realize that Standford prison experiments had such a flawed methododology that they are not considered scientificly accurate anymore?
For one, they did not do sufficient backgroud checks on intake, so the volunteers were self-selected group of people with sadistic tendencies.
Also, researchers were not fully neutral, they were (conciously or not) encouraging subjects to violent behaviours, thus steering the whole study towards expected results
Since wikipedia and stack overflow allow for self-selection, and encourage heavy use of editing power, the stanford prison experiment seems like a great analogy for them, but it is nice to hear that the experiment may not represent the tendencies of an average human given power.
>You do realize that Standford prison experiments had such a flawed methododology that they are not considered scientificly accurate anymore?
You do realize that that's not relevant to what the parent said?
Which (whether correct or not) boils down to that *Exchange sites attract authoritative moderators and gluttons for abuse and punishment users, akin to the Stanford prison experiments.
For one, they did not do sufficient backgroud checks on intake, so the volunteers were self-selected group of people with sadistic tendencies.
Also, researchers were not fully neutral, they were (conciously or not) encouraging subjects to violent behaviours, thus steering the whole study towards expected results