Trying to correct the defects of Wikipedia Culture by recruiting more participants of any class or kind is like trying to correct the defects of a Ponzi scheme by pumping more dollars into it. And that is not a good thing.

— Jon Awbrey • 25 Feb 2011 (7:58 PM)

The pivot of the analogy is that one is to Credit what the other is to Credibility. As I said on another thread, there's a striking clue in their common etymology — Credit and Credibility are of “Credo” Compact. A Credit Ponzi scheme uses a little bit of credit with one investor to gain a little more credit with next investor and just keeps amping it up until the whole scheme collapses, which it must do sooner or later because the fundamentals needed to back up the trades are totally lacking. A Credibility Ponzi scheme does the same thing with the species currency of specious facts.

— Jon Awbrey • 25 Feb 2011 (11:34 PM)

Look at how Jimbo and the other promoters of the scheme operate. They start out with the contributions of many small investors, all of whom ask for no more credit where credit is due than the minimal recognition of individual contributions promised by some copyleft license, plus the promise to abide by the advertised policies. By the time that most of them find out exactly how much those promises are worth they have already lent their credibility to an enterprise that can and will use it to discredit them once they begin to catch on and try to blow the whistle on the scheme. Meanwhile, the promoters have moved on to bigger boards of play. And bigger. And bigger. And so it goes.

— Jon Awbrey • 26 Feb 2011 (12:56 AM)

Credit does not rest in a promise — just as credibility does not rest in a premiss. Credit resides in the fact that someone believes the promise — and credibility resides in the fact that someone believes the premiss.

— Jon Awbrey • 27 Feb 2011 (2:00 AM)