Is there any scholarship on why people vandalize Wikipedia and other public sites? I've been doing Wikip. entries and edits for about 6 months, and I amazed/dismayed at what I see. Really childish stuff about actress B having big breasts (less respectable word being used) and Actress S being "pie-faced". Plus a lot of people writing F--k on entries at random sites. (No, I am not being squeamish, but I thought that you or your filter might be.) Why this, especially when the Wiki police are so efficient on taking it down. But what social or psychological gratification does it serve? Naively, Barry Wellman _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _____________________________________________________________________