A GhostKing is essentially a GodKing wielding technically absolute power over a community, but in an anonymized environment (the pattern was discovered in anonymizing networks like Tor and I2P). This creates a rather interesting sociological aspect. Because the GhostKing wants to remain anonymous, he won't express his power all the time to minimize revelations about his identity. For example, there was a case where someone wanted to request some administrative changes from a wiki owner. So he ‘prayed’ by writing the request somewhere into the wiki and waited for it to be eventually honored.

While using AnonymousIdentity in communities is often subject to dispute, this phenomenon reveals that the anonymity can even be a regulatory force in a community, rather than facilitating misuse.

The SocialRootkit could be seen as a border case between GodKing and GhostKing.

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Don't know how much real experience is behind this page. I had an experience with the protestant church of Austria who changed from an open web forum to a over-moderated BBS a few years ago. They made all admins anonymous and enjoyed the power won by restricting access, deleting and moving posts. To have admins like AdminTeam is a problem, because you never know whom you address or talk to. Is it the same individual you talked to yesterday or not? Anyway, they ruined their rather vivid community on that way. -- HelmutLeitner

: It's quite clear that the corrupting force behind absolute power is still there. In a world of many interconnected communities, this would just result in a movement of the community, however. On the other hand, the problem of non-addressable admins could be seen as a momentum towards an impersonal writing style as it is particularly suitable for wikis. On BBSes it's probably more of a problem. It should be also noted that the BBS experience is does not quite fit the initial pattern described on this page, as in that case it was not even possible to know how to talk to the admin(s), or if it was possible at all (this is why it fits some belief systems of deities). It worked, however, because if not nobody would have participated in the community.

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If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all. -- Futurama

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