There are articles covering detailed elements of Scientology belief and practice, important people in the religion, important debunkers of the religion, important documents released by the important debunkers, and important cases about the legality of release of the important documents. Each is a potential battleground between the two camps, often while being viewed only a few dozen times a day. In essence, they preach to the converted or those who used to be converted.

“One of the problems we keep bumping into is what I call core belief issues  politics, religion, nationalism,” Mr. Davies said. “Fringe faiths, fringe nationalities.”

The Scientology decision, which received plenty of news coverage, brought the Arbitration Committee (or ArbCom) to public view. No doubt, most users of Wikipedia had no idea that there was a court of last resort for disputes on the site.

Tens of millions of people around the world use Wikipedia, but few users  even the most frequent editors  can say how or why it works. The two members of the committee I interviewed agreed that the committee was not vital to Wikipedia’s continued operation  the Hatfields and McCoys, after all, were largely left to their own devices by the government and people knew to stay away  but they said that having a way to ban people of bad faith made the site more friendly, more efficient and more welcoming to new editors.

Wikipedia users elect the panel members, and Mr. Matetsky reports that he is the only active lawyer among them, though there are a few law students. He said, “It is considered ironic; I’m the gung-ho litigation attorney but often on the side of second chances and leniency.” He says he often is opposed to outright bans  he abstained on some of the sanctions in the Scientology case  because “to a user who is banned, Wikipedia is ‘the encyclopedia anyone can edit,’ except for you.”

The discovery that Wikipedia is not the anarchic paradise some might imagine can be a shock. Others see hypocrisy, evidence that there is a class of users who control what appears there, people who benefit from Wikipedia’s huge public clout with little public scrutiny.

But taking the longer view, it is apparent that in its brief history, Wikipedia is quickly replicating the creation of society, from an Eden (no rules, no need for rules) to a modern entity.

“Bureaucracy is inevitable,” said Joseph Reagle, whose Ph.D. thesis was about the history of Wikipedia and collaborative culture, crediting the German sociologist Max Weber. “Even if you have a supposed anarchy or collective, that doesn’t mean the rules aren’t there, just that they are implicit.”