If you begin a wiki with good faith and great intent, does this keep being your driving ideal?

It is possible but improbable if your wiki site takes off and becomes popular, cited and lauded by the media.

In every wiki there is a moment when there is a "switch". When the wiki community goes from being a bunch of friends kicking around having a lot of fun to the moment when all those amazing people you imagined joining your wiki suddenly reach such large numbers that the "fun" part of it all just disappears and the serious business kicks in.

 The leader(s) of the wiki has to make some quick and decisive choices at this stage.  Everyone in the wiki community looks to you for your energy, skills and goodness. Naturally you don't dispell this. Rather, you play along with it and even though you tell yourself that this is part and parcel of caring for the community, there is a small piece in you that enjoys the accolades, the idolization and the reliance. You are wiki God.

 The decisions needed to stop wiki God? They are simple:

• Pull in the big head before it grows any larger - you are just another member of the community and any day, you might get the boot
• Hand over authority to more people in the community and here is a really big part of this equation - trust them
• Don't undermine community leaders; if they do something unwiki, send them a personal note not a public dressing down, however nicely veiled your language
• Draw up a plan of where things are headed in the next 2 months, 1 year and 5 years and in this plan, put in your own expectations. If they involve you being the only one ever representing the wiki, time to rethink the agenda
• Hire enough people. Don't get hung up on tales about volunteers not wanting this. Volunteers don't want their efforts going down the drain because of a poorly run site and overused enthusiasts - no respect
• Be clear about things. Do not play games. Everyone knows what the leader wants even if the leader says "Oh I will just leave that to you guys". On a public site, your sense of things is  evident and the flock will try to live up to it
• Publish site policies. Don't think that everything on a wiki is so organic that people know the unknowable
• Take care of the flock and tend to it; the wiki won't stay if your sheep stray