Whether its DiscoverTheNetworks, Masada2000’s (s)hitlist, the Nuremberg Files, or Nixon’s (or Scientology’s) Enemies list, any public, Internet-accessible list of names of personalities who are categorized as agents and foot soldiers of the list compiler’s "true enemy" tends to invite general public scrutiny concerning the purpose or intended use of that list. However, a public hit list is not often designed in a similar fashion as a solicitation to murder (such as that lobbed by the Iranian clerical regime against Salman Rushdie in the 1980s), as these lists can serve as invitations to general intimidation of the mentioned individuals. These databases of names, at best, are a sort of non-governmental "know your enemies" directive which are intended to influence and direct the minds and actions of fellow ideologues against specific targets which are perceived as the most tender joints and tendons of the larger body of that most fearsome "conspiracy" against the pet ideology of the list’s compilers.

I cannot say that enemies’ lists, (s)hitlists and rogue galleries are an effective means of ensuring the success of the list compiler’s ideology, but it is interesting in how such lists are used by non-governmental, non-commercial organizations and social-religious movements. Should such lists be compiled?