Who would have guessed that the brains behind the World Wide Wikipedia resided right here in Florida? Jimmy Wales, founder of the online encyclopedic resource, has relocated to St. Petersburg, with servers in Tampa hosting the Wikipedia site. His offices are in, of all places, BayWalk.

It turns out that Wales is an early-retirement millionaire, and developed his online baby as a way to give something back. It’s inspiring; maybe I’ll get rich, pack it in and invent stuff. It’ll be easy!

There’s plenty of background on the origins of Wikipedia, along with a limited litmus test on its reliability:

The St. Petersburg Times recently asked two University of South Florida professors to read a few Wikipedia articles on topics in their expertise. Chemistry professor Bill Baker said he was surprised at the amount of technical knowledge posted on the site, but said he found several small errors. “The cancer drug Taxol, for example, is not produced by microbial fermentation.”

“That bothers me,” Baker said of the errors. “I think that even if 99 percent of your facts check out, it is a disservice to promulgate 1 percent inaccuracies.”

Professor Philip Levy, an expert on Colonial America, said that “in many respects it’s very good,” but he, too, had misgivings. He said some articles contained a mishmash of information – the established scholarly knowledge of 15 years ago was mixed in with newer, more controversial theories with little distinction.

You could argue that as long as the broad strokes of subject are covered, the Wikipedia can serve as a credible source. You’ll find errors in established encyclopedias and other vigorously fact-checked resources too, so what’s the difference?

However, the very heart of Wikipedia’s nature — the wiki — is why I steer well clear of it. I’d point to that very last hyperlink as a prime example why: As of this writing, it’s strewn with spam-like hyperlinks all over the top of the page. And that potential exists when you decide to open up page content and structure to the world. There’s simply no reliable way to guard against all sorts of malicious tampering with the site’s content.

Note I said “reliable”. In my mind, a cadre of volunteers doesn’t qualify. I’m not trashing their efforts — I’m sure they’re dedicated and qualified, and I admire their devotion to the spirit of the project. But can they police the entire Wikipedia site 24/7? No. Even if they catch every potential error/vandalism within, say, a few hours after it’s posted, there remains the possibility that it’ll remain up there long enough for several thousand readers to see it.

Frankly, it’s not the blatantly obvious nonsense, like the “John Kerry dies from Botox injections” example, that concerns me. It’s the more subtle possibilities for mischief, like adding or subtracing an extra zero or two in population or other statistical figures, that concern me enough to reject Wikipedia as a consistently reliable source. Again, even if errors like this are caught quickly, who’s to say that they’ve been caught and corrected prior to my use of it?

As an editor, I’d automatically reject anything submitted to me that references a Wikipedia article as a source, for the reasons stated above. I’d give it right back to the writer and insist on a fact check through a rock-solid source, and ask for what exactly that is when the story is re-submitted to me. I’m not going to chance it on research that’s been done on the equivalent of online graffitti.

Wales himself recognizes the frailty of the current model, and has plans for something more solid to supplement it and the entire Wikipedia organization:

But as to the overall accuracy of Wikipedia, Wales said he is at work on a plan to create what he calls a “stable version” of the encyclopedia. Some version or versions would continue to exist that allow the free-form editing and rewriting. Another version, the stable one, would go through an extra level of review before it could be changed.

Eventually, Wales said, he would like to branch out and expand a small program of free “Wiki books” and create academic courses. He and some other Wikipedians also are at work on a for-profit venture, creating a new Internet search engine. He said he would use some of the money to finance the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which is based in St. Petersburg and oversees the encyclopedia effort.

I’m not sure, ultimately, what the purpose of a two-tiered product would be. More effort will inevitably go toward the stable version, probably leading to a degredation of the original free site. If spammers override it, then it’ll become just a toxic corner of the Web.

On the other hand, I like the concept of the Wiki books. It sounds like a promising output from the Wikimedia Foundation.

The search engine? As competitive as the search engine field is getting of late, it’ll be a tough battle. If they stick to a niche search field (I’d guess with a largely academic focus, like much of the Wikipedia), it might fly.