ON the front of Jimmy Wales’s black T-shirt is a fist holding what looks like a hand grenade, but which on closer inspection turns out to be a computer mouse.

The shirt was given to him by students in Budapest, where Wales was doing a talk about Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia he founded. “I like to wear it if I’m giving a corporate talk. It scares them a little,” he said last week. “I like being disruptive. It’s fun.”

In six years, Wikipedia has emerged as one of the internet’s biggest phenomena, altering the way people get information and students and schoolchildren do their homework. Whether Wikipedia is a good thing depends on whom you talk to.

Today Wikipedia contains 8.2m articles, in 253 languages, on subjects ranging from Britney Spears to quantum physics. The venerable Encyclopaedia Britan-nica, 238 years old this year, contains about 500,000 topics in its 32 volumes assembled by 19 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert contributors. It costs $1,395 (£691) in America, plus shipping cost of about $92. Wikipedia is free.

Like the rabble-rousing Wales, Wikipedia has attracted controversy. Inaccuracies abound and partisan editing of entries is not uncommon. But Wales believes the Wiki community can police and correct its excesses.

Now Wales plans to apply Wikipedia’s experience to internet search. In December, he will launch Wikia Search, a search engine to compete with giants such as Google and Yahoo. The project could prove even more controversial than Wikipedia.

“Somebody said to me, your reputation is assured with Wikipedia; this could be a big failure. Why take the risk? But I don’t even think in those terms. Search is something lots of people are concerned about and we can make a change,” said Wales.

Again Wikia will attempt to harness the knowledge of people around the world. Google, Yahoo and their rivals fiercely guard the secrets of their search engines. Wikia’s search programs will be open for anyone to edit if they have sufficient pro-gramming knowledge. Users will also rank websites in the hope of arriving at the best possible combination of human and computer ranking of searches.

“When I started Wikipedia there were three articles. It was supposed to be an encyclopedia but it was totally empty. Nobody cared back then and nobody was watching,” said Wales.

“When we launch the search engine everyone will think we are going to launch some Goog-le-killing device on day one. That’s just not true or possible.” However, Wales does believe that within three years Wikia could rival the top search engines.

Can the wisdom of crowds trump the power of Google? Not likely, said Danny Sullivan, edi-tor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, an influential trade website. “Wikipedia is a destination site. Search isn’t a destination,” he said. People choose Google, or other search engines, because of the quality of the results and it will be hard for Wikia to compete with the quality of Google.

Sullivan compares Wales’s efforts with those of Jason Cala-canis, founder of Mahalo.com, another “human-powered search engine”. He was heavily hyped in tech circles, but Mahalo has yet to make an impact.

However, Wales argues that his “man vs machine” model will eventually deliver better results than Google. Used alone, mathematical search formulas such as Google’s do not produce consistently relevant results, he said.

“People think of search as some kind of computer function but it’s really editorial – it’s journalism. If I type ‘Martha Stewart’ into a search engine and I get 10 results back, those results are an editorial judgment whether or not it’s made by a computer.” People, he said, were better at refining those editorial judgments than machines. It’s not a new idea – others have tried to assault Google’s dominance by offering a more “personal” touch – but given Wikipedia’s success, and Wales’s determination, Wikia will be one to watch.

Unlike Wikipedia, a registered charity, Wikia will be for-profit, funded by Wales’s Wikia Inc and Amazon.com, plus $4m from Bessemer Venture Partners, and Omidyar Network (owned by Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay).

Wales is a committed libertarian, so given his belief in enlightened self-interest why does he think Wikipedia’s community will be keen to help out on a commercial project like Wikia?

People become involved in Wikipedia in the same way they get involved in playing sports at the weekend, said Wales. “People don’t say to them, ‘You play basketball for free? People get paid a lot of money to do that.’ That’s a silly thing to say. But people say, ‘Gee, you write encyclopedia articles for fun. People get paid to write for encyclopedias.’ Well it’s true there are people who write professionally but there are other types of writing that can be done for a hobby.” Wikipedia allows people to share their knowledge and passions and, for some, sharing that knowledge is reward enough. With Wikia he believes the same “fun” element will apply.

He also thinks many people believe Google and Yahoo have too much power. Given the huge numbers of people who turn to internet search as their first point of reference, Wales said it was “concerning when we have only two or three sources for that editorial judgment. Philosophically it’s not healthy for democracy.”

Andrew Keen, author and longstanding critic of Wikipedia, said the search project was “fraught with commercial and ethical dilemmas”. He said Wikia was “capitalism dressed up as socialism”, and that it was wrong to expect people to contribute for nothing to a scheme in which Wales is likely to be the biggest benefactor. “And as long as anonymous sources rank websites, we will not know whose interests they serve,” he said.

Wales last saw Google founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin this summer at a weekend retreat in Napa Valley. The pair seemed friendly enough, said Wales. “These guys aren’t going to end up being paupers no matter what. I don’t think they are too worried about me.” Not yet.

FREE FACTS

WIKIPEDIA is a noncommercial website run by the Wikipedia Foundation, a nonprofit organisation.

Its mission is to bring free knowledge to everyone on the planet.

You can’t actually change anything in Wikipedia; you can only add to it. Every time an article is changed, the new version and a copy of the old version are kept.

Some articles are of the highest quality of scholarship, others are complete rubbish.

Contributors are unpaid and must follow a neutral point of view.

Jimmy Wales acts as final arbiter, but his influence is based on respect, not power.

Source: Wikipedia

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