Jimmy Wales wanted to build a free encyclopedia on the Internet. So he raised an army of amateurs and created the self-organizing, self-repairing, hyperaddictive library of the future called Wikipedia...

Now Wales has brought forth a third model - call it One for All. Instead of one really smart guy, Wikipedia draws on thousands of fairly smart guys and gals - because in the metamathematics of encyclopedias, 500 Kvarans equals one Pliny the Elder...

This month's Wired has a very good article about Wikipedia and some of the people who write the articles found there. I found the story of Einar Kvaran to be interesting and instructive about the authors and their motivations for writing for Wikipedia. According the article Kvaran is currently unemployed, but spends about six hours a day reading and writing about public art and sculpture and publishes his work in Wikipedia...