Maryland lawmakers are among the most thoroughly documented politicians on Wikipedia, the hugely popular Web encyclopedia compiled by tens of thousands of users around the world.
And it's in large part because of one Internet-obsessed pol from Baltimore: Del. Curtis S. Anderson.
Under the monikers "Marylandstater," "1msulax" and "67knight," the 58-year-old Democrat and former television reporter has spent countless hours researching and creating detailed profiles of fellow members of the General Assembly. He also takes their pictures and uploads them to the site.
It is, by Anderson's own admission, a lonely and sedentary habit.
"I don't drink, I'm not married and I don't have a girlfriend," he says. "But this releases something from my brain and into my bloodstream that makes me feel good."
He adds: "I think I've gained about 10 pounds."
There are more than 9 million articles on Wikipedia in more than 250 languages, and the site's entries are read by hundreds of thousands of people around the world every day. With few exceptions, anyone can create or edit Wikipedia pages, and the only guarantee of the accuracy of the information is that if it's wrong, somebody can change it.
That means, on average, most things are true, but it also means that a biased or misinformed contributor can hijack a Wikipedia page, at least for a time.
As Wikipedia has surged in popularity and respectability since coming online in 2001, so too has concern about meddling by elected officials and political operatives. In 2006, Wikipedia temporarily blocked some Capitol Hill Internet addresses because of frequent "vandalism" by congressional aides on the profiles of political opponents.
There seems little danger of such drastic action in Annapolis. The profiles of Maryland legislators, created and updated mostly by Anderson and a handful of anonymous Wikipedians, tend to be bland and perfunctory.
The nonprofit association that loosely oversees the sprawling site discourages users "from writing about themselves, their businesses or anything that might constitute a conflict of interest," said Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the California-based WikiMedia Foundation.
Tom Fitzwater, a University of Maryland, College Park senior and prolific Wikipedia editor who initiated entries for much of the state's congressional delegation to Washington, said Anderson's involvement treads a "very thin line" of appropriateness.
