Andrew Thomas, Maricopa County's top prosecutor, burnishes his . . . Wikipedia page?

So, this person edited Thomas' Wikipedia bio to call him a "noted author" and a "leading authority on the criminal justice system." He also plugged Thomas' DrugFreeAz Web site, calling it "one of the most popular drug-prevention Web sites in the country."

But as for Andrew Thomas' work on an initiative seeking to ban affirmative action in Arizona, you won't read anything about that on Wikipedia. Our Andrew Thomas fan deleted that reference. He also removed an allegation that Thomas has never actually tried a felony case in his life — something frequently whispered but never officially confirmed. Thomas' Super Fan removed that bit of speculation twice.

Now, I can't tell you the identity of Thomas' unofficial hagiographer, not with absolute certainty. Thomas' spokesman didn't respond to requests for comment, and Wikipedia keeps its contributors' information private.

But I can tell you this:

• The writer in question has a Wikipedia user name of "Apt37." Andrew Thomas' middle initial is "P" — and he was 37 years old when he was elected county attorney.

• Apt37 has never touched a Wikipedia page other than the one profiling Thomas.

• In his Wikipedia edits, Apt37 once referred to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office as "my office."

There are only two possibilities.

Either Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas is obsessively rewriting his own Wikipedia page, or he's got one very tedious stalker.

Any bets on which it could be?

For the elderly, or the proudly Luddite, here's a little more background: Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, with a twist. Rather than hire academics to write the content, Wikipedia allows just about anyone to pen an entry, or edit someone else's, at any time. The result is a constantly updating work-in-progress.

It's become wildly popular. Google just about anything, and Wikipedia is one of the first hits that comes up.

There's good reason for that. Wikipedia can be wonderful for getting up-to-the-minute information on breaking news, not to mention interesting links about practically anything.

But like anything on the Internet, the site can fall prey to the obsessive . . . and the downright vicious.

John Siegenthaler, a former editor at USA Today, was shocked to learn that his Wikipedia bio claimed he'd been a suspect in the murder of not just one, but two Kennedys. When Siegenthaler complained, Wikipedia determined that the allegation was completely fabricated. Some guy in Tennessee had altered Siegenthaler's biography as a prank — and the fake information stayed online four months before a friend of Siegenthaler's stumbled onto it.

The weird thing about Apt37's strenuous efforts is that nothing similar has happened to Thomas' page.

Really, I would hardly blame anyone for hopping online to correct some gross inaccuracies. But the Thomas page hasn't attracted libelous goons; from the beginning, it's been fairly straightforward. Instead of clearing up misinformation, Apt37 seems more obsessed with keeping the page 100 percent positive.

Don't take my word for it. Thanks to Wikipedia's policy of full disclosure, each and every change is tracked online. The initial page written about Thomas (the very bottom entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Andrew_Thomas_%28prosecutor%29&action=history) was penned February 8, 2007, and contains nothing nasty. In fact, the entry appears to have been modeled closely on Thomas' official biography on the county attorney's Web site.

It wasn't good enough for our mystery friend Apt37. Seven months later, Apt37 started editing the thing, with a series of edits designed to make the page conform exactly to Thomas' official bio.

As a young lawyer, Thomas didn't just work for a "law firm," as the page initially stated. Apt37 insisted that he worked for a "large" law firm. Apt37 also added links to a bunch of dull information about various Web sites started by Thomas' office and took out the bio's single line about the controversy surrounding Thomas' anti-immigration efforts. The eager Apt37 even uploaded an official photo of Thomas.

This being the Internet, the information didn't stay static. Apt37 soon had a battle on his hands, and from September 17 to December 11, he edited the page no less than five times — and attracted a dozen exchanges with two or three citizen editors.

You can track his edits on the "history" page:

• Apt37 removed what he called "inaccurate smearing attacks" — namely, the fact that Thomas used to work for Wilenchik & Bartness, and that after he was elected, the firm received numerous county contracts. The information was true, but Apt37 removed it, twice.