At today’s Social Ad Summit in New York City, Wikipedia founder co-founder Jimmy Wales gave a keynote presentation on the art of community — how to term it, time it, tame it, and trust it. Wales is in the midst of a new project called Wikia and said that its growth has followed that of Wikipedia. He described Wikia as a consumer publishing platform where millions of passionate fans come to discover, create and share a shocking abundance of information on thousands of topics. The man knows a thing or two about wikis.

Here are Wales’ five community commandments:

1. It isn’t about crowdsourcing.

Wales rejects the term made popular by Wired magazine editor Jeff Howe. The term, crowdsourcing, Wales said, misidentifies what’s going on on the Internet. The word is drawn from the term “outsourcing” which generally involves cheap labor. This, Wales stated, associates the community with forced labor. People don’t participate in online communities if they don’t want to. It’s more like a bowling alley, Wales suggested. People come to the community to do what they want to do — there’s nothing forced about it.

2. Growth takes time.

On average, Wikipedia entries, grow at a rate of 6-8 percent every month. It’s not like Facebook because Facebook isn’t a community, Wales said. Facebook is a tool that connects already connected communities. Communities, which are building blocks of social networks, take much longer.

The term “wiki,” however, is flourishing. Wales said that “wiki” has surpassed “blog” in search terms.

3. The world is becoming more information dense.

And, Wales stated, culture is getting smarter. Just look at the evolution of popular television shows. I Love Lucy –> Mary Tyler Moore –> Seinfeld. Storylines have become more complex. Take the show Lost, for example, fans gather in Lostpedia to learn more and try to understand the intricate details of the plot and characters. “Shows are now too complicated to watch,” Wales said. Viewers must look to superfans (like the participants in the Lostpedia network) to help them understand what’s happening.

Products are smarter, too — Just look at televisions and recording systems today.

4. Openness is not the enemy of quality.

Wales referenced a study a few years back that showed that, on average, there are four errors in a Wikipedia post. However, the same study found that there are, on average, three errors in each Encyclopedia Britannica post. The speaker said he doubts as many errors are live today; however, he admits that its not perfect. To address misuse and tampering of entries, the Wikipedia team will temporarily protect posts. “But we don’t like it,” Wales said.

Openness is of utmost important with online communities. He then mentioned Canon’s Hacker site in which the company allows a wiki site to educate consumers on how to hack into their Canon cameras and change the hardware. For the most part, though, Wales said, “We haven’t reached the point where companies are embracing this idea.”

5. The world is global.

Wikipedia is converted into more than 175 languages and Wikia is headed down the same path. Wales used superstore Wal-Mart as a comparison. Wal-Mart although dually criticized for this strategy, tapped into the power of business in small towns. The retail giant went into towns deemed too small for most other chains, and found great success.