DISQUS

David Gerard · 1 year ago

One noticeable thing about the mockup graphic is the prominent Creative Commons CC-by 3.0 logo. This caught our eye at Wikipedia. The point of Wikipedia is not in fact to run a hideously popular (and expensive) website, but to create a body of freely-reusable educational content. So IF, I say IF, Google require Knols to be under a proper free-content licence, then that'll be a big win for everyone.

(And if they don't, they'll just be another about.com or Yahoo Answers. Or Google Answers - remember Google Answers? I bet Google does.)

John · 1 year ago

Ha. Getting a little dig in are we? Just kidding. Nice to see the blog evolving.

Barry Kort · 1 year ago

It's hard to beat Wikipedia as a compendium of popular culture, since it's written by a populist community that revels in popular culture.

But when it comes to scholarly subjects, Wikipedia suffers from a juvenile culture that is hostile to the academic model.

Authoritative subject matter experts are unwelcome on Wikipedia, where the dominant players eschew conscientious scholarship in favor of drama, controversy, and gaming the system for fun and profit.

Dan Colman · 1 year ago

Barry,

I personally haven't had the same experience with Wikipedia. True, you can find entries on fairly inane topics. But it covers pretty much any area of true scholarly interest, and often the content is quite solid.

Here I'm reminded of a New York Times article that reported on how Wikipedia compares to Brittanica when dealing with substantive scientific topics. I quote:

"A study last month in Nature showed that the decision is far from clear-cut. Calling on experts to compare 42 competing entries, the journal counted an average of four errors per article in Wikipedia - and three in Britannica. That is not much of a difference, and a look at the details only adds to the anxiety."

A couple other relevant quotes to add:

"Whatever their shortcomings, neither encyclopedia appears to be as error-prone as one might have inferred from Nature, and if Britannica has an edge in accuracy, Wikipedia seems bound to catch up."

"It seems natural that over time, thousands, then millions of inexpert Wikipedians - even with an occasional saboteur in their midst - can produce a better product than a far smaller number of isolated experts ever could."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/science/03com...

DHC

Carol A · 1 year ago

I suppose any communication method which caters to everyone is going to attract some trivial content - think of TV and radio! But at least on the internet you can ignore the rubbish. Wikipedia does seem to provide the better method, but to give Google their due, their book search engine was a joke when it first started, now I find it has evolved into something quite usable. Perhaps they do listen to criticism?

Dan Colman · 1 year ago

Hi Carol,

I agree. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Knol evolve and turn into something quite different over time. Google is clearly a bright and responsive company. I was more just responding today to what we see right now.

Cheers,
Dan

Jon Awbrey · 1 year ago

The notion that “a community of writers focusing on the same text will correct one another and improve the overall product over time” or that “the final text becomes greater than the sum of its authors” is sadly out of keeping with the reality of Wikipedia, where articles created by knowledgeable authors are more likely to be degraded over time by hordes of inept users and power-tripping administrators who neither know nor care anything about the subject matters in question.

thiemehennis · 1 year ago

I think Wikipedia and Google Knol can co-exist, and I do not entirely agree with your argument that there will be too few experts willing to write a knol.. there are some incentives (both monetary and reputational) to do it, even for a high-profile expert. Especially because it is Google, and not some unknown startup, a possibly larger audience can be reached.

Sniperz11 · 1 year ago

Hi,

I've been a regular Wikipedia editor for a year now, and was an anonymous editor for a year before that.. I havent had a chance to see Knol in action, but based on what Google is saying, I have a few observations:

1. Collaborative page building is FAR FAR better than getting ones name recognized. I've built pages together with other editors, sometimes, working live by chatting on IRC and building together. Believe me, the content that comes out of synergy is incomparably better than when done alone.

Theres another issue with working alone. After some time, boredom sets in, as it usually does when working in a vacuum.

2. Self-satisfaction trumps attribution: This is another major hole I find in Google's logic. If you look at Wikipedia, almost half of all the major edits are made by anonymous users, and almost 95% of the 6 million registered users, including me, use a pseudonym to contribute.

Thats an indication that the contributers are doing it for something more than recognition, which, frankly, no one cares about.

4. As Jimbo Wales observed, with the Knol, the opportunities for spammers is endless... imagine the number of entries for Viagra one will get.

5. Ranking: This is another concern - most readers will be drawn to the controversial or blog-like entries, which means that actual good entries will get pushed down in priority.

6. Community: This is the BIGGEST advantage that Wikipedia has... if you look at any of the over 600 Wikiprojects, which bring together editors to improve pages in their area of interest, there is a feeling of community bonhomie that exists that makes the output work better than when done in an ad-hoc manner. And with the lack of such an organizational setup on Knol, that will be absent. So while content will be huge, quality will most likely be abysmal.

Overall, I think Google has started Knol just because it sees a commercial opportunity there, and as another means of it wanting to control the Internet.

The pity of the whole situation is that Wikipedia entries will be engineered down in the Google rankings by changes to their Algorithm. Still, looking at how the Wikipedia Search page gets over 16 million visitors daily, that may not be a big disadvantage.

Thanks