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Google's Knol, Expert Wiki, Goes Live
Brian Jordan and other readers sent in word that Google has taken the wraps off Knol, its expert-written challenger to Wikipedia. (We discussed Knol when it was announced last year.) Wired has an in-depth look. Knol's distinctions from Wikipedia are that authors are identified by their real names (and verified), and that they can share in ad revenue if they choose to. The service initially features a lot of medical articles, which is interesting considering that Medipedia also launched today. This medical wiki is backed by Harvard's and Stanford's medical schools.
Part of contributing to Wikipedia is that you're anonymous... would you really want someone to know that despite being a huge football fan, you also knew about My Little Pony?
I like the "anonymity" on Wikipedia, and I don't think this Knol can measure up, simply because of that reason.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
I think it is good that there is competition in this field. Perhaps the two services can even come to complement each other, or at least provide a good database of information based on different principles. At the very least it should force both to do their best to provide a good easy interface and information that is as far as is possible; verified.
The Long Now Foundation
It's like Wikipedia but without the open collaboration which made Wikipedia successful.
Wikipedia definitely suffers from the problem of having a lot of know nothing jackasses writing articles, random defacements, and a lot of useless crap.
But Knol seems to be missing the best part of wikipedia - extensive internal links. Half the fun of wikipedia is looking up something, then wasting a couple hours wandering through topics till you get someplace you might not have gone otherwise.
I've only really looked at this article, which was the most prominently featured on their front page. Reading the first few paragraphs it comes across as one persons view and experiences as opposed to an encyclopaedia. Some work will need to be done on this if it is to be a serious challenger to Wikipedia.
I only looked at it briefly, but they don't provide an easy way to type equations? I suppose that might be a lot to ask for... I guess I'll just have to LaTeXiT.
With things like the Wikipedia search box in Firefox people can go directly to the Wikipedia page on a subject rather than type it in to Google.
However, I usually search through Google first, even if the first result might be Wikipedia -- because Google is a broader search.
Wikipedia may well have a detailed, informative article, which links to decent external sources -- then again, it might have no article, or a biased, poorly maintained article.
If I search directly on Wikipedia, the lack of a Wikipedia article means I'll have to repeat that search on Google, or elsewhere -- plus, the Wikipedia search is slower. If I search on Google first, if there's a Wikipedia article, great, it's one click away -- and if there isn't, I've still got a page full of useful results.
Hence Knol. Google's competitor to Wikipedia. But it's too late. Good.
Why is that good? If Knol can actually do a better job than Wikipedia, what's the problem?
I'm not entirely sure why I should trust Wikimedia with my personal information any more than Google. The only real advantage here is the possibility of releasing something anonymously -- which I can still do, through Wikipedia, or Wikileaks, or somewhere else.
Creative Commons means that if someone really has something to add, and I won't let them (or co-author with them), they can always re-publish as their own version -- in this sense, Knol is to Wikipedia as Git is to SVN.
And it means my work is still out there to read, for free, but I'll be getting paid, which means I'll have an incentive to spend more time on it. Say what you will -- Wikipedia is great for the kind of reference material which is truly a list of indisputable facts -- but commercial books (technical manuals, etc) often have better quality for things like teaching fundamentals, or, occasionally, simply being more comprehensive even than the official online documentation.
That would be the main reason Knol could work -- capitalism.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I LOVE how they use lighting to make the un-"enhanced" women look paler and less healthy. It's good to finally see a place I can go to and know I'm given unbiased, true information.
I think the one-author model is problematic. Citizendium's Wikipedia-like collaberative model keeps bias in check. For example, what if Michael Behe, a biochemist, decided to write the article on "Evolution." He controls the content? It seems that it will be very difficult under any sort of one author model to get an unbiased article on just about any sensitive topic. When any approved "expert" can alter any article, however, there will be concessions to satisfy authors disagreeing on what should go in an article, ending up with a largely unbiased and very information piece. Much like many Wikipedia articles have turned out.
I also have somewhat of a problem with keeping non-experts out altogether. The experts like to write stuff, but they don't necessarily want to punctuate properly, or cite every little detail, or link to new articles as they come up, or format an article just so, etc. There any many non-experts who troll through Wikipedia looking for grammatical errors, places to add better citations, places to add [citation needed], etc. It seems that non-experts should be given some level of control in order to allow them to do what the experts aren't likely to do as much.