Googlepedia goes live
Knol has Wackypedia in its sights
INTERNET BEHEMOTH Google has done what it does best and repackaged yet another of someone else's ideas as part of its evil plan for galactic domination.
This time the Don't Do Evil (unless we can turn a buck out of it) company has Wikipedia in its corporate sights, with a grassy thing called Knol.
Knols are, apparently, "authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects". Beg your pardon. Nothing like Wackypedia then.
Google product manager Cedric Dupont explained that the key principle behind the new repository of information was authorship. "Every knol will have an author, or group of authors, who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good."
And here comes the kicker. If you like, you can have Google ads plastered all over your knol. And if anyone reads your ramblings, and responds to the adverts, you'll get a share of the revenue.
Well that's bound to encourage balanced and unbiased entries, isn't it?
Whatever next? The Oxford English Dictionary, sponsored by Red Bull? The Encyclopedia Britannica, in association with Domino's Pizza? The INQ running ads for... Oh, hang on... µ
Comments
gay article
i think your article shows how u guys r hipocrits. how many adds do u guys got.. a little more than google.. freakin adds everywhere.yet knol will succeed too
I do use wikipedia occasionally, and find it quite useful.However, I do believe Google's Knol initiative will (also) be succesfull because
- Google is behind it, therefore automatically a lot of visibility / free marketing (cfr. the Inquirer)
- the user interface is Google-simple.
- it is ego-centered,which in itself is not a good thing, but as a principle does work. People do strive for recognition, and they will get that on Knol, just because there is always 1 clear name behind each item who gets the credits.
This is arguably the biggest pro and simultaneously the biggest con, as it carries a significant risk of self-glorification / suspect sponsors or supporters / fraud.
This is also the case for wikipedia, but to a lesser degree, as articles there are typically the result of some form of collaboration / co-authoring.
Britanica printed in Chicago.
Experts have knowledge, yet explanation is often to SELL Something thru rube of terms doshed about.Like thinking britanica has something to do with ?Britian. Britanica too is put together by paneled experts. It just isn't from England. If Goggie followed Britanicas' lead, you need scientific explanation, childrens explanation & in depth, by special order, explanation. however, ALL New Explanations Ae Welcomed.
drashek
Fallacy
Your article makes the assumption that profits from ads, and repackages another’s product is evil. You also assume articles that are written with ads attached (profit motive) are unreliable. In my opinion, the goal of any business is to produce a profit, and ‘repackaging’ is a kind of innovation toward that goal. To automatically conclude it as evil is rather simplistic fallacy. Furthermore, are you being paid for this article? I can conclude base on your logic that if you profit from this writing, then this is a self-serving opinion and not to be trusted.This is great!
As a Wikipedia administrator and editor for 5 years, this is a great development. Wikipedia needs competition. We need real Wikipedia killers that can actually pose a threat.Wikipedia's "community" is a complete farce. Everyone expects people to be biased, but that the collaborative editing process will filter out all the bias and produce only pure, indisputable truth. In reality, groups of editors regularly abuse Wikipedia's policies to push their particular point of view into articles and spend 90% of their time trying to change the rules, rather than actually writing articles. The creation of "reliable source" guidelines and their ilk just takes away power from regular people and puts it in the hands of wikilawyers and POV pushers. You end up writing thousands of words of argument on a talk page in order to change 10 words of text in an article.
We need a Wikipedia killer to entice away good editors. Wikipedia needs to be forced to fix their policies or go the way of Friendster.
Knol sniff test: Global Warming
I will know if Knol is credible when I see what they write about global warming. Wikipedia has been completely taken over by global warming alarmist zealots. It will be interesting to see if Knol can provide balanced and objective info on this issue, including the mounting evidence that this problem simply doesn't exist.Finally, a home for the Everywhere Girl!
If you guys don't take this opportunity to shove a stick into Wikipedia's eye by creating a knol for the Everywhere Girl, I will be very disappointed.@ dont worry
The Inq makes no claim to being authoritative, which is why we love them. They can have all the ads they want.re: bernardP
"It will be interesting to see if Knol can provide balanced and objective info on this issue, including the mounting evidence that this problem simply doesn't exist."Provide balanced and objective info that global warming doesn't exist?!? I'm sorry, but those are mutually exclusive conditions.
Balanced and objective information on global warming WILL show:
a - global warming is happening
b - it is caused by human activity
c - it is a serious freaking problem of unprecedented scale.
I think Conservapedia would be more to your liking.
thank goodness...
They have the all-important 'Devil May Cry 4' Knol available.By resident expert 'Chewy' no less.
go google
maybe I can write a page about Drashek and make some money from his ramblings!Whoa...Global warming...
I'd excourage editors to direct into the trash can any discussions about GW.Simply because this is no ones business, not even Her Magesty of the country of TheInquirer, but of two dozen scientists developing supercomputer models of climate change.
I did not see drashek ever discussed that, hence he is not that dumb.
Well Knot!
The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical, are really extremely practical — so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese.You know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all. It is my business to know what other people don't know. What one man can invent another can discover. Perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand. What I know is unofficial; what he knows is official.
To be otherwise may represent a conflict of interests. No-man is killing me!