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Google's "Knol" Reinvents Wikipedia
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Fri Dec 14, 2007 08:31 AM
from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
teslatug writes "Google appears to be reinventing Wikipedia with their new product that they call knol (not yet publicly available). In an attempt to gather human knowledge, Google will accept articles from users who will be credited with the article by name. If they want, they can allow ads to appear alongside the content and they will be getting a share of the profits if that's the case. Other users will be allowed to rate, edit or comment on the articles. The content does not have to be exclusive to Google but no mention is made on any license for it. Is this a better model for free information gathering?"
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Google's Knol, Expert Wiki, Goes Live 263 comments
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.
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Guess the language! (Score:5, Funny)
Klingon?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Trying to promote a new catchword too. (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder how many knol's Slashdot is worth?
Re:Trying to promote a new catchword too. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Trying to promote a new catchword too. (Score:4, Interesting)
Knowledge is knowing that the FooStor hard drives and pieces of shit and you shouldn't use them.
Isn't that data as well? It's certainly an extrapolation of previously recorded data:
out of 500 FooStor hard drives there were 300 failures
While there are many arguments about intelligence, it would seem that knowledge would be properly defined as the accumulation of data. Whether bad data (incorrect knowledge, e.g. witches made of wood like ducks) counts as knowledge is a topic all its own ...
Webster's definition [m-w.com] does seem to back you up at least on its face, since although it includes "knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association" as well as an example of what you have above, "the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning," however, it also includes "the range of one's information or understanding" as well as "the sum of what is known : the body of truth, information, and principles acquired by humankind."
So according to some definitions of knowledge data would seem to be an equivalent, but others require the processing (understanding) of data (like in your example). Based on the article though Knols look like data to me...
Parent
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Typo? (Score:3, Informative)
This is so unlike Wikipedia (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that knowing the author could give more weight to the information of an article...I just don't understand how this is anything worth talking about or worth comparing to wikipedia.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Bingo. Sure, I can write an article, but there will likely be errors - no matter how informed I am on the topic. With peer review these can be mostly fixed*.
Now, if I can adjust the article based on reviews I receive, reviewers can basically be editors. That would be nice, and perhaps better to have a single point of control for each article. But how will 'legacy' pages be handled - for example, if I get hit by a bus
Re:This is so unlike Wikipedia (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe someone will gather all the information in the comments and create an article that ends up being better rated. That way, there is always a best article. The articles will take longer to correct than in a wiki model but then, it may be compensated by more reliable information, because more people are encouraged to write and the result is a more refined article.
If the model works like I think, there are going to be many articles on the same subject, but the highest rated, better reviewed articles should be on top. I would definitely would like to read more about their model. It should be opened, if they want it to work. I for one, would love to try to publish articles here.
Parent
Sounds like Helium.com? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is so unlike Wikipedia (Score:4, Insightful)
All they're basically proposing is that you write an article as best as you can and they host it,
If you look at the sample, you'll notice that they're going to allow readers to rate articles with 1-5 stars. They also say "Our job in Search Quality will be to rank the knols appropriately when they appear in Google search results. We are quite experienced with ranking web pages, and we feel confident that we will be up to the challenge." That is very different from just offering free web hosting, which would be a one-way mode of communication from the author (who is possibly a crackpot) to the reader.
giving you a tiny share of the revenue it generates.
Yeah, this is the key question, which they don't answer: how much of the revenue does the author get? If it's less than you'd get by hosting your own content and putting up adsense ads, then I think my motivation for participating would be very low.
So instead of watching edit wars and being able to check out multiple opinions you now have to take the whole article as it is.
In the article, they say they want to build a setup where there are competing articles on the same topic.
There might even be small errors in there that would otherwise have been fixed by peers.
If you look at the sample article, it has a byline, and the author's academic affiliation is given.
I just don't understand how this is anything worth talking about or worth comparing to wikipedia.
The real problem is that the barn-raising stage of wikipedia is over, the quality of wikipedia is no longer getting any better over time, and the structure of wikipedia is inappropriate for its current stage of development. That's why I, like many former hard-core wikipedians, have quit editing. Wikipedia has turned into a giant energy-wasting machine like the one in The Matrix. You have millions of people all over the world, all undoing each other's edits, while most articles remain at the same low level of quality. I'm a physicist, and when I look at a physics article on WP, I don't typically say "that's wrong," I say "that's so poorly written that I don't believe anyone could ever read it and follow what it's trying to explain." You can try till you're blue in the face to improve the quality of the writing on WP, and it just won't work, because your hard work will succumb to random, uncoordinated edits by well-intentioned people.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In the sample image they show the user is logged in to their Google Account. They also repeat several times the idea of 'highlighting the author.' Similarly, they talk about a revenue-share with writers. You can't send money to 'Anonymous Coward'. This doesn't sound like a one-time posting thing to me.
might be (Score:5, Interesting)
Google did this once before, in spite of what they say to the contrary, against Sourceforge. In that case, good though they are, Sourceforge was becoming quite unreliable for non paying users, and their service, while including many wonderful options, was unweildy to use.
Along came google with google code. It's a simpler service, nowhere near the features of sourceforge, but for sheer simplicity it's a joy. I wasn't alone in moving there.
Will I use knol? Well it might be just the place to place some articles derived from papers I've published, we shall see.
Remember the Webcomic Deletions? (Score:5, Interesting)
Knol claims to be open to all knowledge of entertainment so it's possible it could be seen as a safe haven for these fans & anyone who's been struck by the notability hammer. I could see them hopping on the wayback machine and just putting their words back into digital print
I never did see anything mentioned about the horror case of me writing my own autobiography as a knol. That wasn't addressed but I guess they'll flesh that stuff out. It'll be interesting to see where they draw the line and, like you said, who moves to the other model.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, yes, it would be.
Did you for instance know that one of the reasons so many copies of fifties and sixties comics and novella's are around is that shipping companies used to buy them in bulk and use them as ballast? They'd then sell them on when they arrived at their destination. Nowadays those very same comics are, as you kno
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, define what the scope of an encyclopedia is then? Should it only cover ground that Britannica, World Book, and Encarta have covered before? Because if so, then I'd take any of those professionally written, editor reviewed, and citable sources over Wikipedia any day.
Frankly, I think that imposing a limit on content for an encyclopedia is absolutely the wrong thing to do. I quote from Answers.com's defi
Domain squatter made millions (Score:3, Funny)
This could end badly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This could end badly... (Score:4, Insightful)
With an article assigned to a person for revenue-sharing, what about people throwing in their small corrections and elaborations? They're locked out of these small changes that are important to the end-result.
Wikipedia works around a whole mess of people throwing information at it with the expectation that correct information will sift up to the top over time as evidence appears to back up the information against unconfirmed noise. And when contested versions of information in close competition, the uninformed ought to have a reasonable opportunity to examine both and decide for themselves rather than a single viewpoint presenting a single side. The multiple sources of contributions are what distinguish wikipedia from all other encyclopedias. Knol is not really lining up against wikipedia's model, but with the classic encyclopedia model, but just situated online and ad-driven rather than printed and purchase-driven.
If they wanted to compete with wikipedia it seems like they'd get better results by just doing the same thing with a cleaner interface and google's hosting resources. The ad-word hits over time would still be plenty assuming they manage to build up a large enough "network effect"(wiki it;) ).
Parent
Rating Articles (Score:2, Informative)
about.com, not Wikipedia (Score:5, Insightful)
Will schools adopt it for research? (Score:3, Insightful)
This makes me wonder if highschool teachers will allow the use of this as a resource for school papers. Since most of the time schools forbid students from using wikipedia as a source for any information. Since this has the google name on it which is probably the number one thing they use for finding information for research, I wonder if this will be acceptable. Something makes me doubt it will but it would be nice if they were open to the idea of it.
Attribution is the key (Score:5, Insightful)
Being able to sort information by far better categories (not just an encyclopaedia) and enforcing attribution means the scrupulous among us will be able to publish data on the knowledge base and get the credit for it, and be able to be *congratulated or better yet, corrected* on it.
With Wikipedia, if you don't like what someone wrote, you delete it. You change it. You add insults. Then you can't use any of the data from Wikipedia anywhere else because it's GFDL. The information is *so* free the only place you can read it is ON Wikipedia, or has spidered Wikipedia and presented the data verbatim on another site.. if Google allows authors to select their license themselves (be it a CC variant, GFDL or a true copyright with a restrictive clause) then this will only draw people in.
There is something wrong about trying to free information by putting it under a restrictive, blanket license. Not all content can be licensed the same way. Wikipedia is high maintenance - looking for citations, constant review by editors, vandalism watches, locking, even selecting for the front page..
As for the advertising, even Wikipedia needs to earn it's keep. To be honest I really really object to trying to read an encyclopedia entry and being told that the WikiMedia conference is going to be on a certain date, taking up 1/4 of my screen at the top of the page, or that I need to donate to the cause. Fuck that. I want to turn that damn advert off. I don't care about it. But, it's essential to keep the site going. You can't complain about it, because without impressing it onto people that they need to pay for the upkeep of the service, they won't.
So, how is this any different to advertising using Google down the side? Well, it isn't. Google needs to make money by selling advertising and authors should be given the opportunity to earn money for all the effort they put in, because after all, spending a couple of days writing a 10 page article on something is an action most people would like to be paid for even just a little.
Re:Attribution is the key (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to borrow a phrase from religious fundies, but maybe the correct thing for Wikipedia to do is "teach the controversy".
The entry for John Nash should not read "He was homosexual" or "He was NOT homosexual", but rather "Nash's biography claims he was homosexual [cite provided], but this has been disputed by some [cite provided]."
Or even better, if consensus on the veracity of an item cannot be reached, simply DON'T PUBLISH IT.
Parent
Ad revenue for contributors? Bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, will we see a new form of "typo squatting", where people create articles with titles like "Slahsdot", linking to the correct article but again generating ad revenue? Meh. (Or worse, the typo page comes up like the real, incorrect slahsdot url with the words I loathe most on any web page "sponsored links", or "popular searches", and a bunch of link spam).
Brilliant (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes I think that Wikipedia and now Knol are just reinventing the World Wide Web. They're hosting pages that anybody can post and edit. Each page has some information and links to other pages. But they are providing at least one useful service, limiting which pages and changes are visible.
Wikipedia controls changes at the word level. Any nontrivial article is a compilation from many writers, some of which may be feuding over the content. This is like an open source software project where anybody can edit the source and you must rely on some benevolent wizards to keep the whole cohesive.
Knol controls changes at the article level and seems to be more like typical open source projects. Anybody can send changes to the maintainer who decides which make it into the mainstream release. Of course somebody could fork the project, but unless the fork is a real improvement over the original it won't attract attention.
Overall Wikipedia's model is probably faster and Knol's is more stable if Google can keep it organized. Knol would also have the big advantage of actually being citable.
Quick! Write a bunch of articles! (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone can (Score:4, Insightful)
At risk of stating the obvious, this won't get anywhere near as popular as Wikipedia because everyone can't edit any article (thereby keeping the articles up-to-date and reaching decisions by consensus so ensuring accuracy)--although I do suspect that Google will be able to develop a better interface--Wikimedia is in desperate need of developers to work on RFEs.
An on-line encyclopedia model where articles are owned has been tried many times before by the likes of ODP/DMoz spin-off, the Open Encyclopedia Project [open-site.org], and Slashdot spin-off, Everything2 [everything2.com]. In fact, nearly all the online encyclopedias [wikipedia.org] except Wikipedia have some kind of article ownership even if in some cases it isn't absolute (including Wikipedia predecessor, Nupedia, of course, which was abandoned when it was realised how successful the anyone-can-edit model they were trialing was).
Summary wrong - only author can edit (Score:3, Insightful)
This certainly sounds like a solution to the edit wars that plague WikiPedia (which is useful, but entirely unattractive to write for given how it is run. The visibility of competing knol articles will be determined by their usefulness as reflected by PageRank and would be saboteurs or self-promoters can only try to write a better (PageRank-ed) article - they can't corrupt someone elses work.
All it takes is microtransactions. (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, all we need is a "Google Bank" sort of thing, managing microtransactions for everyone on the planet with zero-fuss international transactions. Google actually has the power to handle this.
If they pull through with this add-powered thing it is likely they can move up against Wikipedia in terms of content amount. Add in comments, ratings and suggestions to knol and you have a semi-wikipedia sort of thing that even pays of for the effort of the authors. Not the worst idea if you think of it. It could very well work.
My 2 cents.
Fractally Recreating the Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmm. A globally distributed entity that lets you create pages full of information where you control your own content and can link to other people's stuff... There's an idea. But gee, it sounds so familiar. Where have I heard that idea before?
On the one hand, it looks like a simple land grab of the Internet. People are already doing precisely this thing--we call them web sites. But they aren't enough in Google's control, so one might argue this is a simple move to give them greater access and control and ownership of all the world's content.
On the other hand, there are some evolutionary inevitabilities of the net which go unresolved and this could be a bid at solving that--I'd say a step toward, but I'd like to see robust competition for the space, not a lemming-like dive for this as if it's all we're getting.
When the web originally came out, there was the hint of micropayments going to authors. That never happened. Portals figured out they could just charge for access and never let the money go to who it was accessing. This turned the economics of the web on its head because people invested money and time and energy in creating master works of all kinds, without being reimbursed in many cases. Some have figured out how to make businesses, but those are rarely content creators. The special skill of knowing something is not the same as the special skill of knowing how to build an enterprise web business. There are many, many writers and artists who make things that are useful yet don't know how to make enough money on it. So maybe this could help.
And there's the other thing: We're all aging. That means that the content producers will start to die, and their works, the things people depend on, will go away. Archive.org will rescue some of that, but in its present form, that's not a robust solution. This would at least address the survivability issue.
I would consider this at least something of a success not if Google gets a lot of content, but if good authors felt they could just sit down and create content and expect to be reimbursed for it in a way that fed their family, let them go on vacations, paid their medical bills, and allowed them to retire. If it's just dribs and drabs of pennies, it's doing nothing for society and everything for Google and it still doesn't solve anything.
Then again, there's a big risk that it will bias all writing toward an advertising model, making our world even more driven by "fashion" and less by "substance" than it already is. I'm not sure that's good.
And it's endowing a single entity with a lot of power over the world. I'd like to see other serious entrants in this space to keep the competition (if there can even be any) honest.
Right now it just sounds like the Internet all over again, but with Google's Terms of Service.
knol profit (Score:3, Insightful)
2. paste into knol
3. profit!
rinse and repeat
guess which page will rank higher in google?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1) This is worse than Wikipedia... how, exactly? One would think that ad revenue would be proportional to the relevancy and quality of the article content. The only question I have is who gets a cut of the money if someone makes a major revision to an article.
2) Can you absolutely quantify how much it costs you to visit a page with a Google ad banner? Wikipedia isn't free either - SOMEBODY has to pay for it. At some level everything needs to be paid for.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, because that's pretty much exactly how blogs work today.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing I don't totally agree with is the sentiment "competition of ideas is a good thing." For conversational, social and political topics this is certainly true,
Profiling hunny pot waiting for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia already exists. Wikis are also open source. Knol is reinventing the wheel to make a proprietary wiki for Goggle to then use to do targeted marketing on each article people look at. They then count the articles people are interested in. They also build up a profile of each and every poster, working out what they are interested in. They most likely will also be able to associate each article viewed, with all google searching from their main site via cookies etc. So they are going to be building up an even greater profile of all users of both google and knol.
So far I'm not seeing a good reason to want to use knol, but I'm seeing many reasons to stay away from knol. Each time I hear the Google "do no harm" PR idea, I'm reminded of the old saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Google is becoming Big Brother. Yet few people seem to be able to see its slowly happening.
I guess most people fail to see its happening, partly as its so many small steps towards that goal and they also fail to see how such detailed knowledge can be used to give ever more power to the ones with that knowledge. knol isn't going to be just an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. knol is going to be a hunny pot, waiting to profile each thing all of us are interested in.
I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying it, but as time goes on, I'm sadly becoming more convinced Big Brother is eventually inevitable. Few people can see its happening and no one is going to really stop what companies like Google are doing, as anyone in power wants the power Google is building for itself. They want a part of that power, so they will not stop it. They will do high profile things to make it look like they are controlling and limiting what companies like Google are doing, but in reality, they will not and cannot stop the extent of data mining that's growing year by year. Yet no one in power would really be stupid enough to want to really stop it growing, as its more power for anyone with access to the profiling data.
Parent
Re:"Free Information Gathering?" (Score:5, Insightful)
> guy is there, it isn't free anymore.
No, it's free, because you're not paying for it. Free newspapers are free, regardless of the fact that advertisers paid to have their ads inserted. Free parties are free regardless of the fact that someone paid for the records/PA etc. Your `ad based` distinction is meaningless. `The whole world` - that is, other people - try to profit from free stuff too. Is something `free` by your definition (god knows there are enough definitions of Free to keep us going for a while now) only involve benefactors with deep pockets funding a project indefinitely, at a loss? How many of those exist? Even there, you'd hardly be exempt from copyright infringement etc - it just wouldn't happen in an attempt to make a profit, but for kicks. There are no adds on Wikipedia but I've seen plenty of abuse there - lies, fake deaths, stupid pictures inserted into maths pages etc.
Hopefully information from Wikipedia will end up on Know as well as in many other places, so that different approaches to protecting facts and filtering nonsense can be tried.
Parent
Picking nits. (Score:3, Informative)
1. No charge; you don't have to pay any hard cash.
2. No cost; you bear no burden at all -- money, labor, or attention to ads.
Knol will have no charge, but it won't come at no cost.
Re:Picking nits. (Score:5, Insightful)
The last breath of air you inhaled? Cost you calories. The last book that some crazy person wrote, had self-published, and shipped to you for free without a single ad in it? You still have to read it, which costs you time (and calories, among other things).
Again - if you really want to go down that absurd path, give me an example of something that you get at no cost to you. Something that fits your definition of "free."
Parent
Re:"Free Information Gathering?" -Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:"Free Information Gathering?" -No (Score:5, Insightful)
"someone's wallet is definitely losing money when the only thing they were looking for in the first place was information."
YES. THE ADVERTISER IS SPENDING THIS MONEY... except they're generally not 'LOSING MONEY', as the purpose of advertising is to promote your product for less money than you will get back from the increased consumer base and sales as a result of the advertising.
The viewers don't pay. That's the point. I can go to this site once or 10000 times and it will not cost me a penny aside from my usual internet access fees. I DON'T PAY. It is a FREE SERVICE to the end user.
Advertising in -pedias is a contentious issue and I'm not sure I agree wholeheartedly with it, but for gods sake, stop spreading such bullshit which is entirely false.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
*head explodes with frustration at stupid comments*
More importantly, NOT OPEN (Score:5, Informative)
private organisations.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More importantly, NOT OPEN (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oops, someone may be in trouble... the image [flickr.com] on that page is CC licensed for "non-commercial" only.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Once it may carry a certain obscure topic, then decide it's too obscure and delete the page. If you're lucky, it may get pushed to a third party "more suited" to carrying such content. Problem is, if the page is deleted, then the link to the third party hosting the information can get lost. Even such things like trivia that might be fun to know get expunged as irrelevant in a "serious reference site". Other such thin