News Google launches Knol

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07/24/google-launches-knol/1

Google has announced the launch of Knol, a new Wikipedia-style site aimed at allowing those knowledgeable on a topic to create informative pages and collaborate on others.

 

What happens if a biased person creates a page and does not let others edits to go through?

 

So instead of reading one page, you read.....2000 like a forum
I can see the topic tree now:

-The War in Iraq is just
-No it isnt
-yes it is
-Its spelled Irak
-Back to topic: no it isn't
-New spelling according to link
-why talk about spelling and not about just wars
-unjust wars

and so on and so on

 

tbh, i've never found any bad info on wikipedia so far, after using it for 4 years or so. Its great if ytou use it for very factual stuff like say the French revolution or the works of Ptolemy, and i think it only gets silly on recent event stuff, for which i use news web sites for instead.

 

^ Agreed (with Xir). Which article would get precedence?? The one that is updated most often, the one with the most images, the one that most conforms to style guidelines (i.e. most featurable)???

I really can't see how this is going to work. Look at the front page right now... Who the hell is "Ryan Moulton" and why would I want HIS opinion on backpacking?? Just because he writes neat articles and (presumably) shouts the loudest, doesn't mean he know sanything at all.

I think the point of Wikipedia was that by virtue of having multiple authors, articles would tend towards a neutral POV over time.

 

Presumably the article which plays nicest with googles search engine will get priority since it'll pop up higher in the page rankings. Just a guess.

 

People have tried this before. When your featured article is "How to Backpack," and it comes up right next to two articles on Gastrointestinal Bleeding, you know no one is going to be coming to that page regularly. They might end up with a few hundred very specific and unrelated articles, but no one will ever just browse the site. You might hit it on a google search, but otherwise no one will be reading this stuff.

 

LOL type knol into google. What do you get? First news results then Knol- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I have to echo Xir and Zut. Wiki's bias problem was much more pervasive before the Wikipedia Scanner. Take a look at this debacle:

http://www.mister-info.com/?cmd=displaystory&story_id=10545&format=html

It's not like the bias problem on Wiki isn't there anymore. But if Wiki were set up like Knol, a mess like the CAMERA+DOJ mess would result in (at least) one pro-Israel page, (at least) one pro-Palestine page, and (maybe) one accurate page. And take a wild guess which page would get the least popular preference. As it stands, it will inevitably end up (as Xir noted) like a forum board - a different article for every viewpoint, including the ones that are in no way based on fact.

If Google had some way of making sure that authoritative, reasonably neutral sources were in charge of creating and maintaining their articles, then maybe it would result in a credible source of information. But they don't. And they can't.

- Diosjenin -

 

"Who needs a search engine? Ctrl+F"

...

 

Eh, what the hell, who honestly compared a search engine to a page search feature lol, I'll tell you who, somone who dosnt deserve to be a Bit-Tech member.

 

Be careful and you can make it look like you never opened the thing at all. I have done it with many things, and sometimes even got refunds for them.

 

Anyone 'deserves' to be a Bit-Tech member. Elitism isn't welcome..

 

Besides, I'm sure the Ctrl-F comment was meant to be a joke. At least I interpreted it that way.

 

I ed

Annyway, i have to agree. What i find strange is that Google doesn't seem to adress these issues. Normally they are very careful and complete in these things, and surely they must have thought of this.

 

Says someone who only recently joined...

PLUS, he was quoting the Knol page itself.

You know, most Bit-Tech members comment about the topic the thread is about. All you did was criticize someone else's comment. Tsk tsk.

Oh, okay, so you open things, use them, and then return them under false pretenses? Thanks for volunteering that random bit of info.

ANYWAYS, the "knols" that have already been written are about such random topics. A lot of Knols also seem to be advertisements in disguise - talking about topics or services that the authors just happen to provide.