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Google-Wikipedia Smackdown
So you may have heard that Google is preparing a competitor to Wikipedia called Knol. It seems like a good idea and I hope it succeeds. Knol will differ from Wikipedia in that single authors contribute articles, and then share in any advertising revenue that their content generates. Therefore, many articles might be contributed to cover a single topic. Presumably, there would be some kind of user-rating or popularity ranking so that, say, a respected meteorologist’s article on “Tropical Storm” could appear above or more prominently than an eight-year-old’s on the same topic.
Wikipedia articles work great for many subjects, particularly areas on which there is little controversy over underlying assumptions or key facts (e.g. here or here). On such topics it tends to be quite reliable and offer a lot of good information, despite the bad rap it gets. (Although, caveat emptor, of course, considering its open-editing model.) But on some biographical, historical, or political topics, it tends towards outright bias, on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other-hand hemming and hawing, or disjointed articles that employ separate sections on advocacy and criticism. These articles can also suffer from behind-the-scenes hot tempers, fragile egos and nasty arguments which probably deter knowledgeable potential editors from attempting to contribute.
Hopefully, Knol will offer a good alternative for subjects that don’t lend themselves to creation-by-committee. For such articles the Knol model seems superior in that authors can offer interesting, idiosyncratic and coherent articles, from a particular point of view–think Paul Johnson or Howard Zinn versus World Book Encyclopedia. And Wikipedia clearly needs competitors, considering some recent problems with its elite, secretive clique of paranoid super-editors.
