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> Google Knol is here!
thekohser
post Wed 23rd July 2008, 7:41pm
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I'm starting a thread outside of the "News" forum, since I think this is a very big topic, and it will be discussed for years to come.

My first impression is that Google Knol is awesome. Name verification is performed either through credit card or telephone directory look-up and call. All kinds of options for collaboration levels and licensing. Ability to make some ad revenues. Very flashy and easy-to-use interface. And social "ranking" of results, like Wikia Search. Look out, Jimbo, I smell toast burning!

This will easily beat Wikipedia Review (except for those editors looking for 100% lifetime advertising revenues), and it certainly stands a chance to do major damage to Wikipedia.

Give it a try, everyone, and let us know what are your first impressions.
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Milton Roe
post Wed 23rd July 2008, 8:16pm
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 12:41pm) *

My first impression is that Google Knol is awesome. Name verification is performed either through credit card or telephone directory look-up and call.


I will indeed. The first stuff that goes in from me (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/mad.gif) will be the expert stuff I know that Wikipedia fought me on. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/happy.gif) As pure revenge. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

The options for real-name verification give me a big case of the (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif). WP fought me on those also, for years. The main arguments being: (1) But what if somebody harrasses me? A. Well, what if they do? I'm sure there are some houses available with 1950's fallout shelters near them, (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/ph34r.gif) but I don't want to live that way myself. You have a million chances to be harrassed by your real name in your real life, assuming you ever leave your house. Which you may not.

The second argument was (2) "But this will be discriminatoooooory. inasmuch as those Third World kids with a web-enabled hand-cranked cellphone but no name in a phonebook and no credit card and no bank account, won't be able to eeeeeeeedit. (Whine). (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

Okay, can I see a show of hands from those who doubt that before long, these imaginary kids are tossed by the wayside, as Knol gains on WP? It never was about them. Like everything else about the power structure at WP, these kids served only as a convenient excuse.

On to the Grassy Knol! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: Wed 23rd July 2008, 8:17pm
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Rootology
post Wed 23rd July 2008, 9:12pm
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From looking at this, it's not an encyclopedia, or more of a directory that Wikipedia Review is. It seems to be almost a free web host for simple bits of information, how-tos, knowledge, and lore.

Totally different game...
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aeon
post Wed 23rd July 2008, 10:04pm
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Well, once Knol is able to stand on its own two feet, it will have a distinct advantage over Wikipedia in that Goggle will surely ensure a searcher goes to Knol over Wikipedia. And as Google is one of the primary access points of Wikipedia, this will probably have a noticeable influence on our readership.
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the fieryangel
post Wed 23rd July 2008, 10:34pm
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QUOTE(aeon @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 10:04pm) *

Well, once Knol is able to stand on its own two feet, it will have a distinct advantage over Wikipedia in that Goggle will surely ensure a searcher goes to Knol over Wikipedia. And as Google is one of the primary access points of Wikipedia, this will probably have a noticeable influence on our readership.


Wikipedia is over. Knol blows it away completely.

It's easy and with Google behind it, it's going to be unbeatable.

Check and mate. Sorry Jimbo, but this is it....
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JohnA
post Wed 23rd July 2008, 10:45pm
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I'm completely unimpressed by Google Knol.

One of the strengths of Wikipedia is the presentation via MediaWiki. Google have missed a trick by not presenting the Knols better.
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Pumpkin Muffins
post Wed 23rd July 2008, 10:48pm
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 12:41pm) *

I'm starting a thread outside of the "News" forum, since I think this is a very big topic, and it will be discussed for years to come.

My first impression is that Google Knol is awesome. Name verification is performed either through credit card or telephone directory look-up and call.


Hmm, I was able to start a Knol by logging in to my google account, even though it has no identifying information. I didn't try saving though.
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post Wed 23rd July 2008, 11:22pm
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QUOTE(Rootology @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 9:12pm) *

From looking at this, it's not an encyclopedia, or more of a directory that Wikipedia Review is. It seems to be almost a free web host for simple bits of information, how-tos, knowledge, and lore.

Totally different game...

If it's not an encyclopedia, it wont waste human overhead on trying to delete "fancruft"--which is ironically the thing Wikipedia is best at. Fans tend to collaborate and edit out of a pure love for the subject, not edit war. I guess fancruft authors will find a welcoming new home, along with Wikipedia's disenchanted experts.

Dropping the "encyclopedia" pretension could only be an asset, not a liability. Now we'll find out whether named experts really can beat pseudonymous mobs.

Even if it never displaces Wikipedia, Knol will put competitive pressure on the Wikipedia community to attract and retain the best editors (who are probably not fond of arguing with mindless sock puppets). I hope that happens, rather than Wikipedia folding into a fringe site for copyleft purists and non-Brandtian-anti-Googleans.

I think it's a good day for everyone here, except possibly Daniel Brandt.

This post has been edited by One: Wed 23rd July 2008, 11:32pm
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ThurstonHowell3rd
post Thu 24th July 2008, 1:16am
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But think of the administrators! What administrative work can the Wikipedian administrators do on Knol?
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Dzonatas
post Thu 24th July 2008, 1:40am
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I can see where this is going. Once experts, like doctors, get into the act on Knol, then all what Google has to do to make it totally awesome is to cross-reference between Google Health and the Google Knol experts.

It may be a puncture wound to Wikipedia, but it certainly takes a stab at and draws blood from the private government-subsidized health care agencies. Google is more interested in the health care aspect then the encyclopedia.

Oh look, shiny! -- Medpedia

This post has been edited by Dzonatas: Thu 24th July 2008, 1:47am
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Milton Roe
post Thu 24th July 2008, 2:23am
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QUOTE(ThurstonHowell3rd @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 6:16pm) *

But think of the administrators! What administrative work can the Wikipedian administrators do on Knol?

Heheheheheh. One expects a Department Chairman for a college within a university to be a subject matter expert (SME). If not the world's authority, at least somebody with a Ph.D. in the subject (or something closely related) and a decent CV. The idea that a generic "administrator" can administrate any kind of business went out a long time ago (I hope). Of course, the *&%$s keep creeping back. Keep them out and you get Project Apollo. Let them back in and you get the Challenger disaster where the engineers said "whoa" and the (by then) politicized NASA administrators said "go."

To the extent that business managers still creep into other enterprises, it's places where they are actually accountants of a kind, and the problems involve spreadsheets and money (which is what happened at NASA, of course, once the moon had been reached and NASA ceased to be a cost-plus run place). Which is fine, but that's not Knol's problem. There is very little place for that kind of a accounting person there, other than where they already work on infrastructure, for Google. What's the marginal cost of this kind of undertaking, if you're already Google and have half a million servers? My guess is that it's shockingly small, and what there is, is already handled by the Google and Adsense beancounters.

There might be some social wars on Knol, now that money and prestige is involved, over staking out "mining rights" to topics. I mean, do we give all the income to the first person to "stake out" the articles on the United States and Adolf Hitler? Perhaps administration of a kind will be necessary to resolve those wars. Some combination of credentials, work output/product, and first-come-first-dibs is going to have to be decided. I can't imagine that it has, yet. So this is not a simple problem. However, SME's are still going to be needed for every academic topic. And even for non academic topics, if money is involved. Of course, it may be hard to convince anybody that you're a world expert on James T. Kirk.

Even cruft may make money. This is even worse news for Wikia, where they have almost the Knol model already, but (as far as I can tell) abuse their contributors more than Knol will. Hehehehehe.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)
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ThurstonHowell3rd
post Thu 24th July 2008, 2:46am
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QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 7:23pm) *

QUOTE(ThurstonHowell3rd @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 6:16pm) *

But think of the administrators! What administrative work can the Wikipedian administrators do on Knol?

Heheheheheh. One expects a Department Chairman for a college within a university to be a subject matter expert (SME). If not the world's authority, at least somebody with a Ph.D. in the subject (or something closely related) and a decent CV. The idea that a generic "administrator" can administrate any kind of business went out a long time ago (I hope). Of course, the *&%$s keep creeping back. Keep them out and you get Project Apollo. Let them back in and you get the Challenger disaster where the engineers said "whoa" and the (by then) politicized NASA administrators said "go."

To the extent that business managers still creep into other enterprises, it's places where they are actually accountants of a kind, and the problems involve spreadsheets and money (which is what happened at NASA, of course, once the moon had been reached and NASA ceased to be a cost-plus run place). Which is fine, but that's not Knol's problem. There is very little place for that kind of a accounting person there, other than where they already work on infrastructure, for Google. What's the marginal cost of this kind of undertaking, if you're already Google and have half a million servers? My guess is that it's shockingly small, and what there is, is already handled by the Google and Adsense beancounters.

There might be some social wars on Knol, now that money and prestige is involved, over staking out "mining rights" to topics. I mean, do we give all the income to the first person to "stake out" the articles on the United States and Adolf Hitler? Perhaps administration of a kind will be necessary to resolve those wars. Some combination of credentials, work output/product, and first-come-first-dibs is going to have to be decided. I can't imagine that it has, yet. So this is not a simple problem. However, SME's are still going to be needed for every academic topic. And even for non academic topics, if money is involved. Of course, it may be hard to convince anybody that you're a world expert on James T. Kirk.

Even cruft may make money. This is even worse news for Wikia, where they have almost the Knol model already, but (as far as I can tell) abuse their contributors more than Knol will. Hehehehehe.

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/wink.gif)


It seems the creater of an article gets to control its content. If someone does not like that they are allowed to create another article on the identical topic. It is not clear that an administrator or a SME in such a system would have anything to do.

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Docknell
post Thu 24th July 2008, 2:55am
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QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 7:41pm) *

I'm starting a thread outside of the "News" forum, since I think this is a very big topic, and it will be discussed for years to come.

My first impression is that Google Knol is awesome. Name verification is performed either through credit card or telephone directory look-up and call. All kinds of options for collaboration levels and licensing. Ability to make some ad revenues. Very flashy and easy-to-use interface. And social "ranking" of results, like Wikia Search. Look out, Jimbo, I smell toast burning!

This will easily beat Wikipedia Review (except for those editors looking for 100% lifetime advertising revenues), and it certainly stands a chance to do major damage to Wikipedia.

Give it a try, everyone, and let us know what are your first impressions.



I like it already. It does seem to be much better geared towards accountability, expertise and knowledge.

If there are going to be fan parties and critic parties on Knol I imagine it will be easier for readers to determine who emphasizes what. I'm not sure how any fan can get around that. Perhaps by posing as a critic, getting critic votes, then changing the article to fandom?

If there are any cosmetic problems with it, they can be fixed easily.

Doc





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Milton Roe
post Thu 24th July 2008, 3:23am
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QUOTE(ThurstonHowell3rd @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 7:46pm) *

It seems the creater of an article gets to control its content. If someone does not like that they are allowed to create another article on the identical topic. It is not clear that an administrator or a SME in such a system would have anything to do.

Decide whose article comes up first on searches? Maybe it would be done with a Google link-vote method? Er, that's starting to feel like ArXive and PUBMED and history journal articles showing up on Google Scholar. We already have reviews for a lot of fields and subjects online, but there's no point in reinventing Google for Google. In particular, there's no point in using a Wiki-documents-like system if you're not going to have collaboration on writing. That's what Wikis are FOR. But if you do have collaboration, then you need to parcel out credit to many contributors, by fraction of verbiage or something. Not sure this has ever been done! Perhaps time for me to explore Citizendium to see if they've solved this. Anybody here know offhand what they do?

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: Thu 24th July 2008, 3:26am
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Rootology
post Thu 24th July 2008, 3:52am
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I believe on Citizendium you can edit any old thing but whatever they call their SMEs (I forget) get veto power if they think 'anyone' is wrong, and if that gets to a conflict the admins mediate it out somehow.

QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 7:23pm) *

Even cruft may make money. This is even worse news for Wikia


I think Wikia is in more trouble than Wikipedia/WMF because of Knol, to be honest. Knol is one person getting to totally own a given Wikipedia article. The fiscal aspect is where this will win over Wikia.

Do owners of Wikia wikis get a cut of the ad revenue? If the answer is no/not all, then Wikia is potentially fubar here.

I hope the few wikis I dig that moved over to Wikia are able to potentially pull out...
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Emperor
post Thu 24th July 2008, 4:01am
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Any bets on how long it's going to be "beta"? I call the year 2031.
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Docknell
post Thu 24th July 2008, 4:35am
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QUOTE(ThurstonHowell3rd @ Thu 24th July 2008, 1:16am) *

But think of the administrators! What administrative work can the Wikipedian administrators do on Knol?



Here are some of the policies.

http://knol.google.com/k/knol-help/content...i57lahl1w25/13#

FT2 will be so disappointed

I just hope they follow through on the policies properly

Doc

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thekohser
post Thu 24th July 2008, 5:19am
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QUOTE(Docknell @ Thu 24th July 2008, 12:35am) *

FT2 will be so disappointed


Users may not publish written, image, audio or video content that promotes pedophilia, incest and bestiality.

FT2 and Erik will probably go right ahead and publish, on the grounds that Google said "and", not "or".

(IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/happy.gif)

I am verified and publishing (mostly re-factored content from my old pre-blog-era newsletter, American Cynic). I'll keep everyone posted on my AdSense profits, which will need to be approved (may take 2 weeks). I figure an early set of about 20 articles should be a good test to see what's possible with this site, from a financial perspective.

Greg
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ThurstonHowell3rd
post Thu 24th July 2008, 5:29am
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QUOTE(Rootology @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 8:52pm) *

I believe on Citizendium you can edit any old thing but whatever they call their SMEs (I forget) get veto power if they think 'anyone' is wrong, and if that gets to a conflict the admins mediate it out somehow.

I have done some editing on Citizendium. SMEs can control content in any way they see fit. There really isn't any mediation the SME wins all disputes. The failing of Citizendium is that SMEs can still be socially dysfunctional jerks who want all articles to be written according to their POV.

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Milton Roe
post Thu 24th July 2008, 6:20am
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QUOTE(ThurstonHowell3rd @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 10:29pm) *

QUOTE(Rootology @ Wed 23rd July 2008, 8:52pm) *

I believe on Citizendium you can edit any old thing but whatever they call their SMEs (I forget) get veto power if they think 'anyone' is wrong, and if that gets to a conflict the admins mediate it out somehow.

I have done some editing on Citizendium. SMEs can control content in any way they see fit. There really isn't any mediation the SME wins all disputes. The failing of Citizendium is that SMEs can still be socially dysfunctional jerks who want all articles to be written according to their POV.

I've just been over to Knol. There are no SMEs but the creator of any Wiki there essentially owns it, and gets all the Adsense income that comes from it. Others can edit a draft version, but the original creator is God-King of their own Wiki and decides to promote any edits by others, or not. As for subjects, if you're the only creator of a Knol-Wiki on your subject, you're it. Others who want their own Wikis but don't want to edit on one "owned" by you, simply create their own with the same name. A Google-like vote scheme then votes on the best Knol-wikis with the same name, and puts the leading ones up front, on searches. And they get the ad bucks (you can flag any article you create for ads or no ads).

So you can predict (say) hundreds of versions of "United States" or "Adolf Hitler," all owed by the original startup authors of each of them, and all competing for ads on that subject. But right now, there aren't any! (no doubt this will change).

It's weird from the WP perspective, but we'll see how it works out. Incidentally a friend just told me tried to delete his profile from WP with a note to redirect to Knol, and was told automatically that this was disallowed because it was "destructive." (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) For sure.

So far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing to keep you from copying stuff out of Wikipedia to your own Wiki on Knol, and making Adsense money from it, as though it were Wikia. Of course, others will follow you, but this pretty much guarantees that anything on Wikipedia will eventually show up on privately "owned" version on Knol, making money for the owners of them and for Google. That can't be done for stuff on Wikia, which is under a different licence, but that stuff will be duplicated by "look and feel" articles with the same information and cites, but different locally-written personal language. It's the oldest form of plagiarism, and all reminds me a bit of college "original term paper" sellers. Expect to see this on an internet scale, by and by, now that there's some money in it for the articles' "owners," after they're hosted on Knol.

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: Thu 24th July 2008, 6:41am
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