[WikiEN-l] Knol goes live

[Ben Yates]

I kind of ripped Knol a new one on my blog, if anyone's interested:
http://www.enotes.com/blogs/wikipedia/2008-07/5-mistakes-google-made-with-knol/

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
> Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
>
>>> Cutting and pasting wikipedia content without following the terms of
>>> the GFDL is rather problematical.
>>>
>> At least he preserved the section entitled History...
>> http://knol.google.com/k/sheldon-rampton/-/8r9tdjdcsltq/2#H0-History
>
>
> I created my article with an "All rights reserved" license. Knol gives
> me two other Creative Commons optiions. Not being an expert on the
> Talmudic details of GFDL, I don't know whether any of these options is
> consistent with its terms.
>
> For me this is just an experiment so I can get a feel how Knol works.
> I don't have any desire to become a permanent maintainer of the
> Wikipedia article on Knol. The identified author of each article seems
> to be responsible for overseeing edits, and I don't have the time.
> Eventually I'll probably just delete the Wikipedia article.
>
> One thing I'm curious about is how Knol handles disputes and
> complaints. If someone here wants to try submitting a complaint about
> my "All reserved license" or about the accuracy of the article, I
> won't be offended. I'm wondering myself how Google would handle it.
>
> Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, if you search for Sheldon's Wikipedia article instead of
>> following the
>> link you won't find it. That is because, apparently, Google has not
>> made
>> most of the user added knol's publicly searchable. If you search for
>> your
>> own while logged in, you'll see it - but no one else will. At least
>> in the
>> early stages, it means a lot of people will create duplicate articles
>> unaware of what has already been written.
>
>
> Interesting. As Nathan pointed out, my Wikipedia article shows up in a
> search when I'm logged in, but not when I'm logged out.
>
> I'm usually very impressed with Google's offerings, but so far this
> one leaves me underwhelmed. In theory, the WYSIWYG editing should be
> nicer than Wikipedia's wikitext, which is a lot less user-friendly
> than its proponents imagine. In practice, however, WYSIWYG editing on
> a web browser tends to be buggy, and Knol doesn't seem to have solved
> that. And things get worse when it comes to collaborative features.
> Other users can submit proposed changes, but the only person who can
> see a proposed change is the article's owner (at least in "moderated
> collaboration" mode). When someone submits a change, Knol tries to
> show me a WYSIWYG version of the diff, which I find confusing rather
> than helpful. Someone else here pointed out that Knol looks more like
> Google's alternative to Geocities than like an alternative to
> Wikipedia. I'd second that emotion.
>
> -------------------------------------------
>
> SHELDON RAMPTON
> Research director, Center for Media & Democracy
> Center for Media & Democracy
> 520 University Avenue, Suite 227
> Madison, WI 53703
> phone: 608-260-9713
>
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-- 
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com