[Foundation-l] Knol: on the bright side of things...

[Brian McNeil]

Many of Google's ventures should probably be used as textbook examples of
how to make it online. Make a service that is simple, fast, and something
people will grow to rely on, then worry about monetising it without
offending people. With so many sites having flashing, dancing,
"punch-the-monkey" advertising their Adsense program was a welcome relief to
so many surfers. Admittedly, I can't remember the last time I clicked on an
adsense link, in fact its quite probable that it was one of the tiny
percentage that offend me and I wanted to waste the advertiser's money.

Knol isn't a blog, but it certainly isn't an encyclopedia. Virtually every
entry I've read has been a single person relating their experience(s) or
knowledge in a very informal and - in many cases - folksy manner. Links for
further reading or citeable sources are nonexistent; there is no policing of
image sourcing to prevent copyright violation, and you're looking at a page
that is decorated with advertising.

To perhaps be overly cynical:
Wikimedia works to freely share information and knowledge with as many
people as possible.
Google Knol works to monetise opinions and observations from any sap that
can be convinced to contribute.

Knol, the Geocities of the 21st century.


Brian McNeil

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mike Godwin
Sent: 30 July 2008 14:29
To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Knol: on the bright side of things...


Massimiliano writes:

> I still don't understand why we should reject the copyleft  
> philosophy and
> change to an attribution  license. I think that our mission is not  
> only to
> provide free information and knowledge, but also to be sure that it  
> will be
> kept free.
> I don't think that we should change our licensing policies in order  
> to be
> published on Google Knol: why we should do it? If Knols wants to  
> allow its
> users to publish Wikipedia-derivative content they should change their
> terms, IMHO.

FWIW, this is my view as well.  I'm disappointed with Knol's licensing  
options, which strike me as far too conservative.


--Mike




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