[WikiEN-l] Knol product manager suggests it as a source for Wikipedia

[Carl Beckhorn]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 11:47:48AM +0100, David Gerard wrote:
> Which makes some sense - a signed article by an expert in a field is a
> good source, and Knol is a handy place for it.

We need to treat Knol the same as any other self-published, 
non-peer-reviewed source. The use of these sources has to be as minimal 
as possible, even if the sources are written by experts in the field.  
Some of the sources will be fine, but a significant number will be full 
of idiosyncratic opinions and interpretations that the experts would 
never be able to publish in a respectable journal.  Any forum that lacks 
editorial review will attract a disproportionate number of fringe views.

I find I am spending more and more time lately explaining the idea of 
"due weight" for novel theories without broad support in the research 
community.

 - Carl