Dave, knol seems like a dumb idea to me. Wikipedia's coolest feature is its breadth. Being able to look up almost anything and see some information on it is really neat. I once read a reference to an English "shoegazer" band and while I had heard the term before I didn't know what it meant. There was a great article in Wikipedia on that subject, along with links to bands that fit the category--including the one I had heard labeled with that term.

You won't find that in Brittanica, or, I would bet, in knol (how much ad revenue would that entry generate?).

But for me, at that moment, it was what I needed. And for the authors, it had meaning too--their little slice of knowledge helped one reader be a little less ignorant.

regards, John

Dave,

I'm really enjoying going through the reading list (especially enjoyed Re-inventing the Sacred) and am being challenged regularly on how to replace a deterministic approach to strategy with one based on probing and safe-fail within large commercial enterprises. Great fun.

Thought you might be interested in listening to this podcast on emergence http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2008/07/15/emergence/
Radiolab often take on intriguing and complex issues and communicate them in an engaging manner (think old style Radio 4 plays). This particular broadcast doesn't plunge into too much detail but does provide a reasonable introduction to the topic.

Indeed. Plus that the status of a 'knol' - and with that its ranking in search lists, i.e. its findability – will get determined by popularity. I've really starting to worry about this. On the internet, the process that gets information to surface for ordinary users is starting to resemble an idols conquest. (I'm talking about ordinary users, not about information professionals i.e. librarians whose profession is totally underrated these days as 'anyone can Google, right?') The more popular a bit of information, the more findable; the more findable, the more linked to and quoted; the more linked and quoted, the 'truer' because everyone agrees on its merit and anyway there's nothing to compare it to. And so on. If there had been internet when Copernicus lived and worked, he would have been at the bottom of millions of articles and posts repeating over and over again that the earth is at the center of the universe and that the sun and the (other) planets orbit around the earth. A depressing thought. Even current research by scientists – who are not information professionals, but who should know the ropes of research – appears to become shallower because of googling and following hyperlinks. That's at least the conclusion of James Evans, working at the Sociology Department of the University of Chicago, who recently published Electronic Publication and the Narrowing of Science and Scholarship in Science Magazine (issue of July/August 2008). Scientists have more and more online sources at their virtual fingertips or rather mousebuttons. Nevertheless they quote less sources, limit their quotes more and more to recent sources, and more often quote sources that their peers quote as well. As he puts it in his abstract (I take it he wrote this himself, not some anonimous editor...): “Searching online is more efficient and following hyperlinks quickly puts researchers in touch with prevailing opinion, but this may accelerate consensus and narrow the range of findings and ideas built upon”.

As to the term 'knol': I find it both evasive, ugly and, well, quite funny. Evasive because Google uses this term to refer to something we have known for ages: articles written about subjects by all kinds of people. Ugly because the sound in itself is dull and because the word also resembles words like dull and gall (I'm sure there are many more). And funny because of the Dutch meaning of the word. A 'knol' to Dutch people means 'turnip'. We have a Dutch saying about selling turnips for lemons ('knollen voor citroenen verkopen'; a lemon is a citoen), meaning that someone sells something of little value while pretending it has a lot of value, and at the same time implying that the unfortunate buyer bought nothing for something. This saying seems to at least merit an evaluation in the light of the new turnip-concept of Google.

Yes, I was hoping to see your reaction. The Library world over here has been cock a hoop with items in the last 24 hours, but seriously, is this really a viable option?

A quick comparison of two wine entries ("kosher wine" which is an interesting subject in itself) reveals a great deal to me... Ok, the guy has only just put up a first cut, but if he was any good he would have got involved in the discussion on wikipedia (I can not see any tell tale signs there) and I do NOT want to be pushed to an ad for some kosher wine, no thanks.

Following your comments last week, I have decided to perhaps start some pages on wikipedia myself. Not because I want to jump up the editorial hierarchy (so far most of my corrections on various wine pages have stayed the course of time), but because there are some aspects of the wine business that get passed by in mainstream publications.

We finally have approval here to load MediaWiki, but engineers are still inherently conservative people (funny my seventh year school class was split almost 50/50 between those who went off to engineering school and the rest of us who headed to the Arts faculty) and although the young folk are using wikipedia every day, the oldies still do not get it.

As I say to my kids, however, authoritative is still handy in some situations viz. the CIA World Factbook, which has to be one of the best school project resources ANYWHERE on the net.

Cheers
Paul