Google Knol Now Open to the Public

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Google Knol Now Open to the Public

Post by trog @ 08:00am 24/07/08 | 22 Comments

The official Google blog has announced that Google Knol is now open to the public at http://knol.google.com/.

The web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the web. An enormous amount of information resides in people's heads: millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone.

The key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It's their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good.

I am very excited by this service; if you think of it as a version of Wikipedia that you can trust, the benefits are immediately obvious. With the might of Google behind it, it's fairly likely going places.

Tags: google / knol

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Martz
Posted 10:24am 24/7/08

how do you know you can trust it?? are there professors with phd's and the like that moderate knol?

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thermite
Posted 10:43am 24/7/08

I read earlier that the emphasis of Knoll will be on the authors. People who work in industries related to the topic they are writing about. In return, the company they work for gets a plug in the article, etc...

Unfortunately I have worked with many people who have no training, skill, or credible knowledge, but have expert written on their business card and website, and all their business partners believe them.

last edited by thermite at 10:43:40 24/Jul/08

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Obes
Posted 10:55am 24/7/08

Author's have the option to allow advertising. They recieve a cut of the advertising.

And you'll probably only get hits if your article is quality.

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trog
Posted 11:00am 24/7/08

how do you know you can trust it?? are there professors with phd's and the like that moderate knol?

Yes, basically. You can look at the references for the the article authors and know that they have at least approved, if not written everything, on an article page.

The only thing missing that I'm aware of is some sort of certification/digital signature system thing - so you can look at an article by (say) Professor John Smith from the University of Queensland, and then verify that signature digitally on (say) UQs staff page for him. Maybe it has this feature already but if not I hope its coming!@#

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natslovR
Posted 01:07pm 24/7/08

are google the gatekeeper on certification of author credentials? I can already imagine the claims of bias, based on the kerfuffle over the selection process for google news sources.

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Midda
Posted 01:50pm 24/7/08

Search Results:
No results found for dinosaurs

Search Results:
No results found for transformers

Search Results:
No results found for star wars

So far, I like Wiki better.

In all seriousness though, I hope it does grow in popularity. A reliable version of Wikipedia would be rad.

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thermite
Posted 01:51pm 24/7/08

google does seem rather biased, I remember reading something like you have to maintain a minimum spend of $10,000 on google ad campaigns just to even get the right to sit the google professional exam, or whatever it is. Pretty sad for me since I work with old sales people who hold the qualification, and I have to teach them how to use google adwords :(

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Carson
Posted 02:46pm 24/7/08

http://knol.google.com/k/the-family-handyman-magazine/toilet-clogs/24fnzmhl3vkiz/11#

Definatly has Wikipedia beat now.

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reload!
Posted 05:45pm 24/7/08

wadda ya mean wikipedia isn't reliable!?

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B.Hardball
Posted 06:51pm 24/7/08

Yes, basically. You can look at the references for the the article authors and know that they have at least approved, if not written everything, on an article page.

I think this potential for harm unless references for the facts are still cited like they are on Wikipedia. Professionals' opinions are still just opinions and might often not be any more reliable than the average Joe blogger. Obviously there are some exceptions, but as mentioned, it sounds like this is just the door opening for some really bias and opinionated internet facts.

I can also see problems occurring with staff members of certain universities/institutions who post stuff, using their positions as a source of credibility, without actually having approval to engage with the public. What I mean is, every time you see an academic on the news, I'm sure they are meant to have approval from the uni's PR department to say whatever it is they're saying...

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trog
Posted 04:33am 25/7/08

are google the gatekeeper on certification of author credentials?

If you mean, do Google certify that the person writing the article is who they say they are - then they do, sort of.

If we look at this article on type 1 diabetes, we see the author, one Anne Peters, is listed as "Verified", and her page has a bunch more information about her.

Now the "verified" tag is basically just to make sure the name of the person matches their "real" name as determined by the processes outlined in the name verification faq- basically they can check it against a credit card, or check it against a phone number database.

So it's not reaaaaaaaaaally that awesome. Some random jerk sharing the name of someone could, it seems, exploit the system fairly easily.

It is crying out for some sort of digital signature thing.

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Obes
Posted 07:51am 25/7/08

Its a step in the right direction.

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natslovR
Posted 08:13am 25/7/08

that is not what I meant, I thought that authors credentials were being verified and google was saying that you trog are sufficiently qualified and recognised within the gaming community to write the article on running a lan. I was worried about bias there in the vetting process, but it is not that from the sound of things, it is just that you have proven that you are trog, if you want to author the article on seducing goats, you may, google don't care.

it doesn't seem any more reliable than wiki, except that someone will be officially responsible for that version of the topic, but that author could very well have an agenda, such as being an ID'r writing the evolution topic. google is not policing that and as long as they have professor of somesuch university in their details they will initially appear credible.

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Obes
Posted 08:21am 25/7/08

And so it will get shit house reviews by peers.

It's essentially a journal collection, peer review will be important.

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trog
Posted 08:55am 25/7/08

google is not policing that and as long as they have professor of somesuch university in their details they will initially appear credible.

Yep, that's right - and what Obes said, the idea is that if some university prof. with an agenda publishes some rubbish, others will (hopefully) publish a "better" version of the article. Optimally it should be a self-correcting/healing mechanism; if a bunch of professors all from University X start publishing bullshit, that university's reputation will suffer immensely and they'll either start getting ignored and disrespected in academia (presumably causing enrolments and thus revenue to suffer), or start getting rid of all those douchebags giving them a bad name. Or at least, that's what I hope would happen; maybe not though.

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Jim
Posted 09:00am 25/7/08

I'm not interested at all in blindly trusting google

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Obes
Posted 09:04am 25/7/08

But you'll blindly follow stinky into a gully for 6 cocks in the ear ?

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Jim
Posted 09:08am 25/7/08

obes do I really have to explain why following stinky for cocks is never blind?

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trog
Posted 11:17am 25/7/08

I'm not interested at all in blindly trusting google

You're not really trusting Google at all, other than to verify the author's identity, which they're not really doing anyway. Most of the trust is on the person that wrote the article actually having the credentials they say they do, which - unfortunately - doesn't reallllly look like it's being verified yet.

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Hogfather
Posted 05:12pm 25/7/08

Ahaha!

Ari Green
Verified
Neurologist/MS Specialist
San Francisco

What Causes MS?
MS is a genetic disease

Sucked in Raven, Google says so

last edited by Hogfather at 17:12:01 25/Jul/08

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Jim
Posted 05:36pm 25/7/08

ok, well blindly trusting whoever. I was responding specifically to:

if you think of it as a version of Wikipedia that you can trust

I think it's dangerous to blindly trust any single source of information without cross checking it. especially if it's controlled by an organisation like google

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Obes
Posted 05:46pm 25/7/08

Jim has a perpetual motion generator in the works ... to hell with google

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