Google Knol: Move over Wikipedia?

Meet Knol, Google’s attempt to build a repository of knowledge:

“A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.”

The goal of the project (still invitation only) is to cover all topics, from encyclopedic topics to how-to-fix-it instructions.

The control over the article will remain with the author, who can also choose to display ads and get a substantial revenue share. Readers can rate a “knol”, comment on it, write a review and ask questions. The project is not fully collaborative, but it seems that others can edit the article if the primary author allows them to. Also, there will be competing knols on the same subject.

The license displayed in the screenshot is Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (I think the authors will have the liberty of selecting license for their articles). Even if it’s not licensed under a free content license, “Google will not ask for any exclusivity on any of this content and will make that content available to any other search engine.”

It’s too early to say, but the success of Knol may spell extinction for projects like Citizendium: most “experts” would prefer to retain sole authorship of their articles and get paid for it.

And of course, it may endanger Wikipedia as well. The best knol (as one in the screenshot) will certainly provide a more authoritative, more reliable source of knowledge than Wikipedia.

Citizendium License Essay

My two cents on why Citizendium should use a license that allows commercial use, and why the contributors should not be so paranoid about becoming a “feeder wiki”, in case Wikipedia starts using their content:

In favor of permitting commercial use

What Is This World Coming To?

In the good ol’ days, the term “hacker” was used to describe a brilliant technical expert. Then the mainstream media started using hacking as a synonym for security cracking (see Hacker definition controversy).

Apparently now the media has started (mis)using the term “hacker” to describe Wikipedia vandals as well:

• Chris Benoit and family not killed by hacker, say police
• Police rule out hacker as Benoit family killer

A response to “Is Wikipedia Polluting the Web?”

The Mutiny is a prolific Indian site, powered by a diverse group of bloggers who write on a variety of interesting topics. I regularly follow Mutineers’ blogs, especially that of Polite Indian. Recently, Swetha, one of the Mutineers, voiced her concerns about Wikipedia. Here’s a response:

how reliable or credible is wikipedia?

Wikipedia has an entire article devoted to the topic: Reliability of Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Replies to common objections is another useful read.

The word on Wikipedia is trust but verify, which is true with other internet sources as well. What people (especially the students) need to learn is how to use Wikipedia appropriately.

For those who are much concerned, there is Wikipedia Selection for schools, which consists of around 4600 topics and 24,000 images. The articles have been carefully chosen, tidied up, and checked for vandalism and suitability. One can also download the Wikipedia CD.

Thought it seems unlikely in near future, I also hope that the reviewed article version concept will take off with the article validation feature.

Wiki in the News: For all the wrong reasons

It’s true that Wikipedia has got some bad press in 2007, thanks to the Essjay controversy, Sinbad hoax and reliability issues.

But, it has not been in news for “all the wrong reasons”. For example, its coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy has drawn favorable reviews, a study revealed that more than one-third of the American Adults consult Wikipedia, and it was recently ranked No. 2 on the list of Top 10 global websites, next only to Google.

…Jimmy Wales stating that lying on Wikipedia is OK. (about Essjay controversy)

Wikipedia has also been accused of supporting terrorism

Both these statements come from Joel Leyden’s “Does Wikipedia Support Terrorism?“. Well, it’s not really surprising that Joel Leyden is not a great admirer of Wikipedia. After all, articles created by him on himself and his Israel “News Agency” were deleted from Wikipedia, and he was banned from editing.

The information presented by him about the Essjay controversy is half-baked. Jimmy Wales initially accepted Essjay’s apology and stated that the matter was settled. Later, Essjay was asked to resign. Jimbo made it clear that his past support of EssJay was fully based on a lack of knowledge about the whole issue — he was in a remote part of India with little or no internet access. When asked in an interview with TIME, “Why did you remove Ryan Jordan…“, Jimbo stated that “The community of Wikipedia is still very much built on trust. A violation of that trust is a very serious matter. It’s a sad scenario.“

As about Joel Leyden’s claims of Wikipedia supporting terrorism, they are too ridiculous for me to waste my time on refuting them. It shouldn’t take much time for an intelligent person to realize that this is plain anti-Wikipedia FUD at its best.

Ironically, while Leyden accuses Wikipedia of being anti-Semitic, some of Wikipedia’s critics have labeled it as Zionist-dominated and have claimed that the Jews have have “taken over Wikipedia to a certain extent” (which is again, FUD).

Wikipedia has been banned as a citation source by all major American Universities…

That’s fair enough. Wikipedia itself asks people not to quote it as a source — it encourages people to go through references and sources provided in a Wikipedia article and cite them instead. Wikipedia is not a source, it’s an aggregate of knowledge from other sources. It’s supposed to be used as a tool to get background knowledge about a topic, not as a source for some research paper.

Here’s a quote from Jimmy Wales: “I would agree with your teachers that that (using Wikipedia as a source) isn’t the right way to use Wikipedia. The site is a wonderful starting point for research. But it’s only a starting point because there’s always a chance that there’s something wrong, and you should check your sources if you are writing a paper.“

While several professors are against the use of Wikipedia as a citation source, they agree that it’s a useful resource. Several academics have openly supported Wikipedia; here are two recent articles: “How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wiki(pedia)” by Christopher Miller, “How Academics Can Stop Worrying and Learn to Love “the Encyclopedia that Anyone Can Edit”” by Daniel Paul O’Donnell.

In fact, several professors and teachers encourage students to use and even edit Wikipedia articles as part of their academic projects. For eg., Postgraduates at the University of East Anglia were assessed with Wikipedia. There are several other examples as well. Several professors themselves edit Wikipedia — Dr. Martin Walker, the professor who worked on the CD Version of Wikipedia, is a good example.

Sure, there are several issues with Wikipedia that critics can chew on, but there are plenty of things that make Wikipedia a great resource. It is accessible, gets updated at a great speed, covers topics ranging from Los Angeles to Jhumri Talaiya, and the content is licensed under GFDL, which means people can freely re-use it, including for commercial purposes.

P.S. There also seems to be some misunderstanding on the Mutineers’ part; they assumed that Jack’s comment was threatening. Folks, he wasn’t threatening you; he was just responding to the comment that if an article is created by an admin, nobody else can do anything about it. What he meant to say was, if another admin creates an article against our policies, he will delete it in accordance with WP:WEB and WP:CSD.

Wikipedia among the top global websites

The 2007 Web Globalization Report Card has been published. The report, now in its fourth edition, rates “how successfully companies develop web sites for international markets”.

Wikipedia is No. 2 on the list of Top 10 global websites, next only to Google.

Wikipedia Time Lapse - VT Massacre

YouTube user fitzbuhnwallow has uploaded a video showing a time lapse of the first 12 hours of the Wikipedia article on the Virginia Tech massacre.

Why I don’t contribute to Wikipedias in Indian languages

In an interview with The Times of India, Jimmy Wales notes that the most important growth in Wikipedia is in the non-English versions.

Last year, Jimbo had stated that the volunteer contributions to the Kannada Wikipedia had been growing 22% and Bengali Wikipedia 35% a month. However, the Wikipedias in Indian languages still have very low ratio “number of articles/number of speakers” ratio. Some have even suggested that financial help may boost these Wikipedias.

Although I am capable of writing articles in at least two Indian languages (mr, hi), I don’t feel like contributing to these Indian-language Wikipedias, primarily because I believe that very few people read them.

Now-a-days, knowledge of English is becoming synonymous with Education, at least in urban India. More and more literate Indians can read, understand and write English today (In fact, it is widely believed that India has the largest number of English speakers in the World). Almost all of the internet users in India have knowledge of English and they primarily surf English-language sites.

Not that I’ve any dislike towards Indian languages (I’ve been involved with translation of FCKEditor, Moodle and Ubuntu), but when you feel that your efforts will go in vain, you just don’t feel like contributing. The large number of English Wikipedia readers motivate me to put my energy into writing good articles. This motivation doesn’t exist for contributing to the Indian-language Wikipedias.

Commons Picture of the Year 2006 Results

The competition is now over, and the results are out.

The winner is a photograph taken by Senior Airman Joshua Strang, “The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, shines above Bear Lake, Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.“

This image is originally from Air Force Link. The picture is in public domain, since it is work of a U.S. Air Force Airman or employee, taken or made during the course of the person’s official duties.

WikiChix set up

There are very few female Wikipedia admins, bureaucrats and ArbCom members. A recent thread on the English Wikipedia started a discussion about systemic gender bias against women.

Subsequently, WikiChix was set up. It is a wiki and mailing list for female wiki editors to “discuss issues of gender bias in wikis, to promote wikis to potential female editors, and for general discussion of wikis in a friendly female-only environment”.

WikiChix is inspired by (and named after) LinuxChix. LinuxChix, founded in 1999, is a community for women “who like Linux, and for women and men who want to support women in computing”. There are LinuxChix Los Angeles, LinuxChix India, and LinuxChix Brasil as well.

Incidentally, WikiChix and LinuxChix are not the only of their kind. KDE Women aims to build a community of female KDE contributors and users. Debian Women, Ubuntu Women and PHPWomen aim to provide an opportunity for women who want to be involved in the the respective communities. GNOME also is also encouraging more women to join the GNOME development community through its Women’s Summer Outreach Program.

Some recent studies such as the Flosspols report (2006) and the The Ubuntu Census Survey (June 2006) show that the number of women participating in open projects is very discouraging. This, inspite of the fact that it’s four years since Val Henson’s HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux was first published.

Will WikiChix and similar projects make any difference? Let’s hope for the best…