Rorschach Knols.

[reddragdiva]

• I told you so.

I am on holiday from Thursday evening until Wed Jan 2nd and on call the following week \o/

(I had 14 days' unused holiday. WHAT ON EARTH. When did I become the sort of person who forgets to take his holidays?)

If Google floated a trial balloon to see what ideas they could get everyone else to come up with for them, they've succeeded fabulously. It's a Rorschach blot the tech press sphere has spent the weekend projecting all its hopes and fears onto. Like Citizendium was this time last year.

One thing about the mockup graphic: the Creative Commons CC-by 3.0 logo. Remember that the point of Wikipedia is not in fact to run a hideously popular and expensive website, but to create a body of freely-reusable educational content. IF, I say IF, Google require Knols to be under a proper free content licence, that’ll be a big win for everyone, same as Citizendium is basically on the same side as Wikipedia. Making free content normal and expected. And I think we will go so far as to lend our good name to publicly saying very nice things about this exciting new source of free content. IF they do this.

And if they don’t, they’ll just be another about.com or Yahoo Answers. Or Google Answers. Remember Google Answers? I bet Google does.

If they allow multiple competing articles on a given subject, I'm not so sure that's a win for the reader. Fred Bauder's Wikinfo also does this and has almost no traction. I consider the Neutral Point Of View policy our most important innovation, far more so than letting anyone edit the site. The view from 20,000 feet, even if it's as worked out by editors at ground level. People don't come to an encyclopedia for ten articles, they come for one that provides an overview of the ten. That's what an encyclopedia is for: the ten-second or sixty-second or five-minute quick backgrounder.

Update: I am apparently the first person in the blagosphere with the initiative to find the Google Code page on Knol. Does anyone recognise this wikitext syntax?

Comments

[karen2205]

I have eight days untaken holiday that I'm going to get carried over to next year. Starting the year with 28 days leave feels much nicer than starting it with 20.

You've also got 13 weeks parental leave entitlement.

[txxxpxx.livejournal.com]

We missed you at the Christmas party on Sat night. It was the comment about no children that made you boycott, wasn't it. Had to be. If it wasn't for that I am sure you would have made the 48 hour $2500 round trip for it, surely.

:) Miss you.

[secretlondon.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the last ever bmovie I'm sure..

[seahorsemystic.livejournal.com]

While I am not a computer person, nor would I pretend to be one, I do know that my students now site Wikipedia all the time in their papers. The trouble is, these essays have to be checked sometimes for accuracy now. When they use about.com or another informative site, we, as Professors, have to know who wrote it and where the information came from directly. It is tough to do, I must say. But we try. I believe that essay/paper writing in colleges are becoming more and more plagiarism than ever before because Professors do not have the time to check EVERY student's essay. With Google Answers, it was the same thing. We, teacher, need some program, that will help us in catching student's copying their work from web sites. Google has that advanced option, but seriously, it doesn't work well for us.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, whether on topic or not. :P

[ajohnymous.livejournal.com]

I believe that essay/paper writing in colleges are becoming more and more plagiarism than ever...

You are thinking about it incorrectly -- it's not plagiarism; it's outsourcing or re-branding/re-marketing. Students are simply trying to master the skills that they will eventually make use of in the working world.

We, teacher, need some program, that will help us in catching student's copying their work from web sites.

Now this is just silly. If a program existed that could parse through a document and sort it all into its proper attributions, it would render the writer's obligation to do so completely obsolete. If the reader/reviewer can sort out attributions of ideas and phrases automatically and on-demand, why ever should the researcher/writer/compiler of information do so manually and pre-demand?

[seahorsemystic.livejournal.com]

I don't know?

Edit: And I really hate when I type stuff like this while drinking wine. I make all kinds of errors. Hey, maybe that's what my students do.

[reddragdiva]

And in further news, bad students (and yours have sounded particularly special) continue to be lazy. At least these days you have half a chance of catching them - I well remember writing punishment essays age 12 by finding a really badly written encyclopedia and plagiarising shamelessly. WITHOUT REFERENCES!

[seahorsemystic.livejournal.com]

hahahahaha

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

It didn't occur to me until about a year ago that Wikipedia's greatest contribution to education is to be a ubiquitously available plagiarism source with a really obviously stilted prose style...

[reddragdiva]

I try to write in Economist style - fabulously dense and terse, but still readable.