Whatever this does with Wikipedia is unclear as of yet, but this clearly is the death blow to Citizendium.
David Gerard
· 2 years ago
The PNG example (http://www.google.com/images/blogs/knol_lg.png) shows a CC-by-3.0 tag. As far as I'm concerned as a Wikipedian, that's a BIG WIN for Wikipedia and what we do - making free content *normal and expected*. If they require contributions to be under a proper free content licence, then I'm a BIG FAN of this endeavour. I've already suggested on foundation-l that if Google commits to a proper free content licence for all Knol content, that WMF should publicly encourage the move.
Same reason Citizendium succeeding would be a big win for what we do - it's not competition, it's expanding the pool of unencumbered knowledge.
If they allow multiple competing articles on a given subject, I'm not so sure that's a win for the reader. There's a Wikipedia fork called Wikinfo.org (run by Fred Bauder, a highly respected Wikipedian who's been on the site since it was called wikipedia.com) which also does this and has almost no traction. I think the Neutral Point Of View policy - as difficult as it is in practice - is our most important innovation, far more so than letting anyone edit the site. 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. (I'm speaking here in terms of ideals of encyclopedia writing, and am painfully aware of how often we fail to reach it, but that is the compass we work to.)
George
· 2 years ago
Google is the new devil of the software industry. This is clearly just more google hegemony. Whatever happened to 'Don't be evil'?
em
· 2 years ago
-ยป"Don't diss evil..."
Mathan
· 1 year ago
It's a good idea that is very usefull for all...........
All Comments
Same reason Citizendium succeeding would be a big win for what we do - it's not competition, it's expanding the pool of unencumbered knowledge.
If they allow multiple competing articles on a given subject, I'm not so sure that's a win for the reader. There's a Wikipedia fork called Wikinfo.org (run by Fred Bauder, a highly respected Wikipedian who's been on the site since it was called wikipedia.com) which also does this and has almost no traction. I think the Neutral Point Of View policy - as difficult as it is in practice - is our most important innovation, far more so than letting anyone edit the site. 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. (I'm speaking here in terms of ideals of encyclopedia writing, and am painfully aware of how often we fail to reach it, but that is the compass we work to.)