Knol, the Google Free Encyclopedia on the Web
Google has opened a new free encyclopedia “Knol” (abbreviation of Knowledge). It has certain advantages over Wikipedia, with which it will compete: 1) articles are published under their authors’ names; 2) authors have the option to exclude any changes by readers, allow changes which must be approved by the author, or allow any changes; 3) articles can be reviewed; 4) articles on the same topic by different authors are accepted; 5) it is possible to write comments on articles.
I published an article (in German) on Meeresparasiten (marine parasites) in Knol. Have a look:
http://knol.google.com/k/klaus-rohde/meeresparasiten-wirtschaftliche-und/xk923bc3gp4/2#
November 29th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I strongly support Google knole. There are many advantages in comparison to Wikipedia
Wikipedias has a strong problem due to the committmend of neutral position: Discussions in Wikipedia may be time consuming. Wikipedia is positive for the of a common opinion and showing the mainstream counter opinion in the case of differing views to a technical term. But for a author it may be very tiring. If you edit an article and you have are unlucky and cross a self empowered spiritus rector. Then your spiritus rector changes your edit without any change to publish your knowledge. Furter problems are the of anonymity (Knol needs an Google-Identification). The open cooperation may be the great chance of Knol. The author can decide if the contributions of the others would augment his article.