SocialBias :: a Digital Abstraction of Michael Parkatti

I just read The Next Web’s article providing 3 reasons why Google’s Knol will beat Wikipedia, and while I think the author makes some decent points, I’d say there are some decent counter-points.

I don’t think these are necessarily competitive products, but they do represent vastly different avenues of approach and identity, which I think proponents of Knol vastly miscalculate in their plaudits.

1. You Can’t Beat Collective Intelligence

The very reason why Wikipedia works is that there are authoritative pages on a topic, whose contents are continually vetted by a massive community of Wikipedians.  I would suggest that something as objective as the quality of an encyclopedic entry will have a positive correlation with the amount of people that are allowed to produce it.

I do believe that true pieces of artistic genius do need to be created by one or two people (see the ridiculous notion of a crowdsourced novel, for instance).  But writing a Wikipedia entry does not need to have creative elements of character, plot, story arc, etc.  It has to be a fact-based piece of writing.  That’s why Wikis work so well — participants aren’t creating stories together, they are simply combining their stored knowledge-bases.

Now, it will be cool to read an article written by an esteemed expert, I will admit.  But plenty of articles on Wikipedia have been largely created by esteemed experts — whose contributions have subsequently been added to, enhanced, and iterated upon.

2. Overestimating Pay Incentives on the Internet

If being paid to create content was so important, how come for-pay video sites didn’t beat YouTube, or Microsoft’s ridiculous pay-for-search scheme wasn’t received well, or pay-per-post pyramid blogging schemes didn’t really pan out?  How come the ‘community-owned’ meme didn’t really take off with any web startups?

It’s because people value simplicity and authenticity in a consumer web product.  The Wikipedia project is one of the most noble I’ve heard of in the last 10 years, in any discipline.  I’ll admit, I’m a degenerate for Wikipedia — as are millions of other people.  The reason we love it so much is that we feel like we’re part of a lofty human mission when we get involved.  It is something beyond pecuniary human creations like commerce and wealth… it is in fact a basic right to have instant access to the store of accumulated human knowledge.

Knowing that some schmo is getting paid for me accessing his content makes me feel like someone is profiting off of a basic human right.  Yuck.  Double yuck, in fact.

3. Keeping the Knowledge Fresh

I’m not sure if you’ve ever taken the opportunity to see how fast Wikipedia is updated with current events.  The next time somebody famous dies, right when you hear the news try to access their Wikipedia entry, and their date of death will invariably be inputted already.  That’s true with any major news — Wikipedia is updated by an army of devotees to ensure its accuracy.

A page created by some dude is just a snapshot in time, and not a living document.  Have you recently read an article published in the 80s? 90s? 2003?  They sound almost endearingly naive (depending on the author).  Things change so rapidly in our society, that a page created on Knol has almost no chance to compete with its comparable Wikipedia entry.

In reality, I think both Knol and Wikipedia will be able to co-exist and even thrive together.  They will serve slightly different purposes with slightly different approaches.  But to suggest that Knol will defeat Wikipedia under any subjective criteria is simply missing the point.  Wikipedia is created by the people, and stewarded by a non-profit organization.  It’s the internet’s WHO, or IMF… it’s beyond any measure of commercial value.  Let’s just be happy that it exists, and that it will be one of our generation’s finest gifts to future world citizens.

Knol is created out of a commercial interest.  This is one of the few times that dollars will not triumph.