RSSPerspective: I don't Knol
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published December 14, 2007, 5:11 PM
The problem with making democracies work is that any one point of view, way to work, or agenda for action can only garner enough support amid its multitude of alternatives that, at any one time, only a sizable minority can claim to be in favor of it. And the problem with making socialist societies work is that fairness, balance, equal distribution of wealth, and justice all require regulation, which by definition requires a regulator, which by design works against the socialist ideal.
The World-Wide Web is neither a democracy nor a social utopia. Certainly the fact that it is utilized by an astonishingly large plurality has been enough to excite people into believing it has the nature, texture, or substance of some kind of society. And time and again since its inception, individuals, institutions, and corporations have set forth some presumably historic measures to give the Web some type of perceived hierarchy, to capitalize on the wide recognition they receive by way of the Web and convert that perception into authority.
It is the old trap into which leaders of real democracies typically fall: You all know me, thus you all must love me, thus you all should trust me.
Google's initiative for building an integrated hierarchy of comprehensive knowledge, called Knol, is the latest such example. Taking a cue from Microsoft's history, Google has recognized the recent success of Wikipedia, then subsequently erased the entry for Wikipedia from its memory banks and then retroactively invented the concept all over again.
Or perhaps like Al Gore, Google is inventing the Internet.
The idea is to start another global encyclopedia of what the world thinks it knows. The system it's building elicits what it characterizes as quanta of knowledge, called "knols," from individuals who would appoint themselves masters of their own topics. Whether they actually are masters would not be decided by Google; instead, individual readers would take it upon themselves to sanction or testify to the relative truthfulness or ludicrousness of what other self-appointed experts have said.
Here is how Google Vice President of Engineering Udi Manber described the concept on Google's corporate blog this morning:
The authority for knowing a "knol" would be ceded by Google, which would merely run the system, Manber wrote. Instead, the system would seek to credit the original authors of its submissions, especially since the Web up to this point in history, he remarked, has neglected to give proper credit to authors, especially when they take the time to give of what they know freely unto the world.
There is a very good reason for that which Manber may not understand. I do, because I've been a professional author and editor for most of my life. And in the very real world of capitalist publishers and monetized content, the moment you do something for free, "free" becomes the value of what you do.
It's a corollary of Groucho Marx's classic joke, whose punch line is, "We know what you are; we're just dickering on the price."
The reason ideas are not truly free is because of the price their inventors have paid to generate those ideas. Not everyone's education comes by way of scholarship. At some level, everyone has had to work to attain what she knows, whether it was taught in a classroom or learned at an operating table or seared into her consciousness on a battlefield.
Knowledge isn't conveyed on a page, and that's where I believe Google may be getting it wrong. There is no indivisible quantum of wisdom that can be replicated and freely distributed, for which all recipients would equally vote to approve. Who would you trust to write the knol for "Getting One's Leg Blown Up by a Land Mine," "Saving Lives When Your Helicopter Crashes into a River," "Losing Your Son," or "Separating Conjoined Twins?"
Trust is the quintessential element upon which all transfer of information depends, and it is the transfer of information -- not the acquisition or presentation of it -- that creates knowledge. Without trust, everything falls apart.
Trust cannot form in a vacuum. You learn from those you love and respect, and you learn to trust those whom they respect in turn. You come to trust certain other sources maybe because you see others doing the same. At a granular level, trust is not unlike mold. It builds on itself, but it is its own principal ingredient.
The idea that Google has -- and in fairness, that so many before it have already tried -- to open up a blank library so that others can fill its pages, would attempt to rebuild a new world order of trust literally through a kind of informational Darwinism, where bits of wisdom compete with other bits of wisdom for the right to claim a kind of "king of the mountain position," or perhaps more appropriately to Google's existing business model, to claim a greater market share.
The fact that such a system hasn't worked yet should be anyone's first clue as to the fact that it doesn't work that way. Sure, Wikipedia is big, and encompasses a lot of information. In some respects, it gives access to information any regular encyclopedia might have excluded. It is not un-valuable. But it is also not authoritative.
It may fly in the face of the open source ideal to say that ideas are not free -- that they are earned, that they are often paid for with money and with blood, and that they have value over and above what any plurality's thumbs-up or thumbs-down may assign to them. But ideas are the infrastructure of the human race, and that structure is the collective product of all our ancestors, all their hopes, everything they did that was right, and everything they did that was wrong. Our shared knowledge cannot be migrated to an electronic web, for the thing that gives knowledge value cannot be quantified.
Authority -- that byline to which Google refers -- is something that is earned, not through some social-network experiment based on "American Gladiators" but through the system we already have. Education -- among the least perfect institutions conceived by the mind of man -- is still workable, and far more efficient at achieving the goal of inspiring knowledge than any mashup of millions of aggregated blogs. We learn through trusting and through living far more than we ever will through clicking.
[The opinions expressed here are those of Scott M. Fulton, III, who is solely responsible for his content.]
Scott, i disagree with so many points-- but even before that: what is the point / does it really matter?
Whether efficient or flawed Knol will succeed just because it's from Google AND it will make individual folks extra money. Capitalism at its best: potentially every person in this planet is both a commissioned agent & indirect purchaser for Google.
As far as quality-- it doesn't matter: it will become what it will become... it needn't have to be another Wikipedia, nor any better(although it should fill in all the holes / shortcomings of it: volunteerism can only go so far. Wikipedia has oodles of entries too skimpy, unupdated, or never filled in at all... some for years.
What Knol will likely accomplish indirectly, is finish slamming the last nail in the coffin of pay per subscription & per article... and as well drive up the quality in general of most sites, esp. news, informational & editorial written content.
And do we even need the information presented be correct?
Heck, more than half the information we each possess-- from our most basic religious beliefs to commonly accepted scientific tenets to the general historical record is incorrect. Think about that.
As well-- as much info as is out there on the web, there is not nearly enough... both in quantity and quality; not to mention what's hidden + future discoveries & inventions.
Couple that with 'tangible, realistic' financial incentives for everyone, and watch stuff come out of the woodwork.
Now, if you're saying that some knowledge is too valuable to be 'freely shared'-- very little won't get out there, due to reasons as varied as altruism / religion / politics, ego / prestige, money / professional drive, etc. And behind those 'releasing to the web ants' are /will be legions of cataloguers / editors / opinionators / repackagers...
Anyhow, the biggest winners in life are often not the ones who invent or are the first to acquire some new knowledge... but the rather the ones who are able to sift through, interpret, mold and use the data. My point is that data, no matter how earth-shakingly new is 'not that valuable', it's but a tool and the really TRUE valuable content is often the interpretation and end product developed from it. With today's globalization, there are very few secrets out there... plus as well there will always be cheap labor easily accessible in some part of the world; so consequently, very few tools and products will be expensive in and of themselves-- the only exceptions to that, besides some truly outstanding & innovative 'end product', will be whatever becomes fashionable / trendy / must have. Again, that a product is truly valuable or not makes no difference-- if enough folks have that mistaken perception, then it de facto becomes the reality. If the masses want 'organic'(even though it can be dirtier / of lesser quality /and possessing false health benefits than something w/o that label), that's what will sell like hotcakes @ 10 times the price. Likewise, Knol will succeed in large part just because it's from Google, who has the TRUST of the masses-- this will be enough to get the ball rolling... and once that ball gets to rolling down the mountain, little will be able to stop it-- unless if Google loses its core values / becomes selfish. As long as that does not happen, Knol will attract the cream of the crop / the who's who.
Google is on to a mega winner here...they just have too much name / prestige / quality / values. Now, if an AOL or Yahoo was attempting this, then i'd say your article was spot on.
Finally, as far as education-- clicking is the fastest, most efficient way of obtaining it... esp. for the masses... and NOT the present sorry higher education system we have, which tends to be either of the following two:
1. attend Animal House, get one year's worth of studies stretched out into 4/5... then welcome to the real world.
2. attend a pre$$tigious blueblood Animal House in order to be given a top job from a former graduate who likely attended with your father... the 'job interview' will likely consist of fond reminiscing / trading stories of countless shenanigans & cheating.
The hard work and blood you state is expended gaining real knowledge / doing valuable work-- will be done mostly on the web. Very, very little work & routine daytime activities will NOT be done thru or with the web in some way.
Those unfortunate folks for which that does not apply will in effect be part of society's lower castes.
I've been saying here and everywhere for 5 years now-- ever since hints of an upcoming Google IPO began to percolate: its share price will surpass that of Warren Buffett's company, into 6 figures level.
Peace.
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|The author seems to have a problem distinguishing Socialism from Communism ...
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|An anchor to information and progress is the search for recognition. "I wont share my knowledge because somebody will say what I say or say he said what I said.".
When we stop caring about it and see it as it is, just knowledge, instead of trying to trap it as an individual item, trying to own knowledge like a property, for the sake of owning as many things as possible, for pride or greed, knowledge will be liberated and progress will speed up weightless and unlimited.
Knowledge is like Love, it's common ownership (I'm not referring only to humans), you cannot own it just by declaring you do or by convincing many people about it.
What's next? Will humans try to copyright forms of love and caring? (Cheek kissing would be a beginning)
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|This is incorrect, knowledge is like power and no one can ever gain enough apparently.
There is a good movie called "Alphaville" (ok it wasn't that good but the ideas in it were). You could get killed for showing emotion, and more importantly using forbidden words.
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|I Agree with Canoro . .
and in my poor english allow me to say that as you said about the "bad movie Alphaville but the ideas in it were good" so is the intention for a "open library of knowledge" to the world. it might not be perfect, but the concept and ideas in it are great. . it leaves a benchmark or path from which we can learn how to make it better . . soonner or later someone somewhere will come up with a bettter idea on how to do it probably based on this, and the problems it caused.
it will probably be an excellent source of information for students wanting to do their homework, or a guy trying to learn what's the difference between sata and hybrid hard drives, or any body who just want a quick reference . . which conforms the 90% of the people . .
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|power, love, knowledge, have they're own characteristics, therefore have different words to represent them, knowledge is like power in that it matches certain characteristics, but also knowledge is like love in that we are born with it, so it is common ownership. the way some humans handle them doesn't take away it's nature.
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|I understand where you're coming from, Canoro, and I appreciate your sentiment. I think you've hit upon another aspect of the problem: I illuminated it from one angle, you illuminated it from another.
Knowledge is a property that we as humans cultivate, either collectively as you suggest or individually. It's a more psychological property than an economic one, thus it's impossible to monetize.
But one of the ingredients for cultivating knowledge is information. And that is a commodity. It's a more economic property than a psychological one; you can quantify and evaluate information. Here is where the challenge of capitalism on the Web is centered: how to monetize the transfer of information upon which knowledge depends, in a system where inevitably someone will find the way to transfer that knowledge anyway without compensating anyone else or being compensated for it.
It's one of the more interesting challenges of our time, and I hope we get a chance to talk more about it.
-SF3
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|So if love is common property it's OK with you if your wife/husband loves me just as much as you?
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|First of all I'm not married, but that doesn't affect your point. Love is not something you can regulate at will, like "I'm deeply in love with that person, tomorrow I'm going to be deeply in love with that other one.". If you can't regulate love inside of yourself, how can you expect to regulate love of other person's hearts?
To whom and how much they love depends only on them.
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|Unfortunately, it's usually Google who "fails to give proper credit" to authors. If someone with more Google juice copies the content of an original author, it's not infrequent that the copied content will show up higher in search results.
And while many sources are cited in Wikipedia, snippets and sentences are frequently lifted from their sources without annotation.
If authors are uniquely identified, at least knols will help in ensuring accountability, but this seems like a riff off Google Answers, which also gave authors revenue potential for sharing knowledge. Lot of hoopla, few results.
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|I like the potential of Knol: in one fell swoop it makes up for Google's relatively weak position in Groups, Portal & Social Networking, and by sharing revenues "compensatorily monetizes / balances out all the free stuff it's been giving away.
I'm chomping at the bit at the thought of the oodles of cash i will be earning.
And this enthusiasm i have, driven by profit mostly, is what would trump Wiki(though no necessity to destroy it, both should be able to coexist & thrive-- just like several restaurants on one block can improve the revenues of the very first lone one). Even though Wiki seems to be picking up steam, there are a lot of entries languishing w/ sparse content and/or no updating in years.
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|Some good points, if a bit more lofty than the usual BN fare. I would add that the appeal of Wikipedia and its like comes not just from the openness of the editing process or the breadth of the content, but the immediacy of both. There are no drafts to be collated and printed, no meeting rooms full of high-browed academics arguing the merits of various minutia. Its the closest thing to a true collective knowledge base we have, which (at least for now) makes it a positive aspect of the internet. I know that some political entries were the subject of recent sabotage and it was spotted almost instantly. With the open nature of the system you'd be a fool NOT to expect attempts at agenda-peddling. As long as many, many eyes are watching and vetting the material I think we'll be OK. For now.
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|GOOGLE is GOOGLE and what GOOGLE says goes.
The web is total anarchy. The only way true regulation can come about is for the World to play ball. And we know that wont happen.
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|You can say that again.
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|lol...
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|GOOGLE is GOOGLE and what GOOGLE says goes.
The web is total anarchy. The only way true regulation can come about is for the World to play ball. And we know that wont happen.
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|Really lofty ideas, frankly I don't quite get it. Though it sounds vaguely familiar, ......China's Communists will agree, so they banned Wikipedia
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|...and I definitely don't trust Google!!!
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|I'll agree, but then again corporations have been making books for a loooong time. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 dictionary were misspelled. Books aren't always exactly accurate either, and generally it is the victorious who record history anyway making it even further inaccurate.
Also the web is total anarchy when taken as a whole, and a dictatorship when you look at the individual servers with root being all powerful (oligarchy if you count anyone else the wheel group) as in those that control the servers, control the content.
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