Money talks.

Wikipedia continues to ride high in google rankings for one reason only : google is fattening wikipedia up for slaughter.

Google is launching its own encyclopedic wiki, Knol. The difference is each Knol article will be stewarded by a qualified editor, who gets paid by advertisements on that article.

Editors (and i mean real editors, not wikiplebians) will make money by grabbing wikipedia articles, cleaning them up, and posting them on Knol. Wikipedia cannot object due to their GDFL. A cottage industry is born.

Once Knol is sufficiently fleshed out, Google will prefer Knol to Wikipedia in its ranking algorithms (claiming altruism, the articles have been vetted) After all, google is in the business of giving certain sites preferential ranking.

The world gets a free, quality encyclopedia that not everyone can edit, but everyone can trust.

I'll be back to gloat in 18 months,
</prophesy>

How qualified will this editor be that is controlling the knol page though? Do you really expect google to dig deep into the references of those applying? Or will it be just another highschool kid except this time they get paid for it?

You know how bad articles can be when one person owns them on Wikipedia?

Imagine that, but with no checks or balances, and you have Knol. Collaborative editing has some drawbacks (shitty writing, edit wars) but some benefits (articles don't - usually - reflect one person's point of view. Unless it's on SlimVirgin's watchlist).

Imagine if you took a single topic (say, Israeli occupation of the West Bank), and said only Jayjg can edit this article, forever. Do you think that would be a good article?

On Wikipedia, there is exactly one article, jointly edited by collaborating/competing editors, on any given topic.

On Knol, there can be multiple articles on a given topic, variously written by sole proprietors or a team of writers working under the supervision of one or more editors with overall responsibility. Google's PageRank will determine which of several articles on a subject rises to the top.

I dunno. Maybe they'll go by degrees. Or require a history of publication. Or let an outside company set the criteria.

I'm not saying this will be a good thing; just that it seems to be on its way, like it or not.

I'm pretty sure the idea of "controlling the knol entry" didn't mean "sole authorship of the knol entry" - outsiders would still be able to submit changes, they'd just have to be vetted first. Obviously there are those who would say that's the same thing, and it probably will be in many cases...

But as for the 18 months part, I think it'll take longer than that - Knol isn't even listed in Google Labs yet, so it isn't even in beta. What's more, Knol isn't anywhere near as exciting as the long-awaited, much-anticipated Google Ride Finder. Of course, I'm probably only saying that because I'm currently sitting in an airport waiting for someone to come pick me up.

Imagine that every day, another 14 year old with limited vocabulary and virtually no wisdom, due entirely to a lack of experience of life on earth, comes along and can change the article of your dreams.

The 14 year old doesn't like your choice of words and, in fact, thinks it is "rad" to use simple words that he or she can understand...like "orly" or "troof."

Then, new words get used like: "irregardless."

If you are the creator of a wonderful thesis or an article on a subject dear to you, you will welcome
professionals and experts in your field having a say in how the article is worded and finally left as a landmark of real world journalism. Now that is what an encyclopedia is all about. Expert helping experts.

When anyone can edit, it leads to cabals, and ego driven insanity... places like Wikipedia.

There's no way Google goes with a copyleft license.

Well-written fancruft, Funny nonsense, Porn = $$$$

They already did this with wikipediareview. It doesn't work.

Wikipedia Review doesn't have the promotional and technical support capacity of Google. Google has a market capitalization of $160,000,000,000.

Please, Zenwhat... if Wikipedia Review catches on, it will be as a person-by-person directory with semantic web features. Nothing much more, nothing less -- but still worthwhile.

Greg

Even assuming that PageRank does what it's supposed to well... what happens when an article is so bad that bloggers start linking to it a bunch?