One of my pet peeves is Wikipedia and the credibility that it has but has not earned. By definition, as a user-generated site, it reflects the biases of its users. That’s not to say that other encyclopedias are without their own biases but at least there is a person or an entity accountable. There simply is no way to know whether the stuff you read on Wikipedia is accurate or even who wrote it. This can be dangerous, and not in theory. Over a year ago I decided to check the Wikipedia entry written on a topic I know well because it’s a rare medical condition that I have. The article was filled with errors. Now imagine what happens when you have a subject that is controversial or political. Wikipedia is nothing more than a message board, with the difference that ordinary users can’t change the content of other users’ posts on a message board but they can on Wikipedia.
Well it turns out that Google is launching a reference site it’s going to call Google Knol. Articles will have authors and there will be competing authors. To me this is a much more equitable solution. Let reader’s judge the credibility of the content based on the credibility of the author. Have authors compete for credibility with dueling papers rather than have a war to see who can edit an entry on a given topic enough times to make the other side give up.
…an island on the net without a bearded dictator
