Now that you've investigated Google Knol and Wikipedia, what did you find to be the primary differences between the two sites? Which one are you more likely to use now and why?
Also, be sure to address which vision of authorship you would advocate for and why.
due 10/13
From looking at Google Knol and Wikipedia I noticed quite a few differences. The primary difference that I saw between the two cites was that the creditability. When Wikipedia was first started it was an open website where anyone could post whatever they wanted about any topic. So the creditability of the website was very poor. Through the years the creditability of Wikipedia has increased due to its popularity and it being known for its poor creditability. The creators have found ways so the people can in a way edit what is actually said on the website if they agree or disagree with the facts being told. Although it is not a reputable source entirely for the education purpose, but one day it could be. After looking at Google Knol and Wikipedia I would choose Wikipedia. I never heard of Google Knol until this assignment. Going to it and experiencing it for the first time was quite different. I was not sure how to find something I was looking up. When I finally searched my topic I was unsure of which post to click on to read. I have looked up things on Wikipedia for years and become familiar with it. Maybe if I was to use Google Knol more and messed around on the actual website I could become more familiar with it like I once had to with Wikipedia. For the vision of authorship I would advocate towards using Wikipedia. Wikipedia has had more time to make their page look more official and reputable. When using Wikipedia the page alone looks more official then the Google Knol webpage does. Google Knol is trying to have creditable authors on its page but it is hard to do. With this idea Google Knol could become a reputable resource before Wikipedia even though Wikipedia was developed around seven years prior to Google Knol.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Mault
ReplyDeleteGoogle vs. Wikipedia
Before class on Tuesday I had never heard of Google knol. When I started to investigate the resource it quickly became clear why. From my findings, Google knol is not very reliable when it comes to factual based subjects. It isn't monitored as well as it's competition, Wikipedia, which could lead to unreliable facts being broadcast to the public. However, Knol is written in a seemingly editorial fashion ( or at least gives their users a voice on particular articles, which is nice) but isn't reliable. Another issue I had with Knol was that I found it hard to navigate, I am not very tech savvy, it may just be me, but I personally found it difficult. If I were to compare Knol to another webpage it would be ABOUT.com, not Wikipedia.
If I haven't made it clear already, I would much rather use Wikipedia than knol. However, if you were to ask me this several years ago I would definitely not prefer Wikipedia as a reliable source. Nonetheless, now that I realize the censorship that goes along with the authorship and the sources/citations that go along with the online encyclopedia i feel much more comfortable using it as a reference, and not to mention it has SO many articles.
It will definitely be difficult to write for Wikipedia without being repetitive.
Having viewed both google knol and wikipedia I can safetly say I prefer wikipedia. Although both have similar goals in mind the method to achieve those goals are rather different. Although Google Knol is more accessible to potential authors this isn't necessarily a good thing. By allowing anyone to post an article, this leaves Knol vulnerable to random anecdotes and personal opinions. These unneeded articles then make it much more difficult to find an actual useful article when searching for a given topic. On top of all this, there is no way to know if the information in an article is true, because there is no review process for Knol.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia allows for a very wide base of authors but avoids most of Knol's problems. Rather than having dozens of separate articles on the same topic writen by different people, multiple users can edit a single article specific to the topic. In this way it is much easier for users to locate information on a given topic because there is only one article discussing it. Also, because multiple people can edit the same article, false data can be weeded out and corrected.
Over all Wikipedia is easier to navigate and more likely to be accurate. Wikipedia also focuses on no-biased articles so that the reader can form his or her own opinion rather than have one created for him or her.
Before class on Tuesday, I literally had no idea that google knol existed or that it competes with wikipedia. Throughout the in class assignment I tried to compare knol and wiki but I realized that it is not as reliable and looking at the website literally gave me a headache. Maybe it's because I have used wikipedia for awhile and enjoy consistency that it brings but I don't plan on using knol outside of the wiki/knol assignment. I think that one reason why I like wikipedia more is because it is more developed, it has reliable sources, there are 'volunteers' or administrators that monitor all of the information that is put on the site. I didn't know before this assignment that there were administrators, I find that more comforting that the information I am reading is reliable and I read and click on the references at the end of the page if I want to know more or want to look at the resources myself. I also like wikipedia more because the information that is displayed is not one-sided or tries to persuade that whatever it is you're looking at is better than another. The information is not to be persuasive but factual and informative to the audience.
ReplyDeleteI don't like or plan on using google knol, I don't know all the details about it but from the class I don't think that google knol is as reliable and can be biased since anyone can post anything and it can remain there for people to read. Maybe one day google knol will develop into something more reliable and reputable until I can believe knol can compete with wikipedia; I will continue to use wikipedia until then.
Nate Podboy
ReplyDeleteGoogle VS Wikipedia
Google Knol is easily the inferior online reference when compared to Wikipedia. Essentially Google Knol acts as a library of reference and Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. I found Knol is difficult to use and that the search engine yields strange results, not unlike how Wikipedia was in its early stages. Knol seemed like a failed project that got abandoned after little effort was put in to the program. However, there were some aspects that I found useful when using Knol—just not very many.
Knol allowed for a single author to be heard, which can lead to straight opinion not necessarily fact. Opinion on certain topics can be useful when researching a certain author who is known for their opinions.
Wikipedia is superior for a number of reasons mainly because of its content. Wikipedia does an accurate job of portraying facts on certain subjects. There are monitors watching constantly that consistently fact check to make sure that the information presented is accurate. Wikipedia also is much more up to date than Knol, giving Knol the feeling that it was simply scrapped. When searching about President Obama, the last edit was in 2009—two years ago. Surely important information has happened in the two years that needs to be presented on a website supposedly granting us information. Wikipedia also does a good job in finding accurate sources while Knol, if at all, only have a couple.
It seems that Knol admitted defeat in the battle against Wikipedia but I don’t understand why. Knol has the potential to become something great just like Wikipedia was back in the day. Wikipedia used to be extremely crappy, their search engine was odd and authors could change whatever content they wanted without going unchanged for weeks. It takes time for something new to fully develop into something particularly useful but the fact that Knol simply gave up in trying to improve is a shame.
On Tuesday, I learned a lot of new things about Wikipedia and Google Knol. I thought Wikipedia wasn’t a good source because all my teachers told me to never use it as a source. It’s still not a completely reliable source but it’s getting better. I learned that Wikipedia operates because they want to provide information to everyone with links to guide you to where they found it. I also learned that if you want to add to a page on Wikipedia, you can easily do that. All you have to do is submit it so Wikipedia can look at it and approve it. That’s another thing that I learned about Wikipedia. I didn’t know that they have an administrator notice board that looks over everything that people add to Wikipedia to make sure that it’s okay. Anyone can add to Wikipedia which could be a good thing or a bad thing. It’s a good thing because you get a lot of information that way. It’s a bad thing because you can get people to write false information on a subject and get people to actually believe it. Google Knol is something I haven’t heard of until this past Tuesday. Knol is a website that is a lot like Wikipedia but it’s run by Google. Knol is user-written article on a range of different topics. It’s like Wikipedia because it lets users contribute to their website. One way that these two websites are different is Knol makes you have a Google account to contribute. Knol also lets the users write their opinions on things. If you write for Wikipedia, your contribution has to be unbiased because they want information on a subject, not your opinion. Lastly, no one regulates what you put on Knol. You can write an article on your high school and everything be completely wrong but you can still publish it on Knol and not have someone take it down. Knol and Wikipedia are similar in what their purpose is but overall they’re mostly different.
ReplyDeleteI did not know about Google knol before this class, and after digging around it for awhile I kind of understand why. As far as google products go it's very very lacking in focus. It is as if they tried to put several programs under one title. for example Gmail lets you check and send emails, google docs is for uploading, creating, and sharing documents, and google calender is for calenders. Google knol is for creating articles, or maybe it's for product reviews, possibly for biographies and sharing research, it's also a search engine kind of. It has too many goals to be effective at any one of them.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand Wikipedia is extremely focused. for creating and sharing encyclopedia articles. If content is added that doesn't fit this purpose, it is removed. Not only does wikipedia have consistency in content type, but it has also gone to great lengths to ensure quality in articles. I have actually seen a few studies comparing wikipedia articles to published encyclopedias, surprisingly Wikipedia is almost always more accurate and reliable.
As a side-note, If wikipedia had a yearly publication of it's collective articles in the form of actual printed encyclopedias, would it be an accepted reference to use on papers?
It deleted my comment...again.
ReplyDeleteAnswer: I don't see a reliability problem with using Wikipedia as a source...if you're in elementary school. The problem with citing Wikipedia in college papers is that you're in college. We expect you to do research that goes beyond the encyclopedia at this point. I think Wikipedia is more reliable than much (not all) of the information we find on the internet and accept as fact.
ReplyDelete