You may have heard that Google has launched a Wikipedia competitor called Knol and that in no time there was an Arabic version of Knol for the Arabic users to contribute in and to use.
I use Arabic Wikipedia a lot and even got an account there because from time to time I find some silly mistakes need to be corrected. Anyone who uses the English Wikipedia and Arabic Wikipedia will notice the huge difference between them.The Arabic Wikipedia got more than 50,000 articles only , which is modest content compared to the population,needs of the region and the original Wikipedia. This makes me so sad because I think if we only concentrate on our culture,on our history and our famous personalities from the Gulf to the Ocean we will need more than 50,000 articles.
The problem in Arabic Wikipedia that some people think it is a sort of opinion arena not as neutral place to share an information.I know that even in English Wikipedia you will find that some articles are biased to its writers’ views still not like us.
Also you got the Copy/Paste problem some people think it is much easier to copy and paste from other Websites to the Wikipedia with no respect to the Copyrights.
Recently I visited by accident the Arabic Knol and I was surprised to find there many contributors , of course I was more surprised by the medical content in the site as featured articles. It seems that some people prefer Knol over Wikipedia because in short time many people joined Knol and in this short time I found strange articles I do not know why they are there !!
With my all respect I prefer Wikipedia over Knol because Wikipedia is really an encyclopedia with all its cons,Knol is more like about.com and it is even worse , already at least those who write in about.com are experts. I found opinion articles in Knol , if you want to share your share your opinion then get a blog ,this is the knowledge Unit as Google likes to call it .
Look I wish that many Arabs join Wikipedia and Knol but join it to share their knowledge for real with the rest of the World as it should be.
we can do it.
One of my wishes is that the time many young people waste on the Internet in silly stuff ,they would use in filling the emptiness of the Arabic wikipedia and Knol as it should be.
Did you try to search for Egypt on Knol? Or even George Bush? Then we can decide it they are competitors or not!
ReplyDeletePerhaps we arabs like Knol because you get to have your name and picture (with a big yellow smile) next to what you write, unlike Wikipedia. (well, some people certainly put their signature in Wikipedia articles, but it gets deleted when someone spots it of course)
ReplyDeleteThe idea of anonymous contribution is somewhat lacking in our culture. People would say "why should I spend my time and effort on something on Wikipedia that will not be in my name and that anybody can change?"
@JPierre, when Google announced Knol it positioned it as a Wikipedia killer ,I tried to search and I was shocked ,either the people do not understand what is the role of knol or how it is operated is completely wrong.
ReplyDelete@fuuldeprived, may be who knows , what is worse is I found pages for the people themselves !!??
We like to be known ,strangely Arabian nights book was a huge anonymous contribution
I love Knol because I worked on building it.. I hope Arabs can add value to the web and catch up with the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Ahmed