Knol Rant

I posted this in the Blogoscoped forum, thought I'd put it up here too.
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I think a lot of people have misunderstood the basic premise behind Knol.

It is not trying to encourage current Wikipedia users to create a new collaborative Wiki of knowledge.

It's specifically trying to get people who are subject matter experts to 'drop some knowledge' on the rest of us. In essense, if you're not an expert on a given subject the Knol doesn't really want your input. That probably rules out a fair number of Wiki editors, who (by definition) are modifying articles based on information they foudn elsewhere.

Knols are about sharing a expert knowledge from an individual perspective.

Importantly 'expert knowledge' in this context isn't limited to a PhD in a subject, if I lookup the 'Knee Surgery' Knol I'd love to see a detailed post by a surgeon detailing how the surgery is performed, but a personal account of what the surgery was like from a patient would be just as 'expert' in this context.

Both of these annecodatal accounts would be very useful, but neither is really suitable for Wikipedia. It's that sort of thing that's the target.

It's the sort of thing you see posted on Lifehacker, those incredibly detailed answers you sometimes see in AskMeFi, and all the knowledge and experience regular people don't have anywhere appropriate to put.

The 'editing other people's Knol' debate is a sideshow. Occassionally people will spot an error (typo, specific detail has changed over time, etc) and they'll use this mechanism to help the author fix it. But for the most part it will be single a author (or multiple in collaboration) per article, with multiple articles on a given subject.

As far as the 'dead branch' problem if an author stops updating an article... so what? If it's the sort of subject that needs constant, regular updates Knol probably isn't the right place for it.