Wikipedia death watch?

I didn't even know the Globe had "podcasts".  This one has some thoughtful musings about Wikipedia.

It's all very wonderful, but it's not on a path to perfection.

As for Knols, anyone who thinks Google's initiative is about anything other than the fact that Wikipedia has no Google ads is barking up the wrong tree.

There is a bit of a battle for Wikipedia's soul, between those who are happy for it to be an encyclopedia of everything, like me, and those who want it to be Very Serious Citable Work.  For example, I find it very convenient to go to WIkipedia to lookup Cylon model numbers, while The WikiPowers That Be are beginning to tag such pages fancruft.

Comments

[Peter Murray]

Hey, Richard --

I'm of the opinion that Wikipedia and Knols can live side-by-side. As best as can be determined from the scant information coming out about Knols, Wikipedia would have to seriously change not only its approach to writing/editing (since Knol entries would have named authors) but also build up a whole suite of social networking tools that would appear to be coming in the Knols project. On the other hand, the community knowledge, neutral tone aspect of Wikipedia is not one likely to be replicated in Knols.

Since I'm not deeply involved in either project, I think it will be very interesting to watch the evolution of each service from the sidelines and perhaps making intellectual contributions to each to see the different ways they are morphed and used.