Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Information editing and access levels
Due to some inaccurate information being published on Wikipedia, over the next week editors have been charged with finding a way to balance the open-access immediacy of user-generated content and accuracy. Yesterday’s BBC article about Wikipedia’s potential change says founder Jimmy Wales is pushing to have all content reviewed by an editor before it is posted. Other articles are suggesting only registered users’ content will post immediately and unregistered user posts will need to be reviewed. Either way, it is an interesting turn. This brings Wikipedia one step closer to the system Britannica designed while still allowing users to generate the actual article.
Another way to share information is Google’s knol, now in beta. In this knowledge scenario authors have their names out there associated with the work but with more of an srticle-style knowledge-share rather than an encyclopedic entry. Like wikipedia, you can access revisions (history) to see changes—but being from Google, you also have statistics in the sidebar of every article including author information, article activity, user ratings of the content, similar articles or sites, licensing information, and links to other articles by the author.
In knol the author sets the level of editing allowed by other logged-in Google users—from open editing where anyone can participate in the changes, moderated collaboration for suggestions to be sent to the author for approval, or closed collaboration which only allows co-authors to make changes. This feature alone makes knol a more friendly place for a variety of users. Whereas wikipedia’s default is open editing to all and Britannica’s default is closed until approved—authors from both camps can publish their work in knol, and even authors who want nothing to do with participatory editing can offer up their knowledge to the public.
Interested in sharing something you know? Knol is hosting a knol for Dummies contest through March accepting “how to” articles.
