Legal Research

Knol Opens Up

By Simon Fodden

Some time back we posted about Google’s wisdom of the crowds encyclopedia knol, the idea being that it would be useful to have experts write about what they know and authenticate the pieces by attaching their names and info to them. Google now tells us that the experimental phase is over and you, too, can contribute to the store of the world’s knowledge by either writing your own knol or by making suggestions to those of others, suggestions they’re free to accept or not, of course (a process Google has called “moderated collaboration”).

I have to say that thus far the expertise on display is depressingly medical. When I visited the site, the knols featured had to do with diabetes, lung cancer, tooth pain and (!) toilet clogs. These beauties were followed by knols on such topics as diarrhea, facial rejuvenation, low back pain and bronchosopy. (I think the knols you’ll see when you visit are drawn at random from the whole pool, so your mileage may vary.)

A search for law turned up not an article but a bio for a law prof, which seems about right somehow.

The thing has a way to go.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on July 23, 2008 (boomark / email).