Humored but Should be Irked
I'm humored today. Is humor an appropriate emotion for the following situation? I'm humored after being attacked for performing research. And get this. The attacker is the creator of an anti-Wikipedia website for "non-notables." More on that in a minute. The attack is directed at my efforts in the struggle over Will Johnson's Craigslist-like Knols, detailed in my two prior blog installments. The attacker does not like the fact that I've taken about an hour to investigate the flow of new Knols to determine if more Craigslist-like publishing has resulted from the publicity surrounding this event. To this, I say if not me, who; if not now, when? Hospitals are for patients. Craigslist is for classified-style ads of all kinds. Knol is for units of knowledge by quality-minded writers. Arguably, a unit should be an informative article that help humans. Helping humans by selling used (or new) audio gear qualifies as a unit of knowledge about as much as my physical condition qualifies for the Olympics.
If Google does not police its own structure for creating user content, then it's entirely fair and reasonable for users to do it. Recognizing this, Google encourages users to do it on every Knol. I'm a user. Google's flagging, commenting, rating and reviewing tools are there for me and for you. In spite of the rantings of my attacker. In fact, his ability to attack is enabled by these very tools. I'm not linking to this guy or his website because in my opinion he does not deserve your clicks. The website he set up -- a Wikipedia look-alike -- is for refugees from the Wikipedia world who cannot climb the ladder of notability to achieve a Wikipedia listing for themselves or their companies. In other words, wannabes for whom research puts the lie to notability. This is the Internet's lowest common denominator phenomena at work.
Surf around this guy's site and you'll see love for the non-noteworthy, persuasive appeals to greed and the announcement that the site owner is going to take some pennies from anything you contribute (but you are welcome to the rest... if you are able to get traction for it). Why not write about non-notable people, companies and things by the ton? Write about Craigslist's new breed of direct advertisers, for example. Link to their ads. Lots of income potential for you!
NOT. Income for the site owner, lugnuts. Can lowest common denominator content achieve high search engine rank? I doubt it. And I must retract an earlier recommendation I made to one Knol'er to take a look at this site. I made it before taking a hard look myself. Is Knol getting better or worse now that the cat is out of the bag about direct ads? Have you encountered any blatant ads yet? Here's one with a Craigslist-style title that leads you away from Knol (unlike the Johnson ad, which attempts to close you without leaving Knol until you are ready to pay. Isn't this just what all of us want:
