The Eastern Edge

Ever since I started the Gottsupedia I've been a lot more interested in how other wannabe wiki's are organizing themselves and have been scouring the internet to see what's out there. Today I saw the news that Google's Knol project had finally gone public so naturally I checked it out.

Not knowing where to start, I do a search for "Japan", not really expecting much because it just launched. The results come back and I get only nine results. Five of them are anti-Japan rants related to disputes with Korea, like this "authoritative article" (because that is what Knol is supposed to have) on the Sea of Japan dispute.

I personally don’t give a flying fart about who is right or wrong in Japan-Korea issues, and I'm not picking on these articles because they are anti-Japan either. I think historical territorial claims are generally about as valid as me going back to a home that my mom lived in before I was born and telling the current resident to get out of my house.
It's bullshit, the war is over, and nobody really cares about pety land disputes because if they did something would have been done by now. Unless you want to go start a new war and create even more trouble right the wrongs then shut up and stop living in a past that you weren't even there for!

Anyway, it's not the issue that pissed me off it was that this type of thing is allowed on a site claiming to promote knowledge. There was absolutely no citation on any of these shamelessly biased articles, either.
I thought Knol was intended more than an outlet for activists to push political positions. The anti-Japan articles I saw read more like leaflets an activist would hand out at a flag-burning rally than academic articles.

The Knol's slogan is "A unit of knowledge", and a "knol" is supposed to be an authoritative article about a specific topic.
I guess my definition of "knowledge" is just a little different.
The Knol project also claims it is a "forum for encouraging individual voices and perspectives on topics."
I like the premise. In fact, I think it's a great idea. But they shouldn't be calling it "knowledge" without somehow differentiating between reliable knowledge and straight bullshit. if anyone can write about anything and not have to back up any of it. Political propaganda and mock definitions of names and places to support activist viewpoints are not articles and not even close to knowledge.

Aside from the activist stuff, there were two "articles" on Japan that come up when I searched. One was a carbon copy of wikipedia's Japan entry. I mean exact! All the links, including the images, go straight back to wiki.
The other reads;

A country with a diverse culture and and economy second only to the United States.

That's a direct copy/paste and that's all it says.

I hope this is just post-launch hiccups and the project will decide what it really wants to be other than a massive drop box for random opinions (that's what blogs are for!), but so far Knol sucks ass!

On to the new Cuil search engine to see if that's any good.