The New Ordering Of Information: An Assault On The Edge

guest post by David Cushman

When Knol – google’s answer to Wikipedia - first showed up I feared it was the answer to a question no one was asking.
It addressed the ‘problem’ that Wikipedia content could be untrustworthy. To whom? The crowd soon sorts out the odd iffy bit of vandalism and dampens out inaccuracies extremely rapidly.

Personally, I’d rather trust the crowd than one single ‘expert’. Imagine the balls it takes to click the ‘no collaboration at all thanks very much’ button.

Did I say balls? I meant supreme, deaf-dumb-and-blind arrogance. Don’t we all learn more from continuing the conversation rather than sealing it off and presenting it as ‘the truth’?*

My fear is that knol is part of a creeping assault on the edge from the centre using the most powerful weapon there is – control of information.

Knol comes at a time when Sir Tim Berner’s-Lee has gained funding for a new certification through which the originators of digital content can be tracked and traced.

In both cases I am hearing suggestions that search returns will be weighted to favour the ‘certificated’.

This risks creating a two-tiered world of knowledge – one which emphasises the contribution of the centre (the originator) over the edge (the adapting adopter).

This is a world which values the start of an idea over the end product or the manifold routes, twists and turns the idea may take. It is the same thinking that asserts ownership over youtube videos of kids making up their own dances because copywritten music is playing in the background.

It rates origination over evolution. And I know where I think the majority of value emerges.

I’m all for rewarding the originator – provided we don’t do that to the detriment of those enabling and propogating the evolution. Or, indeed, at the cost of restricting that very evolution.

If we like the creation of value then we really should be encouraging the wider variety of possibilities, the mutations, that evolution allows.

Bigger cakes mean bigger slices for all – including the originator.

Google always was about organising the world’s information. Through Knol (and other forms of claiming digital ownership)  there’s a risk that for ‘organise’ we must read ‘control’.

*yep, that is an invite for comments :-)