What about the 'edge' of knol ?

Usually, saying something worthwhile is not that trivial. Starting my own blog here makes me wonder what will make a good first entry. I see that the topics of the Blogs go all over the place, but I want to keep closer to the topic of knowledge sharing than most here. Many thoughts flitter quickly by - my work on on-line science data directories in the distant past, of making information and data more readily available on the www, or how the web compares to the library methods for finding information in a plethora of books; how my own interest in a certain presentation style for certain topics goes back to the one in the book I used to study the subject, and so on. The truth is, there is probably no unique best way to present knowledge, even if it were a solid subject as, for example, mathematical logic. Most knowledge, however, is build upon not always the most firm of foundations, and that will make the presentations necessarily diverse. It will also mean, that there is a fuzzy boundary ('edge') to what is good knowledge and what looks good but isn't. (So, I'm not talking about knol having an 'edge' on competitors, for example.)

From this perspective, i.e., that most truths are not imperviable, and somewhere based on belief, it seems that the choice of the Knol project to allow parallel pages on a subject to exists, is a good thing. Here the ratings come in usefully, to help decide between good and bad. But, of course, it might be argued that the use of ratings is nothing more than to elevate the level of 'truth' to a popularity contest. For example, the ability to have multiple pages in knol is certain to incite the followers of 'creation science' to vote for there most popular beliefs, regardless of there being any substantiation to them that goes further than the last editor of the bible or whatever source they use. It will be interesting to see how this will play out. The next battle ground between truth and belief?

In this context the prioritising of result pages by the Google search engine becomes of course an item. Will the Google people give extra preference to their own views? It would seem naturally to assume they would.

On another subject, it is not clear to me if the knol site will also entertain reviews of the progress in certain areas (of science and technology in my case), which would be a very useful thing. What developments have been in the making for the last twenty years, where year upon year the promise of great benefits or breakthroughs is made? Where have there been unexpected breakthroughs, that were just the result of better funding of an unpromising area? What is needed to progress in this or that, while the people doing it are holding back asking for what is needed because they know it is not affordable? That is perhaps better suited to news outlets, but who is going to judge what goes and what is a non-knol ?

Having no censorship seems to be asking for trouble when it comes to building a knowledge site.
The developers have thought of that and decided on peer review. One can see that the example page shows a rating by 'peers' - but who decides who's a peer? Tricky business, to say the least. It seems to be an open invitation for long drawn-out arguments. If you don't like what someones view is, get your friends together and make sure some of them do the 'peer review'. Unpopular topics, though they may be excellent, innovative, great articles, may be basked to non-appearance by unhappy peers, collegues, people of different belief.

I am not saying that these things are not happening in the world today. Knowing the peer review process in science I can testify that you can get the whole spectrum of responses. Sitting on peer review panels is also instructive: there are certainly political agendas being played out, which come into play when choosing between multiple worthwhile projects to support. That's the way it is, I think everywhere. What is not clear to me at all is how knol is going to handle these issues. I suppose we will wait and see.