It will take some time and effort to match the productivity of wikipedia, but the factual accuracy will certainly be higher. What happens in an area under dispute? For instance stuff like homeopathy or flouridation (where are you qruel and rembar? More discussion! )

In any case, if google does it, it's probably good.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I wonder if Google will resist tinkering with search results to put Knol topics above wikipedia for google searches.

If I was a critic, I could claim that Knol is just a glorified "about.com"

I think I will.

I prefer the democratic group dynamic of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is however imbalanced totally, there is little credence given to people who actually possess knowledge over those who actually are academics. I have seen countless article plunged into ridiculous "Verification needed" jerk fests for what I can myself readily see are facts being presented.

Academics don't have the time that people who have no jobs do, yet their contributions are not given the same level of attention. The language of Wikipedia varies largely between totally technical and totally informal. I think the formula needs adjustment.

I looked at Knol and I don't like the presentation so far. It looks so bland and uninviting.

Knol pages are already appearing in Google Search above or near the wikipedia results of the same topic, in under a week. Interesting considering Google continues to say they don't plan on being a content website, but this kinda goes against that. Since google search results are now filling up with YouTube (owned by google now) and Knol results it has started to cause some displeasure from many of their Partners who count on google to deliver traffic to their websites, now google is taking that traffic for themselves. Makes you wonder.