> We are incredibly lucky that wikipedia isn't owned by some tech megacorp, it isn't loaded with spyware JS bogging it down, and it doesn't require an account to use.
There was Google's attempt in 2007 wih knol(0) - which many called an attempt at a Wikipedia killer. Agreed... We dodged a bullet.
Authors could also choose to include ads from Google's AdSense on their pages ... All contributors to the Knol project had to sign in with a Google account ... authors were also able to choose the CC-BY-NC-3.0 license (which prohibits commercial reuse) or traditional copyright protection instead.
I think the most fascinating thing is the bit about how people criticized google for placing knol results in more accessible spots on google search and the conflict of interest. This is exactly the same debate we are having over a decade later about AMP.
Their scheme is ranking by popular domain name. This, as a rule, makes shit content rise to the top. A debate about how bad this idea is shouldn't last long. That said, the question then becomes if google.com is worthy of this favoritism. It unquestionably qualifies here. So there is no-such-thing as placing knol in a more accessible spot. google.com is just a more popular website than wikipedia.
There was Google's attempt in 2007 wih knol(0) - which many called an attempt at a Wikipedia killer. Agreed... We dodged a bullet.
Authors could also choose to include ads from Google's AdSense on their pages ... All contributors to the Knol project had to sign in with a Google account ... authors were also able to choose the CC-BY-NC-3.0 license (which prohibits commercial reuse) or traditional copyright protection instead.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol