Encyclopédie v.3

enis Diderot’s grand intellectual experiment one.” Diderot’s struggle to bring knowledge to every- of the Enlightenment, to create a com- one was curiously turned on its head as everyone now Dpendium of all the world’s knowledge in could bring what they knew to a 21st Century peo- one place, was an attempt to democratize knowledge ple’s encyclopedia. and make it available to all. Today his life’s work, or at The use of a wiki to build proved con- least 27 volumes of it, the Encyclopédie, would easily fit troversial. A wiki is a collection of pages () that on a flash drive that could disappear in a pocket with are publicly posted and available for anyone to write your change or keys. While creating their monumental or edit. Nevertheless, Wikipedia has been surprisingly work, the 18th Century French philosopher and his successful in tests of its accuracy despite its open phi- editors endured 20 years of harassment and persecu- losophy, or, perhaps, because of it. Add the dimension tion as they were periodically shut down by the courts that hypertext brings to each article, and you have the and others who understood that knowledge is power. basic reasons for its phenomenal success. Diderot’s plan was to write “an encyclopedia [that] We might now be entering v.3 of the encyclopedia— should encompass not only the fields already covered from print, to online wiki, to a new beta from by the academies, but each and every branch of called knol™. The project rolled out on July 23, 2008, knowledge.” That would include what the trades and and right now it’s more of a collection of articles, a craftsmen of the world had accumulated in their couple hundred, rather than an encyclopedia, but, fields so that the “Dialogues of Plato” might appear given its source, it will probably grow rapidly. alongside the secrets of manufacturing “Perfumes.” A “knol,” according to Google, is a unit of knowl- Eventually he hoped to create a source that would edge, and the term is also used as the name of the “have the power to change men’s way of thinking.” project. The big difference with knol is that the articles are signed, and biographical information is included AN ADDED DIMENSION about many of the authors on the opening page. Most , one of the inheritors of the Encyclope- of the initial articles are about medical conditions and dist’s tradition, and his editors added a new author- procedures, but a much wider variety is anticipated. ing process along with the powerful dimension of Knol isn’t the only peer-reviewed collection online. hypertext with their digital encyclopedia—Wikipedia. Sites like Scholarpedia.com have signed articles by Originally it was called , and the articles were experts, but the content there leans toward those who peer-reviewed. But the process was slow and painful, might look up “stochastic diffusion search.” so, in January 2001, , Wales’s editor-in- You can browse the current list of knol articles at chief, came up with the idea of using a wiki to open http://knol.google.com. One big plus you’ll likely find up authoring to the worldwide community. On the is the extensive use of illustrations in many of them. 15th of that month, Wikipedia was formally launched The French philosopher’s grand experiment continues as “an online encyclopedia that can be edited by any- with ever-more amazing refinements. ■

64 STRATEGIC FINANCE I September 2008