Knol collaborative reference site.

"Google on Wednesday launched Knol, a collaborative reference site. It's similar in concept to Wikipedia, except that Knol allows its authors to generate income from the articles they've authored."

"Knol differs from Wikipedia in that each Knol has a designated author. That author may have collaborators, but all payments go to the primary author. If there's any revenue division to be done, that's left to team members to sort out."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20080724/tc_cmp/209600114

Anyone up for starting a coal article?

each Knol has a designated author

That should keep articles from being changed randomly by random loons, which would be a good thing.

You can always use the wiki here for such articles, it can be used for anything it doesn't necessarily have to be coal related. You're not going to get paid for it though. The authors of articles on that site I'll bet will be paid through ad revenue. Be interesting to see what types of problems pop up, firstly since the primary author is going to be the one paid there isn't much incentive for others to contribute. the incentive would be for them to create their own article. One reason wiki is successful is you have a collaborative effort by hundreds.