A month-and-a-half ago Google launched Sidewiki - a service that lets web browsers with the Google Toolbar view and write comments along side of any website.

Setting aside my professional mask for a moment, Sidewiki is one of those things that fill my inner language nerd with glee.

I have long felt that hypertext brought us closer to older linguistic forms, like the Norse kenning, where a single word or turn of phrase could reliably reference an entire epic.

By displaying commentary in it’s own space outside of the material it is referencing, Sidewiki calls up another old information storage and retrieval strategy, one used in the Talmud.

The Talmud is an ever-evolving rabbinic text that comments both upon itself and upon the Old Testament.  Direct commentary upon the Old Testament appears in the middle of the page, commentary upon that text in a band around it, commentary upon that commentary in yet another band, and so on.

Sidewiki serves a similar function.  It provides a separate visual track that allows you to read and write comments on any web page you visit, including those websites (like ours) that already provide a place for comment.

However, just as you can leave a comment on anyone else’s website, anyone could be leaving a comment on yours.  Since Sidewiki is hosted by Google (and not in the same place as your own website), there is no way for you to dive in directly and edit comments on your site.

Google has reserved the top reply for the whomever has registered with Google Webmaster Central as the site owner, but every other position is up for grabs.

While it is against Google’s content policy to place unwanted promotional material in the Sidewiki for another web site - it is inconceivable that they would already have an effective monitoring mechanism to enforce this rule without user input.

It is my fervent hope that Google will eventually give site owners greater control over their own Sidewiki (or at least opt-out of the service).  Until then, I suggest that you make it a point to set the tone of the Sidewiki on your own pages and routinely check your website for any malicious posters so that you can inform Google ASAP.