In its early stages of development as a resource, Knol was criticised very much. Commentators have called it a "wasteland" of articles copied from other sources, entries that were outdated or abandoned, as well as spam or self-promotion. Knol is frequently criticized for having incomplete and inaccurate articles. Google has said that "Since knol authors receive attribution, knols are a great forum for expressing your opinions." In October 2008, Google unveiled using Knols as a forum for debate, and enabled French, Italian and German versions, in the face of stagnating traffic.