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Wikipedia starts work on $2.5M internet search engine project to rival Google [pdf]

m.wikimediafoundation.org

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Re: Wikipedia starts work on $2.5M internet search engine project to rival Google [pdf]

#11

Post by tuvalie »

cmarschner wrote: post #4

This is a very, very, very small amount of money if you want to build a search engine, let alone one "to rival Google" (source?). Looks like the goals are realistic, though - look how wikipedia search could be extended beyond results from wikipedia.org, build some test sets. And get a better idea what it really is that is supposed to be built.

I run a knowledge engine project that actively mines facts from web-based sources and third-party data dumps. It was featured on the front page of HN a while ago, and has a total of $10 in funding (from a single donation; not a typo). I have, however, put a ton of time into it, and it's something I'm very passionate about. I'm fairly confident Wikipedia can have success making initial headway on their grant objectives with $250,000.

If anyone's interested, here's a demo of my own project: https://tuvalie.com/fae/?q=Albert%20Einstein

Re: Wikipedia starts work on $2.5M internet search engine project to rival Google [pdf]

#12

Post by xojoc »

This is exciting. Recently I started to work on an answer engine/search engine. It still sucks but it's a good project to work on when bored

http://kairos.xyz/

In a few weeks I'll publish the source code and do a Show HN.

I wish a lot of luck to

https://www.mojeek.com/

and

http://www.lexxe.com/

too. DuckDuckGo also started to crawl the web with its own bot (right now they're using Yandex's api).

We need more competition from different countries. Just think about the censorship done by Baidu or how Google never plays by its own rules.

It's also interesting to think about a way to monetize a search engine. For kairos.xyz I was thinking about paid accounts (1 euro per month) providing more features, like the ability to search from the command line. For example you write "kairos Richard Stallman" and it prints basic information about Richard Stallman on your terminal.

Re: Wikipedia starts work on $2.5M internet search engine project to rival Google [pdf]

#13

Post by Mizza »

talles wrote: post #9

I don't know how should I feel about all those donation campaigns they usually do after this.

Looks like this is a grant specifically for this work (at least in part.)

I think this is an incredibly good use of their money. Google is the world's biggest surveillance machine, I hope that Wikipedia can do to them what they've already done to Encarta.

Re: Wikipedia starts work on $2.5M internet search engine project to rival Google [pdf]

#15

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

mh- wrote: post #5
olh wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. As per page 9 the most of the budget allocated for the project comes from wikimedia themselves, totaling 2,445,873.00 USD in for the fiscal year 2015-2016.

do these funds come from the donations they solicit on wikipedia.org?

Yes, it's the main (only?) source of income for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Re: Wikipedia starts work on $2.5M internet search engine project to rival Google [pdf]

#18

Post by quickben »

cmarschner wrote: post #4

This is a very, very, very small amount of money if you want to build a search engine, let alone one "to rival Google" (source?). Looks like the goals are realistic, though - look how wikipedia search could be extended beyond results from wikipedia.org, build some test sets. And get a better idea what it really is that is supposed to be built.

I run a search engine that indexes an entire western country for beer-worth of vps. I spent few months to build it though. I don't see scaling for the world to be hard given the money they have.

Re: Wikipedia starts work on $2.5M internet search engine project to rival Google [pdf]

#19

Post by seven-dev »

xojoc wrote: post #12

This is exciting. Recently I started to work on an answer engine/search engine. It still sucks but it's a good project to work on when bored http://kairos.xyz/ In a few weeks I'll publish the source code and do a Show HN. I wish a lot of luck to https://www.mojeek.com/ and http://www.lexxe.com/ too. DuckDuckGo also started to crawl the web with its own bot (right now they're using Yandex's api). We need more competit…

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Re: Wikipedia starts work on $2.5M internet search engine project to rival Google [pdf]

#20

Post by maxerickson »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #15
mh- wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do these funds come from the donations they solicit on wikipedia.org?

Yes, it's the main (only?) source of income for the Wikimedia Foundation.

There are substantial donations from other foundations and company match programs (Huuuge page):

https://annual.wikimedia.org/2014/#s-5

I guess the foundations aren't reasonably a response to the Jimmy banners, the company matches probably are.

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