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

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

#61

Post by PythonForGirls »

abalone wrote: post #38

Summary of the approach (p10): "1) Public curation mechanisms for quality; 2) Transparency, telling users exactly how the information originated; 3) Open data access to metadata, giving users the exact date source of the information; 4) Protected user privacy, with their searching protected by strict privacy controls; 5) No advertising, which assures the free flow of information and a complete separation from commerc…

"Public Curation" doesn't make quality. It makes a mob-rule system where only the most popular ideas flourish.

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

#63

Post by mabbo »

Google's advantage isn't just that they were first, or that their algorithm is the best- it's the CPU resources they have available to keep their data updated faster.

Search for any news item and you'll have all articles published more than 2 minutes ago included in your results, all blog posts, everything. They consume it all, and offer the output in near-real-time.

Wikimedia don't have the resources to do that. And they especially won't without advertising to pay for it.

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

#64

Post by yuvipanda »

chris_wot wrote: post #58
xojoc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to explain? Do you have some links/sources?

Sure. I'll start off with the following email from Liam Wyatt: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-Febru... The grant application you are looking at was only revealed due to a MASSIVE amount of controversy and pressure within the Wikimedia Foundation. The community representative (James Heilman) on the board was let go the other day, in part because of concerns around this grant. You might want to…

Indeed, and morale at the WMF office is pretty damn low. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154689170123475&se... for an example.

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

#65

Post by chris_wot »

Alex3917 wrote: post #52
chris_wot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is it a search engine, but it is a grant application that has had WMF staff leaving in droves, and has greatly upset many, many others - who will quite likely also leave. It's very, very sad. And it's also a shameful moment for the WMF. edit: and don't just think it's me saying it. The WMF has had a mass exodus of staff in the last week or so. If you speak to any WMF non-executive staff members directly, you…

What's wrong with this project? It seems wildly ambitious, but maybe the blockchain makes to possible to succeed where Wikia failed previously.

Ironically, it's not the project itself that is the problem. It is the way it was done. It is causing masssive, massive problems internally within the WMF and frankly it's spilling over into the wider Wikipedia community. Can't speak for the other projects though, I don't know enough about them to say what the general feeling is around there.

It's not nice to be the only one here on HN pointing out that there are some absolutely massive problems going on at the WMF at the moment, but I'm an outsider who was once an insider and I still know enough influential people through Facebook and other mechanisms to see enough to know that there is a crisis happening right now within the WMF.

edit: I should note that, as an outsider who doesn't ever really want to be hugely involved in Wikipedia-related matters again (for various personal reasons not necessarily related to Wikipedia or the WMF), I don't really have any fear in stating what I see - nobody can really come back at me so I have no fear of any reprisals.

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

#66

Post by jcrben »

This was/is actually an extremely controversial project. The corporation (basically the Executive Director) pursued the grant and the idea without soliciting input or really disclosing it to the community of editors, and eventually one of the community-elected trustees was removed for questioning the lack of transparency. The community has a long list of software improvements that they'd like to see to the core platform.

A recent employee survey showed only 10% of WMF staff approved of the Executive Director, probably in large part due to things like this.

A critical take on the project as it has been handled: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/82...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... is a pretty good (but dated) overview from Wikipedia's weekly newspaper, but there's a few others in the Signpost and a few blog posts across the web.

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

#68

Post by patrickaljord »

elmar wrote: post #59
dexwiz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook wants a single platform to provide the Web through. If they built a search engine, it would only search Facebook.

Facebook search is broken, twitter search works much better.

It's only broken because most people share with their friends only and search cannot expose their posts. This makes real time search way less efficient than twitter.

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

#70

Post by bitmapbrother »

jondubois wrote: post #57
abalone wrote: post #38

Summary of the approach (p10): "1) Public curation mechanisms for quality; 2) Transparency, telling users exactly how the information originated; 3) Open data access to metadata, giving users the exact date source of the information; 4) Protected user privacy, with their searching protected by strict privacy controls; 5) No advertising, which assures the free flow of information and a complete separation from commerc…

I'm pretty sure that the spammer argument is just an excuse used by Google to allow them to keep their business practices out of public scrutiny. Google search results are biased in favour of content produced by those who have money and power. Google ranks everything based on popularity - Not based on quality. Popularity and quality are two independent concepts and not necessarily related. That's something which Wiki…

I'd ask you to cite your claims, but we both know you can't. It's a pity your issues with Google cause you to pollute discussions with BS.
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