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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]

#131

Post by luxpir »

nl wrote: post #122
userbinator wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do a Google search for anything even slightly obscure, and you're likely to find the first page or so of results filled with highly-SEO'd sites that offer little in the way of deep, detailed content. The smaller sites which do have that content, but just haven't been SEO'd much, have been eclipsed. They're still there, but rendered nearly inaccessible. Interesting discussion on a search engine that does sort of the o…

I hear this a lot, but I'd love to see an example (especially including the sites that should rank).

This may or may not be what you're looking for, but my freelance site just can't hit the front page in my industry when dozens of highly funded agencies can dominate it. I've published a 50k word industry-specific book on my site, have SEO'd as much as possible and have an older domain than those better funded. Won't link to it here, but it seems to be a real issue to me.

If a search engine let you differentiate and sort between content match vs pagerank match vs Adwords spend we might be able to mitigate the issue somewhat.

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

#132

Post by jarcane »

meowface wrote: post #77
elmar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook search is broken, twitter search works much better.

It's intentionally broken. Despite many real (though also some exaggerated) counter-examples, Facebook does have features to protect privacy. One of those things is you generally can't get very useful results from search unless you're friends with someone, or a friend of a friend (depending on the user's privacy settings). You can't see general trends, or even search for every person with a given first and last name…

It can't even find anything in my own posts. If it's a permission problem, that's a pretty fuckin' serious permission problem right there.

On top of which, Graph Search is still disabled inexplicably in many regions, for reasons which were never explained.

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

#134

Post by ryacko »

marincounty wrote: post #128
NKCSS wrote: post #125

Weird; they have anual drives to raise money to keep the site running; would not expect that the'd have 2.5m lying around to do pet projects like this...

Most non-profits, especially the ones that are always asking, usually have a lot of funds. Before I give, I go to guidestar, hit free preview(they try to trick you into a paying membership), download last few years of 1040's, and see if everything looks copacetic. I look at who is making the most money. Their is usually one person making a very good living. California non-profits are much easier to scrutinize than De…

They are required to give you the 990 form if you email them usually.

In anycase, https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports

And the internet archive is a lot more deserving.

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

#135

Post by exDM69 »

NKCSS wrote: post #125

Weird; they have anual drives to raise money to keep the site running; would not expect that the'd have 2.5m lying around to do pet projects like this...

If you look at the papers in the link, a private foundation is donating 850k solely for this purpose. I didn't read all the legalese in the paper, not sure where the rest is coming from.

So apparently it's not money of the Wikimedia foundation funding this project.

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

#136

Post by ino »

dghughes wrote: post #56
seven-dev wrote: post #16

I support it 100%. I love Google but they have too much power and I'm sure they'll start taking advantage of that soon (like they did with Google+ and Youtube).

I can't see it being much better I find Wikipedia impartiality lacking it's very US-centric. For example something like the history of the Alaskan panhandle as seen from the US perspective is totally different when seen from a Canadian perspective. I never use Wikipedia as a primary source of info even the linked sources I try to use as least three independent sources. I would certainly like to see "Reliable and trus…

I don't know if you can trust anyone, I mean bias is everywhere. You can pick a side.

For example the Portuguese Wikipedia, shared by Brazil, Portugal (and other countries), with controversial matters many on colonization in the last 500 years, where both sides have academic work to support their contradictory views. Which views prevail?

An example of things being done differently are some Ex-Yugoslav countries (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, etc) whose languages are more similar than Portuguese and Brasilian Portuguese, and each one has its own Wikipedia, with different articles on the same subject depending on their point of view. Lately, I've been seeing more of the Serbocroatian Wikipedia, which I think aims to unite more of the others.

I don't know which way is better, I'm just a user.

Another reason you can't trust anyone, and this is general to the Internet, is that shilling, commercial and political interests aiming to change perception are everywhere. On reddit or facebook, with or without sources. It's the worst aspect of the internet for me these days.

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

#137

Post by cpeterso »

luxpir wrote: post #131
nl wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot, but I'd love to see an example (especially including the sites that should rank).

This may or may not be what you're looking for, but my freelance site just can't hit the front page in my industry when dozens of highly funded agencies can dominate it. I've published a 50k word industry-specific book on my site, have SEO'd as much as possible and have an older domain than those better funded. Won't link to it here, but it seems to be a real issue to me. If a search engine let you differentiate and…

btw, your site's redirect to the HTTPS version doesn't seem to work correctly in Firefox, Safari, or IE. After reading your comment, I was curious to learn more. When I typed in just your domain name plus CMD+ENTER (which adds "www." and ".com" to the address bar text in Firefox), I got a 404 page, not the 301 redirect to the HTTPS site. When I add "http://", the redirect seems to work.
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