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How is search so bad? A case study

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Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#301

Post by yibg »

viklove wrote: post #252
joshuamorton wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I work at Google, but don't work on search) > If wikipedia contains cherry picked slander against a person, topic or website then the raters are instructed to provide a low page rank score This sounds like a good thing to me. Sites that contain lies, fabrications, and falsehoods should not be as highly ranked as those which do not. Why should shareholders sure Google for, as far as I can tell from your argument, try…

Why do your colleagues get to decide what is fact and what is fiction? It's our right, as humans, to be able to make that decision on our own after we encounter information. If Wikipedia gains a reputation for libel, then the onus should be on the public to stop trusting them. Google does not have the moral authority to censor the internet, and it's absolutely wrong for them to attempt this. Information should be fre…

They get to decide what they display as results. What do you suggest they do instead? Display all of the internet and let the user filter things for themselves?

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#302

Post by sfblah »

detaro wrote: post #201
sfblah wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is a TRILLION dollar company. Indexing Reddit properly would take what? 2-3 engineers? Cmon.

Google adding dedicated optimizations for popular sites seems like a bad trend.

They do it all the time.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#303

Post by AlexCoventry »

blattimwind wrote: post #71
arielweisberg wrote: post #3

Google has definitely stopped being able to find the things I need. Pasting stack traces and error messages. Needle in a haystack phrases from an article or book. None of it works anymore. Does this mean they are ripe for disruption or has search gotten harder?

> Pasting stack traces and error messages. I cannot fathom the number of times I've pasted an error message enclosed by quotes and got garbage results, and then an hour of troubleshooting and searching later I come across a Github/bugtracker issue, which was nowhere in the search results, were the exact error message appears verbatim . The garbage results are generally completely unrelated stuff (a lot of Windows for…

> a Github/bugtracker issue, which was nowhere in the search results, were the exact error message appears verbatim.

Did you put the error message in quotes? I've never had this problem.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#305

Post by true_religion »

leereeves wrote: post #293
skosch wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two wrongs don't make a right – but more importantly, Project Veritas deliberately uses lies and deception to obtain its footage, which it then edits to remove context. That crosses a line far beyond run-of-the-mill reporting bias.

The point of that story isn't "two wrongs make a right", but that the left wing still accepts CNN just as the right wing still accepts PV. "Gotchas" and "gaffes" are taken out of context all the time. And when reporters lie to go undercover and obtain a story, they're usually hailed as heroes. These objections are only used to "discredit" opposing viewpoints. People don't object when sources they agree with use the s…

Why the assumption of left or right, when at least in the US most people identify as independents?

And to be even more fair, you aren’t talking about “people” here but the OP who can clearly state their own personal preferences, without the need for you to construct a theory of hidden bias.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#306

Post by 3xblah »

clarry wrote: post #264
fluffy87 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch out with doing more complicated searches like extending those to a date range - they get people “banned” from using google search.

Even browsing beyond the first few pages of results can end you up having to play with captchas. Also it's funny how they lie about having about a quadrillion results, and then when you're on page 12, suddenly that's all the 150 results they have, sorry.

That quadrillion results bit is like a relic from a bygone era, when people actually cared.

I have not hit captchas very often. Even IP bans only last hours. It is annoying, but low risk. I do searching from shell prompt, never browser.

What always amazed me about Google is that they are not willing to let users to skip pages 1-11 and immediately jump to, say, page 12.

Sometimes queries are non-commercial and there are no ads. Still, jumping straight to page 12 can trigger a captcha.

I wrote a script that reverses or randomises the order of Google results, as an experiment.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#307

Post by Enginerrrd »

Swizec wrote: post #273
CriticalCathed wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mirror your sentiment. It used to be that you could use your google fu and you'd be able to find a dozen relevant forum posts or mail chains in plain text. It's much, much, harder to get the same standard of results. "Pasting stack traces and error messages. Needle in a haystack phrases from an article or book. None of it works anymore." Yeah, if I know where I'm looking (the sites) then google is useful since I ca…

The devil is in this detail: Regular users don’t want those “weird looking” results. Normies prefer the fluff. And guess what: most users are normal. Us here on HN are weird:

So this point is such an interesting and common anti-pattern on the internet though:

1. Something is or provides access to good quality content.

2. Because of this quality, it gets more and more popular.

3. As popularity grows, and commercialization takes over, the incentive becomes to make things "more accessible" or "appealing" to the "average" user. More users is always better right!?

4. This works, and quality plummets.

5. The thing begins to lose popularity. Sometimes it collapses into total unprofitability. Sometimes it remains but the core users that built the quality content move somewhere else, and then that new thing starts to offer tremendous value in comparison to the now low quality thing.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#308

Post by leereeves »

lostcolony wrote: post #300
leereeves wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of that story isn't "two wrongs make a right", but that the left wing still accepts CNN just as the right wing still accepts PV. "Gotchas" and "gaffes" are taken out of context all the time. And when reporters lie to go undercover and obtain a story, they're usually hailed as heroes. These objections are only used to "discredit" opposing viewpoints. People don't object when sources they agree with use the s…

I'm sorry, whataboutism doesn't actually lend credence. You're free to select the occasional time when a news agency gets it wrong (and apologizes and issues a correction)...but to try and compare it to an intentionally biased organization that always, intentionally gets it wrong (by willfully setting up people, then editing their responses, to paint things in a particular light), and never backs down, never apologiz…

Actually I'm not a fan of PV. Gotcha journalism doesn't appeal to me. But I see that low quality "journalism" every day, so I don't see PV as particularly noteworthy. Certainly not worth altering search results for.

And I'd say you are mistaken when you call changing "take that [violence] to the suburbs" into "a call for peace" merely getting it wrong. What CNN did could hardly be anything other than intentional deception from an organization with a strong left-wing bias[1].

1: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#309

Post by leereeves »

true_religion wrote: post #305
leereeves wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of that story isn't "two wrongs make a right", but that the left wing still accepts CNN just as the right wing still accepts PV. "Gotchas" and "gaffes" are taken out of context all the time. And when reporters lie to go undercover and obtain a story, they're usually hailed as heroes. These objections are only used to "discredit" opposing viewpoints. People don't object when sources they agree with use the s…

Why the assumption of left or right, when at least in the US most people identify as independents? And to be even more fair, you aren’t talking about “people” here but the OP who can clearly state their own personal preferences, without the need for you to construct a theory of hidden bias.

No, I'm not only talking about the OP here.

Look up the story I'm talking about and you'll see that it was ignored by left-wing sources:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cnn+edited+video+of+sister&t=ffab&...

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cnn%20edited%20video%2...

The entire media establishment ignores these tactics when used by other organizations they agree with.

Re: How is search so bad? A case study

#310

Post by wozniacki »

true_religion wrote: post #305
leereeves wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of that story isn't "two wrongs make a right", but that the left wing still accepts CNN just as the right wing still accepts PV. "Gotchas" and "gaffes" are taken out of context all the time. And when reporters lie to go undercover and obtain a story, they're usually hailed as heroes. These objections are only used to "discredit" opposing viewpoints. People don't object when sources they agree with use the s…

Why the assumption of left or right, when at least in the US most people identify as independents? And to be even more fair, you aren’t talking about “people” here but the OP who can clearly state their own personal preferences, without the need for you to construct a theory of hidden bias.

  Why the assumption of left or right, when at least
  in the US most people identify as independents?
Do you wish to cite a source for this or do you wish to gaslight here?

  Voters declaring themselves as independent of a major
  political party rose nationally by 6 percentage points
  to 28 percent of the U.S. electorate between 2000 and 
  last year’s congressional midterm contest in states 
  with party registration, analyst Rhodes Cook wrote 
  in Sabato’s Crystal Ball political newsletter at the
  University of Virginia Center for Politics.

  But as few as 19 percent of Americans identifying as
  independent truly have no leaning to a party, according
  to the Pew Research Center.[1]
[1]

'Difference-maker' independent voters in U.S. presidential election crosshairs

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-deciders-ind...

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