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Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

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Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#51

Post by enneff »

basch wrote: post #7
hombre_fatal wrote: post #3

> The web was supposed to forcefully challenge our opinions and push back, like a personal trainer who doesn't care how tired you say you are. What does this even mean? The web wasn't "supposed to" be anything. Though I'm not sure what magic search engine OP actually has in mind and how it's supposed to work. Besides, one of the modern mysteries is that we're in the age of instant information yet you'll notice how ma…

I support the author here. There was a promise of a marketplace of ideas, making the world a better place, that being interconnected would make the world smarter and democratize knowledge. All that may be true, it may be out there, but it's damn hard to find. Google, Youtube, Reddit, and Facebook all prioritize freshness. Instead of being exposed to things outside our comfort zones, we take solace protected inside fi…

> There was a promise of a marketplace of ideas, making the world a better place, that being interconnected would make the world smarter and democratize knowledge.

I vividly remember the promise, and believing in that promise, but there was never a time that the Internet was this. In retrospect I don't see why we should have believed in it in the first place.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#52

Post by MivLives »

jrockway wrote: post #47

> Search for "GM" and the Gmail homepage ranks prominently. Is Google pushing its own products on people? Well, yes, but not here. This is an example of a query refinement algorithm at work. Google is altering its results in recognition of the fact that many people who search "gm" subsequently search for "gmail." I tried this and there are three news articles about General Motors, an infobox for General Motors, 4 sea…

Even as a Gmail user, my results align with yours.

If I type it into the browser search bar however it is the first result. This is not Google's fault, as I'm on Firefox, which is smartly trying to look for sites I frequently visit.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#53

Post by jaredsohn »

jbritton wrote: post #10
bovermyer wrote: post #2

Fun experiment - try finding something on the World Wide Web without using a search engine. It's not as impossible as you might think. But it's certainly not easy.

Out of curiosity I have no idea how to approach this. Are there indexes of websites available to the public that you are suggesting that can be searched via grep or some simple scripting? Or are you suggesting writing a web crawler to build our own index? Or are you suggesting finding curated links to sites?

Just open up the Internet Yellow Pages book. :) https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Yellow-Pages-6th-ed/dp/15620...

My family actually had a book like and I learned about a bunch of the net culture sites through it.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#54

Post by saagarjha »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #48
saagarjha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I think Hacker News does pretty well for itself, and it shows: the users that accumulate karma the fastest usually have insightful comments, which is rarely true elsewhere.

No. Exactly like reddit, it awards people that have the most popular comments. Some people are more insightful than most, but its the exact same system as reddit

Well, of course, that's tautologically true. The difference is that the most popular comments are more often to be insightful, and the people with the most karma have it because they post insightful things, rather than the type of comment I mentioned above. (Believe me, I would know if people were spamming those; there are only a handful of people that accumulate karma faster than I do, and they all do it "fairly".)

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#55

Post by huffmsa »

basch wrote: post #7
hombre_fatal wrote: post #3

> The web was supposed to forcefully challenge our opinions and push back, like a personal trainer who doesn't care how tired you say you are. What does this even mean? The web wasn't "supposed to" be anything. Though I'm not sure what magic search engine OP actually has in mind and how it's supposed to work. Besides, one of the modern mysteries is that we're in the age of instant information yet you'll notice how ma…

I support the author here. There was a promise of a marketplace of ideas, making the world a better place, that being interconnected would make the world smarter and democratize knowledge. All that may be true, it may be out there, but it's damn hard to find. Google, Youtube, Reddit, and Facebook all prioritize freshness. Instead of being exposed to things outside our comfort zones, we take solace protected inside fi…

This is correct. Try filtering Google news by date.

It doesn't work.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#56

Post by midef »

jrockway wrote: post #47

> Search for "GM" and the Gmail homepage ranks prominently. Is Google pushing its own products on people? Well, yes, but not here. This is an example of a query refinement algorithm at work. Google is altering its results in recognition of the fact that many people who search "gm" subsequently search for "gmail." I tried this and there are three news articles about General Motors, an infobox for General Motors, 4 sea…

GM is in the news because of its respirator production and the search results are dynamic. I've seen Gmail rank #2 or #3 for that search.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#58

Post by huffmsa »

saagarjha wrote: post #31
danem wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hacker News can be great for complex discussions, but it's not free of filter bubbles and echo chambers. Nothing on or off the internet is. That is why it is important to keep an open mind and read widely and voraciously.

Right. I think Hacker News does pretty well for itself, and it shows: the users that accumulate karma the fastest usually have insightful comments, which is rarely true elsewhere.

Eh. If I post something taking shots at Europeans before America wakes up (3-4am CST) I usually get down voted for a few hours before American commenters come on and exchange fire with the Euros.

Your upboats are time sensitive.

Re: Google emphasizes popularity over accuracy

#59

Post by voz_ »

The author had a few bad queries and chalks the whole thing up to "Google Ruined the Internet". This is akin to having a bad experience with airline food and declaring that flying has ruined travel. It is absurd, it reeks of the stallman-esque style of negative, borderline luddite spew. Instead of offering a solution, this person just rants.

Google has been a pivotal center of the internet - information has never been easier to find! Ease of access to information does not, however, alleviate the need placed upon the reader to sift out fact from fiction.

As a thought experiment, would our luddite-esque author friend prefer that Google was the arbiter of truth, rather than trends? I certainly would not.

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