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Google is FUBAR

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Re: Google is FUBAR

#231

Post by rodion_89 »

mark_integerdsv wrote: post #199
rodion_89 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are 'relevant' and 'accurate' different in this case? (serious question) For example if I search for "python books" I get results about books teaching the programming language. I'm a programmer and this makes sense in that it is both 'relevant' and 'accurate'. If my girlfriend does the same search she gets books about snakes. She is a biologist so it is again both 'accurate' and 'relevant'. The problem arrises if…

...three weeks before your birthday, your girlfriend - frantically searching for a Python book to surprise you with, wades through hundreds of results pertaining to snakes, eventually gives up in exasperation and decides to head to the nearest Borders and... Oh wait. I see your point in the post above but disagree. People should control their search results based on what they are searching for, relevance is objective…

Luckily she got me an Arduino for my birthday.

But you are correct in that these disambiguations are necessary to a certain extent. I think most users wouldn't react well to it being so prominent (as is with DDG). Perhaps a small sidebar would do well for this, but that would eat into their advertising real-estate.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#232

Post by mark_integerdsv »

fpgeek wrote: post #204
mark_integerdsv wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...three weeks before your birthday, your girlfriend - frantically searching for a Python book to surprise you with, wades through hundreds of results pertaining to snakes, eventually gives up in exasperation and decides to head to the nearest Borders and... Oh wait. I see your point in the post above but disagree. People should control their search results based on what they are searching for, relevance is objective…

And during her frantic searching, his girlfriend won't try something as simple as "python programming book"? I find that hard to believe, especially if her default association for "python" is the snake.

I'm almost certain she would use a more sensible search term. In fact: she'd most likely have the title already, having picked the brains of a friend or colleague. You seem to have missed the point of my (admittedly flimsy) example though.

What I am trying to illustrate is that the alleged relevance of a set of results biased on the basis of an individual's profile is incredibly insular (and harmful) if it's there at all.

Boiling it down even further: I believe that search results should reflect what is on the Internet, not just that portion of it that Google deems 'relevant.'

...anything else, in my opinion, skates dangerously close to what most people railed against in the great Net Neutrality debate of 09.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#233

Post by latch »

tehwalrus wrote: post #164

I don't want search results tailored to my google profile, I want the real results, even if I disagree with them. Example: I found my blog coming higher and higher on google for random search terms...only to realise that I was logged in and google knew that it was my blog. Not useful data! I would move to duckduckgo, if it weren't mediocre the last time I tried. Maybe it's time to give them another shot.

Speed is the biggest problem with DDG, but really, there's no harm in giving it another shot for a couple days to see how it has improved (because it has).

Re: Google is FUBAR

#234

Post by Foxo »

coryrc wrote: post #178
rodion_89 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are 'relevant' and 'accurate' different in this case? (serious question) For example if I search for "python books" I get results about books teaching the programming language. I'm a programmer and this makes sense in that it is both 'relevant' and 'accurate'. If my girlfriend does the same search she gets books about snakes. She is a biologist so it is again both 'accurate' and 'relevant'. The problem arrises if…

And when you want to learn more about snakes or her more about programming, it will be that much harder to get good results because google's bias will be working against you. It also increases the effect of grouping people into only social groups of the same philosophy and reducing exposure to other points of view. Not good for society. So even if I could fix it for myself, it is bad in general.

Then you would just need to clarify it further... It's not as if when you type "python language" or "python programming" that Google will respond with "No, sorry, you're only interested in snakes." I believe it's simply meant to help clarify unambiguous queries, and increase the ranking of the results that I'm normally interested in. At the bottom of almost every search you make, it says "Did you mean" - I would like them to make it easier to find, and I'd imagine they will.

I'm often looking up stuff related to code - I would love Google to know what languages I use, and present me with results specific to them. If I'm looking up something different, I'm sure Google will present me with their best guess of what I might mean...

Re: Google is FUBAR

#235

Post by cynwoody »

hendrix wrote: post #182
cletus wrote: post #50

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…

So Google should know everything about everyone's search/social/youtube/whatever? Combining this data creates a very complete psychological profile on someone. Since Google is based in the USA all of this data could then be acquired by the government under the patriot act and used against innocent Americans. Never mind that the FBI (who could also request Google's data) has already done this sort of thing to anti-war…

So use Yandex via https.

That way, only Kommittee will know what you searched for.

Seriously, it's not a half-bad search engine. Throw it a bone once in while to make sure it survives!

Re: Google is FUBAR

#236

Post by potatolicious »

yanw wrote: post #181
pron wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+googol. I just have to repeat this. Google, YOU WILL GUESS WRONG! And my hunch is, you'll guess wrong about, oh, 8 times out of ten. Google search is the last place I go to look for something that's already one of my interests. For that I have twitter, my feed reader etc. I only google things that I have no, or little, familiarity with. Google search is supposed to tell me WHAT I DON'T ALREADY KNOW. In fact, now whe…

Use the toggle to turn off the social stuff then.

I still think it's very poor design that the toggle is:

1 - Completely unlabeled, nor is the icon indicative/clear.

2 - Not sticky. It will turn itself back on, even though this is neither implied nor stated in the UI.

3 - The only way to actually turn it off is to dig into your search settings - what percentage of your users actually know that exists, much less think about looking there?

Re: Google is FUBAR

#237

Post by potatolicious »

rodion_89 wrote: post #137
DanBC wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don't want relevant search results. I want accurate search results. I hate being limited by the bubble; I hate having to cut away rubbish related to what a search engine thinks I want.

How are 'relevant' and 'accurate' different in this case? (serious question) For example if I search for "python books" I get results about books teaching the programming language. I'm a programmer and this makes sense in that it is both 'relevant' and 'accurate'. If my girlfriend does the same search she gets books about snakes. She is a biologist so it is again both 'accurate' and 'relevant'. The problem arrises if…

That's not exactly SPYW though.

SPYW is where you type in "python books" and the top half of the screen consists of your programmer friends talking about Python.

Or when your girlfriend types in "python books" and the top of the screen consists of her biologist friends talking about snakes.

That's what I'm seeing with my search results. I have no qualms with Google trying to "understand" me and offer more relevant links.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#238

Post by redthrowaway »

mattmanser wrote: post #192
hyperbovine wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I start to feel cold and lonely whenever I go more than a day without seeing somebody trot out the old Father Niemuller quote for something wildly mundane and less important than the Holocaust, and I think in this case it had been two. We're talking about Picasa having access to your address book (or whatever). Get a freaking grip.

If by 'address book' you mean your searches, your email, your political leaning, where you go, what you read, what time you're in the house, your location, your sexual preferences, what you find funny, what you hate, who you're fucking, who you hang out with, who you don't like, whether you do drugs and everyone you've ever talked to then we have very different definitions of address books.

Again, if you don't feel comfortable with Google having that information, Don't give it to them. They've always had the data; now they're saying they'll use it. If the US Government went off the rails and decided to take all of Google's data and track down dissidents, they would have been just as capable of doing so before this update as after.

You're throwing out a lot of scary-sounding nonsense without saying why it's bad. Sure, someone could use the information to do evil. Someone could also use nuclear power to make a bomb. The problem is the bomb, not the power. If your primary concern with Google is not that someone will use their information maliciously, but rather that someone could do so, you would be far better off focusing your efforts on preventing the bad men from gaining access to it.

Seriously, this what-ifery is why we have the TSA. Focus on the real threats, not the hypothetical ones that could be realized if x, y, z, and z++ all align.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#239

Post by rat87 »

cletus wrote: post #50

Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer. These opinions are my own. Nothing I say in any way represents the company's position, officially or unofficially. That being said, I see all this as much ado about nothing. Privacy policies are complex beasts governed by many regulatory environments. Reducing a huge number of these policies to a handful, announcing it ahead of time and giving you controls over privacy all seem lik…

> If we know something of your interests (based on G+ and/or search), isn't suggesting more relevant content to you on Youtube (as a purely hypothetical example) a good thing?

No absolutely not, a search that is more relevant occasionally is only slightly useful maybe getting a slightly better link a few percentage points of the time(past a certain amount how much more relevant can you get. If you go to far in trying to guess the persons mind based on persons external history rather then their search it seem like you would get more way of answers and if you don't the answer would likely have been near the top anyway), keeping less information on users for shorter amounts of time should be preferred.

Re: Google is FUBAR

#240

Post by fpgeek »

mark_integerdsv wrote: post #232
fpgeek wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And during her frantic searching, his girlfriend won't try something as simple as "python programming book"? I find that hard to believe, especially if her default association for "python" is the snake.

I'm almost certain she would use a more sensible search term. In fact: she'd most likely have the title already, having picked the brains of a friend or colleague. You seem to have missed the point of my (admittedly flimsy) example though. What I am trying to illustrate is that the alleged relevance of a set of results biased on the basis of an individual's profile is incredibly insular (and harmful) if it's there at…

> What I am trying to illustrate is that the alleged relevance of a set of results biased on the basis of an individual's profile is incredibly insular (and harmful) if it's there at all.

> Boiling it down even further: I believe that search results should reflect what is on the Internet, not just that portion of it that Google deems 'relevant.'

And what I'm trying to illustrate is that you're taking an overly simplistic approach to the question. Google takes in a lot of signals (links, country and language, past behavior with respect to previous queries, sites you've asked to be blocked, ...) and now social signals. Where do you draw the line and why? And why isn't a user responding with more detailed guidance ("I didn't mean X [even though I often do], I mean Y right now") a reasonable exceptional flow some of the time?

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