[Search-l] what is happening: how about live 'help'.

Mon Apr 30 15:05:44 UTC 2007

The brainstorming page is a good start.  If Search Wikia is making a big
announcement soon, maybe that'll provide some direction for those of us
milling around on this list, thinking about how a good wiki-search
should work... I mean, this list is a place to be generating ideas,
throwing off sparks, rallying the base... not spitting and spatting and
flaming to and fro.

http://www.chacha.com/info/about  Cha Cha is kind of interesting... but
any mediation or live guidance will be overwhelmed by the volume of
search requests... 

This happens in librarianship... one example is the Ask-a-Librarian
feature many libraries have for patrons, where you can use an e-mail
form to request help.  When librarians look at search histories (in
databases vendors like EBSCOHost), they can guide students/patrons and
make suggestions on how to better frame search syntax.  EBSCO recently
changed its default search interface for all (or most?) of its databases
to make "exact phrase searching" the default... teaching patrons the
differences between "exact phrases" and (exact AND phrases), and
therefore how to get more out of your search, is a big part of what
librarians do.  It's info literacy.

so... a mediated (or collaborative) search engine of any volume
whatsoever will, seems to me, have to be asynchronous... which brings in
a load of new limitations... one fix could be some sort of IM search
help.  

NYPL does it:

http://www.nypl.org/questions/chat.html

The Air Force librarians do it:

http://aal20.tutor.com/nGEN/Apps/SocWeb/main.aspx?ID=de076e6e-1391-47e6-
87b1-d5e2897dd03b

It could be that thousands of committed Search Wikia users could provide
this service for each other.

Woody Evans

"Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the
free and buoyant. Education & free discussion are the antidotes of
both."

          - Thomas Jefferson

________________________________

From: search-l-bounces at wikia.com [mailto:search-l-bounces at wikia.com] On
Behalf Of Jacob Kristian Andresen
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 12:43 AM
To: search-l at wikia.com
Subject: Re: [Search-l] Simpy Chichimichi - "Wikia Search - Not
Happening"

Let's take this opportunity to actually write content on
http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Brainstorming

I just outlined the idea of "community ranking" on the wiki. I welcome
comments there. 

Jacob Andresen

On 30/04/07, Keith Botley <Keith at botley.net> wrote:

> I advise everyone who thinks this is going to be a hell of a lot of
fun,
> turning the entire industry upside down... to do the same.  :)
>
> I'd kick him off the list, but that's not my style.  A few critics 
> around to stir the stew can keep us on our toes as we move forward.
>
> --Jimbo

You have to give Seth credit for keeping a dying mailing list alive. He
has
provided some informative posts related to what others are saying about 
wikia search and certainly hasn't posted anything that deserves a punt
from
the list.

This was my first attempt to join a community driven development
project. I
was intrigued because of the value that Wikipedia provides to the web at

large and that the founder of Wikipedia was involved to make search a
community driven process.

My question is what and who is the "us" that JW refers to above? I
thought
that the whole idea was to be transparent and bring together a community
of 
technology experts.

< The project is going full speed ahead.

Sounds like smoke and mirrors to me, based on what I have to go on. It
appears that Wikia Search is falling faster than Brady Quinn in the NFL 
draft and unless I can get concrete information that wikia search is
actually going full speed ahead a certain amount of skepticism is in
order.

I'll probably get kicked for this ;-(

Keith Botley

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