[Search-l] twin principles, or what brings us together?

[Fred Benenson]

Hi,
   First let me introduce myself -- my name's Fred. I'm a free culture
activist, and student at ITP @ NYU. I brought Jimmy to announce this project
at NYU (he claimed it was the first public announcement, but I had heard
rumblings before.) as part of a free culture lecture series I was
organizing. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

Second, and my real reason for the reply is add/comment on Jer's principles:

What about privacy? If this project wants to compete with big G then we're
going to have think hard about a good data retention policy. That is, we'll
want to collect enough of the same data (common search terms, errors,
effective results, etc.) that Google does, store it somewhere, analyze it,
so we can offer competitive services and features, but not compromise
anyone's privacy.

Perhaps this is too soon to start worrying, but I fear that Google + others
will have a huge advantage over us if we choose not to collect any data as
they always have access to their data set, and are always able to run their
algorithms and analyses.

 I think we'll probably be able to find some kind of compromise -- enough
data to keep the project competitive and functional, but not enough to
facilitate privacy breeches, but it's still something we have to think hard
about, from the beginning, because, ostensibly, the log files will be
available for anyone to peruse.



F

On 5/7/07, jer <jeremie at jabber.org> wrote:
>
> Nobody yet pointed out a completely glaring omission, the obvious
> one, and perhaps the most important unifying principle of the three now:
>
>         Quality - Significantly improve the relevancy and accuracy of
> search
> results and the searching experience.
>
> Jer
>
> On May 7, 2007, at 1:59 AM, jer wrote:
>
> > One thing I've spent a lot of time trying to summarize is what is it
> > that really brought us together, what defines this effort in the
> > simplest way?
> >
> > Here's what I've come up with so far as my twin principles:
> >
> >       Transparency - Openness in how the systems and algorithms operate,
> > both in the form of open source licenses and open content + APIs.
> >       Collaboration - Everyone is able to contribute in some way (as
> > individuals or entire organizations), strong social and community
> > focus.
> >
> > We are a search community built on a shared belief in Transparency
> > and Collaboration... I hope that rings true for everyone else here,
> > it's what I personally believe in as the foundation for a better
> > search.
> >
> > Jer
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