[Search-l] Short interview with Jeremie Miller

[Seth Finkelstein]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2007 at 02:28:08AM -0500, jer wrote:
> I'm not really sure who wrote what parts of the text below but it doesn't 
> matter, there's some deeper history and context here that I don't have and 
> will continue to ignore.  These angles be made to sound as highbrow as you 
> want but I still find this rather immature and unhelpful.

	I've been pondering whether to send a defense, since I've been
asked not to do buzz-harshing posts (my term), and I don't want to antagonize
the Wikia people *unnecessarily*. The original is a blog post of mine:

http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/001262.html

	I think I posed reasonable questions. There is of course no
obligation to answer them. But I do not see them as in any way
"immature and unhelpful" in terms of fair comment. Indeed, one of my
overall critiques could be phrased in terms of opposing attempts to
foster an "immature", in the sense of "naive and trusting", attitude.
And the very exploitative nature of exactly where that's "helpful".

	Actually, I didn't even think they were particularly tough
questions. Maybe they seem so compared to typical journalistic cliches
("Can you really work miracles?" "I'm going to give it 110%").

	Note: You are an employee (assuming the word "hired" is
accurate) of Wikia, which is a company backed with $14 million dollars
of venture capital investment. That's a simple fact. You may have
stock options. That's not known for a fact, but it's a reasonable
speculation. There's nothing wrong with either of those, quite the
opposite. Though you may love the project you're working on with all
your heart and soul, but you're still being paid (and more?) in
compensation for your effort. And that's a different relationship, as
far as is known, than anyone else.

> To make this damn clear, I'm not here to build another search engine, I'm 
> here to make sure that everyone else can.  This isn't about one company or 
> one person, it's just about making the tools and services for search more 
> open and accessible to *everybody*.

	That's a laudable sentiment. But, nonetheless, money must
come from somewhere, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php