[Search-l] Short interview with Jeremie Miller

[Jimmy Wales]

John McCormac wrote:
> Well it should be interesting to see. How exactly can a bunch of 
> enthusiasts monitor for abuse? The fundamental flaw in this is that 
> search and the facilities to detect and remove spam and abuse are highly 
> automated. Wikiasearch seems to be going back to the Infinite Monkeys 
> approach of replacing highly automated systems with manual ones.

I think you are really not getting what our thinking is here.

Of course many aspects of what are need in search are automatable and 
automated.  The things that computers do best, computers should do.  And 
those things are subject to human oversight and judgment.

The point is not to replace computers with humans doing tedious work, 
but to recognize that automated systems are not value-neutral, and that 
the editorial decision making in search should be done in an open, 
transparent, and participatory way.

--Jimbo