[Search wiki] [Fwd: Re: Scale of Search wiki]

[Fred Bauder]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Search wiki] Scale of Search wiki
From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>
Date: Mon, January 14, 2008 9:40 pm
To: <jeremie at jabber.org>

If you take the example of Joseph Smith -mormon does quite a bit, but
not nearly enough. The mini article could contain for each resolution of
the ambiguity a set of + and - keywords which makes progress toward
resolution. It would be useful if the user could check the suggested
keywords they wanted to use on the miniarticle page, like in a checkbox,
and then run a search configured in that way. There would be space for
writing in keywords of the user's devising. The work of composing the
miniarticle would be to identify the keywords which reduce hits about
known cloggers and increase hits about the subject sought. Inclusion in
a list of ambiguous terms is very different from Wikipedia, where the
criteria is notability. Here it is volume. Anything which generates
thousands of clogging hits presents a problem, notable or not.

Like with apple which has a relatively simple disambiguation,  + or -
computer, + or - software, + or - iPod In that case, using the minuses,
the hits are reduced by half on a Google search, but still almost all
Apple inc. +fruit does wonders, but still yields 3 million.

I will try to come up with more tools. I suppose we could ask users to
tell us whether particular hits are computer company, fruit, record
company, or someone's name. If they included "apple" in a search that
feedback tool could come up for each hit. The question of whether a
particular hit, without more, is useful depends very much on what they
were searching for. We could even, before running the search, if "apple"
has been entered as a term, ask the user which of the disambiguations,
if any, they are searching for, and serve up the appropriate results, if
we had the hits tagged.

Fred Bauder

> What kind of tools (either part of or outside of the miniarticles)
> would help?
>
> I've always thought that a simple +keyword or -keyword utility within
> the MA might be a useful tool, where one-click would expand or
> contract your immediate search.  Any other ideas along those lines
> that could help reduce the namespace issues and become more useful?
>
> Jer
>
> On Jan 14, 2008, at 7:47 PM, Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>> They are generally going to fail due to ambiguity. Information
>> resolving
>> ambiguity is most needed, not a definitive article on the subject.
>> See Forum:The clogged search
>>
>> Fred Bauder
>>
>>> The intent (in my opinion at least) isn't to have an article for
>>> every
>>> different query, but instead to provide a facility for anyone   to
>>> provide immediate human guidance when the automated results may fail
>>> in some way.
>>>
>>> Jer
>>>
>>> On Jan 14, 2008, at 8:35 AM, Rainer Blome wrote:
>>>
>>>> [Second try, I used the wrong sender address with the first one.]
>>>>
>>>> Hi.  Missing a "free" search engine, I was delighted to read of
>>>> Wikia Search.
>>>> And it looks like a good beginning.
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone got any idea how far the concept of creating one mini
>>>> article per search query can be taken?  Is it possible to keep up
>>>> indefinitely?
>>>>
>>>> It appears to me that the number of different queries can quickly
>>>> reach millions, and billions in the long run.
>>>> Mini articles will not be written for every query.
>>>> What is the ratio between number of new queries and number of mini
>>>> articles writen?
>>>>
>>>> Looking for this topic, I found only this:
>>>>> From jwales at wikia.com  Thu Jan  4 00:51:34 2007
>>>>> peter burden wrote:
>>>>>> the scale of the whole enterprise. Are we
>>>>>> intending to outdo [...]? If so a long careful look at the
>>>>>> numbers is called for.
>>>>> Eh, I dunno.
>>>>
>>>> This may have been discussed elsewhere.  If so, please provide a
>>>> pointer.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Rainer
>>>>
>>>>
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