5 ms·

I don't want a search engine removing whatever they deem a "conspiracy theory" or "misinformation". I can decide on my own.

criddell 6y ago
Isn't that essentially saying you don't want your search engine ranking by relevance and quality?
- anaganisk 6y ago
  Quality, the same "AI" recommends me irrelevant videos, cant recognise me as a human if i log in from any browser other than chrome, and that issues takedowns randomly for users. The ine that spams, pinterest like shit site quality on front page. Yeah, no, I dont want it to decide.
  - hiccuphippo 6y ago
    The first thing I do when searching for images is `-site:pinterest.com` The quality of results increases immensely.
    - spurgu 6y ago
      IIRC Google used to have a dropdown in the search results similar to "Don't show results from this site". Luckily I don't see Yahoo Answers results anymore but would be nice to have Pinterest removed.
      - Normille 6y ago
        If you use Greasemonkey / Tampermonkey, etc. you might want to check out 'Google hit Hider by domain'[0] [in spite of the name, it works on several search engines, not just Google]. It provides a really simple interface to ban [with various levels of extreme prejudice] sites from ever again appearing in your search results. [0] https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/1682-google-hit-hider-by-domain-search-filter-block-sites https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/1682-google-hit-hider-by-d...
        spurgu 6y ago
        This looks great, thank you!
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  These days big tech seems to be focused on hiding certain information from users, herding them into a certain echo-chamber. No thanks, I'd rather think for myself.
- intricatedetail 6y ago
  Relevance and quality are subjective.
  - sgift 6y ago
    Of course they are. That's the reason Google "won" in the first place after all. They had a algorithm which better fit what people expected.
    - spurgu 6y ago
      But tides are turning, Google's results are steadily going downhill. Unfortunately it seems to be too much of a daunting task with today's size of the internet to jump in with a viable competitor.
      - curryst 6y ago
        > But tides are turning, Google's results are steadily going downhill. Unfortunately it seems to be too much of a daunting task with today's size of the internet to jump in with a viable competitor. I wonder what portion of the internet you have to scrape to be able to have good results for 90% of queries. An enormous number of my queries end up on Wikipedia somewhere, for example. A lot end up on Stack Overflow. The two of those probably constitute the majority of my searches, and almost certainly a majority of the searches where I really care about the answer (and I'm not just googling whether pirates and ninjas were contemporaries of each other, because why not). If Google's results are really slipping that much, you can make up for the lack of data by providing better results on the data you do have. I am curious why something like that hasn't gotten more popular. A search engine that only indexes highly reputable and public sources would be interesting. Wikipedia, dictionaries from somewhere, reputable newspapers globally, etc. Is it just too big of a target for abuse to be viable?
        spurgu 6y ago
        Good points. > I wonder what portion of the internet you have to scrape to be able to have good results for 90% of queries. But this is it. I don't think it'd be too hard to get 90% of queries right. It's the 10% that are the challenge. "Page rank" / "link juice" (amount/strength of incoming links) is still a main ingredient in Google's recipe, so they are actually able to determine, without manual intervention (more or less), which sites are "reputable", while your suggestion would require someone to curate the assortments of "reputable" sites. How would you discover niche blogs? Or even more high profile ones, just not known to the major public? That said, as you say, you could probably do with something like this for most of your day-to-day searches, and then just !g or whatever for the rest.
- coldtea 6y ago
  No, it's like saying I want the search engine ranking by relevance and quality of search terms and matches. If I search "we never landed on the moon" I want to see results about those theories, not see them censored because the search engine "knows better".
tialaramex 6y ago
> I can decide on my own What tests have you done to confirm that you're actually any good at this? Or is the idea that you'd actively prefer to have your life ruined by misinformation than admit you might not have the best ability to distinguish - like the way some people would prefer to be crippled or maimed than accept safety protection on dangerous machinery because they find it emasculating?
- miked85 6y ago
  > What tests have you done to confirm that you're actually any good at this? I can figure it out. I don't need to get information filtered by people who think they know what is best for everyone (else). This is what China does.
- oldgregg 6y ago
  What makes you think a multinational corporation would be any better? They are at the mercy of regulators and will always bow to political pressure rather than the truth.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >What tests have you done to confirm that you're actually any good at this? That's where the "decide on my own" part comes from. I don't need to pass your tests or arbitrary criteria. The most important point in having a democracy and citizens worthy of the name, is that you don't delegate this sorting out the wheat from the chaff to some third party that "knows better".
- jaspergilley 6y ago
  Most likely, if you're posting on HN, you're probably at least OK at critical thinking
chuckSu 6y ago
I’m a bit double sided about this. Like you I personally wouldn’t want results to be removed because I feel like I’m capable of deciding for myself, but at the same time I feel like the world is filled with more than a few gullible and sometimes straight up dumb asses that might need to be nannied a bit.

criddell 6y ago

Isn't that essentially saying you don't want your search engine ranking by relevance and quality?

anaganisk 6y ago
Quality, the same "AI" recommends me irrelevant videos, cant recognise me as a human if i log in from any browser other than chrome, and that issues takedowns randomly for users. The ine that spams, pinterest like shit site quality on front page. Yeah, no, I dont want it to decide.
- hiccuphippo 6y ago
  The first thing I do when searching for images is `-site:pinterest.com` The quality of results increases immensely.
  - spurgu 6y ago
    IIRC Google used to have a dropdown in the search results similar to "Don't show results from this site". Luckily I don't see Yahoo Answers results anymore but would be nice to have Pinterest removed.
    - Normille 6y ago
      If you use Greasemonkey / Tampermonkey, etc. you might want to check out 'Google hit Hider by domain'[0] [in spite of the name, it works on several search engines, not just Google]. It provides a really simple interface to ban [with various levels of extreme prejudice] sites from ever again appearing in your search results. [0] https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/1682-google-hit-hider-by-domain-search-filter-block-sites https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/1682-google-hit-hider-by-d...
      - spurgu 6y ago
        This looks great, thank you!
Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
These days big tech seems to be focused on hiding certain information from users, herding them into a certain echo-chamber. No thanks, I'd rather think for myself.
intricatedetail 6y ago
Relevance and quality are subjective.
- sgift 6y ago
  Of course they are. That's the reason Google "won" in the first place after all. They had a algorithm which better fit what people expected.
  - spurgu 6y ago
    But tides are turning, Google's results are steadily going downhill. Unfortunately it seems to be too much of a daunting task with today's size of the internet to jump in with a viable competitor.
    - curryst 6y ago
      > But tides are turning, Google's results are steadily going downhill. Unfortunately it seems to be too much of a daunting task with today's size of the internet to jump in with a viable competitor. I wonder what portion of the internet you have to scrape to be able to have good results for 90% of queries. An enormous number of my queries end up on Wikipedia somewhere, for example. A lot end up on Stack Overflow. The two of those probably constitute the majority of my searches, and almost certainly a majority of the searches where I really care about the answer (and I'm not just googling whether pirates and ninjas were contemporaries of each other, because why not). If Google's results are really slipping that much, you can make up for the lack of data by providing better results on the data you do have. I am curious why something like that hasn't gotten more popular. A search engine that only indexes highly reputable and public sources would be interesting. Wikipedia, dictionaries from somewhere, reputable newspapers globally, etc. Is it just too big of a target for abuse to be viable?
      - spurgu 6y ago
        Good points. > I wonder what portion of the internet you have to scrape to be able to have good results for 90% of queries. But this is it. I don't think it'd be too hard to get 90% of queries right. It's the 10% that are the challenge. "Page rank" / "link juice" (amount/strength of incoming links) is still a main ingredient in Google's recipe, so they are actually able to determine, without manual intervention (more or less), which sites are "reputable", while your suggestion would require someone to curate the assortments of "reputable" sites. How would you discover niche blogs? Or even more high profile ones, just not known to the major public? That said, as you say, you could probably do with something like this for most of your day-to-day searches, and then just !g or whatever for the rest.
coldtea 6y ago
No, it's like saying I want the search engine ranking by relevance and quality of search terms and matches. If I search "we never landed on the moon" I want to see results about those theories, not see them censored because the search engine "knows better".

tialaramex 6y ago

> I can decide on my own What tests have you done to confirm that you're actually any good at this? Or is the idea that you'd actively prefer to have your life ruined by misinformation than admit you might not have the best ability to distinguish - like the way some people would prefer to be crippled or maimed than accept safety protection on dangerous machinery because they find it emasculating?

miked85 6y ago
> What tests have you done to confirm that you're actually any good at this? I can figure it out. I don't need to get information filtered by people who think they know what is best for everyone (else). This is what China does.
oldgregg 6y ago
What makes you think a multinational corporation would be any better? They are at the mercy of regulators and will always bow to political pressure rather than the truth.
coldtea 6y ago
>What tests have you done to confirm that you're actually any good at this? That's where the "decide on my own" part comes from. I don't need to pass your tests or arbitrary criteria. The most important point in having a democracy and citizens worthy of the name, is that you don't delegate this sorting out the wheat from the chaff to some third party that "knows better".
jaspergilley 6y ago
Most likely, if you're posting on HN, you're probably at least OK at critical thinking

chuckSu 6y ago

I’m a bit double sided about this. Like you I personally wouldn’t want results to be removed because I feel like I’m capable of deciding for myself, but at the same time I feel like the world is filled with more than a few gullible and sometimes straight up dumb asses that might need to be nannied a bit.