5 ms·

I wonder if we'll see a comeback of hand-curated directories of content? I feel like the "awesome list" trend is maybe the start of something there. I would be

I wonder if we'll see a comeback of hand-curated directories of content? I feel like the "awesome list" trend is maybe the start of something there. I would be willing to pay an annual fee to have access to well-curated search results with all the clickbait, blogspam, etc. filtered out. Until then, I recommend uBlacklist[0], which allows you to hide sites by domain in the search results page for common search engines. 0 - https://github.com/iorate/uBlacklist https://github.com/iorate/uBlacklist

freediver 5y ago
You can access one without paying a dime. http://teclis.com http://teclis.com Problem is people usually want one general search engine, not a collection of niche ones.
- wruza 5y ago
  It’s not a directory. Hand-crafted descriptions instead of random citations and/or marketing from the site itself is what makes it a directory. This one is a search engine. Maybe it’s a good one for its purpose, but who knows, without an ability to navigate you can’t tell. Problem is people usually want one general search engine, not a collection of niche ones. In my opinion, the reason they want a general search engine is that they think in their box (search -> general search). What they really want is a way to discover things and quick summaries about them: “$section: $what $what_it_does $see_also”. Search engines abuse this necessity and suggest deceitfully summarized ads instead.
notJim 5y ago
> hide sites by domain This gives me the idea to build a search engine that only contains content from domains that have been vouched for. Basically, you'd have an upvote/downvote system for the domains, perhaps with some walls to make sure only trusted users can upvote/downvote. It seems like in practice, many people do this anyway. This could be the best of both worlds between directories and search engines.
- ancientworldnow 5y ago
  You don't need an upvote/downvote. If someone searches for X and clicks on results you just record when they stop trying sites or new search terms as you can assume the query has been answered. Reward that site. Most of them are already doing this in some form.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    Often you don’t know if a site is legit or not without first visiting it. And new clone sites launch all the time, so I’m always clicking on search results to new clone sites that I’ve never seen before so can’t avoid them in results.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      Yeah, when I get caught by these SEO spam sites it's because they haven't had a similar ranking to the SO thread that ripped off, so it wasn't immediately apparent.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    This is what Google already does, does it not? Why else would they be recording outbound clicks? Unfortunately, this doesn't entirely solve the problem. Counting clicks doesn't work because you don't know if the result was truly worthwhile or if the user was just duped by clickbait. As you say, clicking when they stop trying sites is better, but I don't know how good that signal to noise ratio is. A low-quality site might answer my question, sort of, perhaps in the minimal way that gets me to stop searching. But perhaps it wouldn't answer it nearly as well as a high-quality site that would really illuminate and explain things and lead to more useful information for me to explore. Both those scenarios would look identical to the click-tracking code of the search engine.
    - earthboundkid 5y ago
      If I click on link 1 then click on link 2 several minutes later, 1 probably sucked. The difficulty is if I click on 1 and then 2 quickly, it just means I’m opening a bunch of tabs proactively.
nextaccountic 5y ago
The trouble is, how do you prevent Sybil attacks? The spammers might vote for their own sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack
- aabbcc1241 5y ago
  would be better if my votes only affect my search result

freediver 5y ago

You can access one without paying a dime. http://teclis.com http://teclis.com Problem is people usually want one general search engine, not a collection of niche ones.

wruza 5y ago
It’s not a directory. Hand-crafted descriptions instead of random citations and/or marketing from the site itself is what makes it a directory. This one is a search engine. Maybe it’s a good one for its purpose, but who knows, without an ability to navigate you can’t tell. Problem is people usually want one general search engine, not a collection of niche ones. In my opinion, the reason they want a general search engine is that they think in their box (search -> general search). What they really want is a way to discover things and quick summaries about them: “$section: $what $what_it_does $see_also”. Search engines abuse this necessity and suggest deceitfully summarized ads instead.

notJim 5y ago

> hide sites by domain This gives me the idea to build a search engine that only contains content from domains that have been vouched for. Basically, you'd have an upvote/downvote system for the domains, perhaps with some walls to make sure only trusted users can upvote/downvote. It seems like in practice, many people do this anyway. This could be the best of both worlds between directories and search engines.

ancientworldnow 5y ago
You don't need an upvote/downvote. If someone searches for X and clicks on results you just record when they stop trying sites or new search terms as you can assume the query has been answered. Reward that site. Most of them are already doing this in some form.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  Often you don’t know if a site is legit or not without first visiting it. And new clone sites launch all the time, so I’m always clicking on search results to new clone sites that I’ve never seen before so can’t avoid them in results.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    Yeah, when I get caught by these SEO spam sites it's because they haven't had a similar ranking to the SO thread that ripped off, so it wasn't immediately apparent.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  This is what Google already does, does it not? Why else would they be recording outbound clicks? Unfortunately, this doesn't entirely solve the problem. Counting clicks doesn't work because you don't know if the result was truly worthwhile or if the user was just duped by clickbait. As you say, clicking when they stop trying sites is better, but I don't know how good that signal to noise ratio is. A low-quality site might answer my question, sort of, perhaps in the minimal way that gets me to stop searching. But perhaps it wouldn't answer it nearly as well as a high-quality site that would really illuminate and explain things and lead to more useful information for me to explore. Both those scenarios would look identical to the click-tracking code of the search engine.
  - earthboundkid 5y ago
    If I click on link 1 then click on link 2 several minutes later, 1 probably sucked. The difficulty is if I click on 1 and then 2 quickly, it just means I’m opening a bunch of tabs proactively.

nextaccountic 5y ago

The trouble is, how do you prevent Sybil attacks? The spammers might vote for their own sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack

aabbcc1241 5y ago
would be better if my votes only affect my search result