4 ms·

They came out for a solution for themselves, or do you happen to have the link to their github repo? Otherwise you may want to donate a few million dollars so t

They came out for a solution for themselves, or do you happen to have the link to their github repo? Otherwise you may want to donate a few million dollars so they can come out with a similar solution.

jacques_chester 14y ago
Sarcasm doesn't work like it used to. My point Wikipedia is an "encyclopedia anyone can edit". Google aims to "index all the world's information". These are different but complementary goals. That the Wikimedia Foundation hasn't improved a user interface that was slapped together in the early 2000s is not somehow a mathematical, universal constraint on the growth of the subjects that are covered. It just isn't. I am prepared to bet honest folding money that almost nobody uses the internal mechanisms of search and navigation that Wikipedia provides. Apart from clicking an in-text link referring to another subject, I am prepared to bet that traffic to Wikipedia is dominated by search engine referrals by at least one order of magnitude. Probably two. Google so dominates the actual usage of Wikipedia that it is ridiculous to advance the poor UI of the Wikipedia platform as some kind of serious argument in favour of deletionism. It'd be like walking into a library circa 1950 and saying "All these index cards are a schlep, let's start throwing away books". You'd be committed to a loony bin. And now we have unlimited search and retrieval capability and you suppose that a poor interface is the killer blow for deletionism? I believe I am having a Mugatu Moment here.
- jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
  "Use google please, our searching and listing algorithm is not as good as theirs". Most people don't return to Google after the initial access to the website, they keep using the Wikipedia interface when they need to search related subjects. And I will surely throw away some books from the library if random people were allowed to put their books in there. And the killer blow is the second part.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    ... huh? Edit: since you added this -- > Most people don't return to Google after the initial access to the website, they keep using the Wikipedia interface when they need to search related subjects. I'll bet you $100, AUD or USD, to be donated to the charity of your choice, that this is not so, by a factor of at least 10 to 1. As I said, this does not include following links in articles. I am talking about the wikipedia search engine and category pages. I am talking about search engines generally, though I expect google to be the dominant one.
    - jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
      I will gladly accept the bet if you can find a trustful way of getting that data, because honestly I can't think about one. And you overall do have a point, but is not as strong as you think it is.
      - stephenhuey 14y ago
        How are you so sure most people don't return to Google? I do it more than half the time, and just add Wikipedia as a search term to narrow the results. For years I've felt it made my search more fruitful than using Wikipedia's search. Maybe my feelings are wrong, but if I feel this way, then a lot of other people could, too!
        gojomo 14y ago
        You can tell from auto-complete many people add 'wiki' or 'wikipedia' to searches at Google. And with the growth of Google-search-from-browser fields, I would also strongly expect that most people who type reformulated queries during an extended Wikipedia session do so through Google, not Wikipedia's much weaker onsite search.
        jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
        A little test show otherwise: http://imgur.com/hBuzt http://imgur.com/hBuzt (Unlogged-in / Cookieless) Perhaps is related to the kind of subjects you are searching for; or it may just personalization by google. Or maybe we are both biased for ultimately silly reasons and the truth lies somewhere in the middle but the lack of available data reduces everything to mere speculation.
mkr-hn 14y ago
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+hacker https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+hack...

jacques_chester 14y ago

Sarcasm doesn't work like it used to. My point Wikipedia is an "encyclopedia anyone can edit". Google aims to "index all the world's information". These are different but complementary goals. That the Wikimedia Foundation hasn't improved a user interface that was slapped together in the early 2000s is not somehow a mathematical, universal constraint on the growth of the subjects that are covered. It just isn't. I am prepared to bet honest folding money that almost nobody uses the internal mechanisms of search and navigation that Wikipedia provides. Apart from clicking an in-text link referring to another subject, I am prepared to bet that traffic to Wikipedia is dominated by search engine referrals by at least one order of magnitude. Probably two. Google so dominates the actual usage of Wikipedia that it is ridiculous to advance the poor UI of the Wikipedia platform as some kind of serious argument in favour of deletionism. It'd be like walking into a library circa 1950 and saying "All these index cards are a schlep, let's start throwing away books". You'd be committed to a loony bin. And now we have unlimited search and retrieval capability and you suppose that a poor interface is the killer blow for deletionism? I believe I am having a Mugatu Moment here.

jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
"Use google please, our searching and listing algorithm is not as good as theirs". Most people don't return to Google after the initial access to the website, they keep using the Wikipedia interface when they need to search related subjects. And I will surely throw away some books from the library if random people were allowed to put their books in there. And the killer blow is the second part.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  ... huh? Edit: since you added this -- > Most people don't return to Google after the initial access to the website, they keep using the Wikipedia interface when they need to search related subjects. I'll bet you $100, AUD or USD, to be donated to the charity of your choice, that this is not so, by a factor of at least 10 to 1. As I said, this does not include following links in articles. I am talking about the wikipedia search engine and category pages. I am talking about search engines generally, though I expect google to be the dominant one.
  - jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
    I will gladly accept the bet if you can find a trustful way of getting that data, because honestly I can't think about one. And you overall do have a point, but is not as strong as you think it is.
    - stephenhuey 14y ago
      How are you so sure most people don't return to Google? I do it more than half the time, and just add Wikipedia as a search term to narrow the results. For years I've felt it made my search more fruitful than using Wikipedia's search. Maybe my feelings are wrong, but if I feel this way, then a lot of other people could, too!
      - gojomo 14y ago
        You can tell from auto-complete many people add 'wiki' or 'wikipedia' to searches at Google. And with the growth of Google-search-from-browser fields, I would also strongly expect that most people who type reformulated queries during an extended Wikipedia session do so through Google, not Wikipedia's much weaker onsite search.
        jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
        A little test show otherwise: http://imgur.com/hBuzt http://imgur.com/hBuzt (Unlogged-in / Cookieless) Perhaps is related to the kind of subjects you are searching for; or it may just personalization by google. Or maybe we are both biased for ultimately silly reasons and the truth lies somewhere in the middle but the lack of available data reduces everything to mere speculation.

mkr-hn 14y ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+hacker https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+hack...