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I'm not sure I really understand what this is about. What exactly does DuckDuckGo want me to hack? Are people writing plugins to improve the search results of a

I'm not sure I really understand what this is about. What exactly does DuckDuckGo want me to hack? Are people writing plugins to improve the search results of a for-profit company's proprietary search engine?

torsel 12y ago
The main part that is open source is this: https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo "This repository contains the core code responsible for triggering and handling the DuckDuckHack instant answers. It is the base of the DuckDuckHack Instant Answer infrastructure." I bet some people will critique the extent to which this is open source. Still, I it is a very cool platform, and I think it will only help to democratize access to different websites and sources of data. Some people will probably not want to work on this for free (for a for-profit company), but I'm sure some people will do it purely from the desire to improve their search results.
- rsl7 12y ago
  Most people don't use that directly, though. Most contribute an instant answer to either the "spice" (external api, like recipes) or "goodies" (self-contained functions) repos, https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-spice https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-spice and https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-goodies https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-goodies. What motivates someone to contribute to DuckDuckGo? It's fun, useful, and your work can potentially be shown at the top of the search results page for millions of people. disclaimer: I work for DuckDuckGo.
  - grimman 12y ago
    You could probably find a better way of communicating the location of these repos. A while back I was looking to contribute but my efforts to even find an entry-point were in vain. This wasn't at all aided by the newfangled new-user-introduction page you made a while back (which is great, don't get me wrong) that seems to have hi-jacked the previous URI holding information aimed at people in my position.
boyter 12y ago
A lot of people do it for selfish reasons (in a good way). For example, say you have a website which surfaces information about specific CPU instructions. If you provide an API hook into this information you can expose it to potentially thousands (millions?) of people searching for it on DDG. You then provide a link back to your site below the information. This is an excellent way to get traction early on. I did so with searchcode.com and DDG was my number one referrer for a long time, providing me with a steady stream of traffic which helped it get noticed.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >was my number one referrer for a long time // What happened then?
  - kragniz 12y ago
    I'm guessing it got noticed and google took over the number one spot.
  - boyter 12y ago
    Sorry about the late reply. As someone mentioned Google took over, however that is for organic search traffic. DDG is still one of the highest referring domains, however it has been overtaken by slashdot, cnet, lifehacker etc...
icebraining 12y ago
Are people writing plugins to improve the search results of a for-profit company's proprietary search engine? Yes, just like people write free software for Windows. Why is it surprising? Sure, you're benefiting the company, but you're also benefiting yourself and other users.

torsel 12y ago

The main part that is open source is this: https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo https://github.com/duckduckgo/duckduckgo "This repository contains the core code responsible for triggering and handling the DuckDuckHack instant answers. It is the base of the DuckDuckHack Instant Answer infrastructure." I bet some people will critique the extent to which this is open source. Still, I it is a very cool platform, and I think it will only help to democratize access to different websites and sources of data. Some people will probably not want to work on this for free (for a for-profit company), but I'm sure some people will do it purely from the desire to improve their search results.

rsl7 12y ago
Most people don't use that directly, though. Most contribute an instant answer to either the "spice" (external api, like recipes) or "goodies" (self-contained functions) repos, https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-spice https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-spice and https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-goodies https://github.com/duckduckgo/zeroclickinfo-goodies. What motivates someone to contribute to DuckDuckGo? It's fun, useful, and your work can potentially be shown at the top of the search results page for millions of people. disclaimer: I work for DuckDuckGo.
- grimman 12y ago
  You could probably find a better way of communicating the location of these repos. A while back I was looking to contribute but my efforts to even find an entry-point were in vain. This wasn't at all aided by the newfangled new-user-introduction page you made a while back (which is great, don't get me wrong) that seems to have hi-jacked the previous URI holding information aimed at people in my position.

boyter 12y ago

A lot of people do it for selfish reasons (in a good way). For example, say you have a website which surfaces information about specific CPU instructions. If you provide an API hook into this information you can expose it to potentially thousands (millions?) of people searching for it on DDG. You then provide a link back to your site below the information. This is an excellent way to get traction early on. I did so with searchcode.com and DDG was my number one referrer for a long time, providing me with a steady stream of traffic which helped it get noticed.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
>was my number one referrer for a long time // What happened then?
- kragniz 12y ago
  I'm guessing it got noticed and google took over the number one spot.
- boyter 12y ago
  Sorry about the late reply. As someone mentioned Google took over, however that is for organic search traffic. DDG is still one of the highest referring domains, however it has been overtaken by slashdot, cnet, lifehacker etc...

icebraining 12y ago

Are people writing plugins to improve the search results of a for-profit company's proprietary search engine? Yes, just like people write free software for Windows. Why is it surprising? Sure, you're benefiting the company, but you're also benefiting yourself and other users.