2008/4/28 Judson Dunn cohesion@sleepyhead.org:
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 8:41 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Why is it overkill? What is there on non-encyclopedia pages that should
be
searchable?
Risker
Policy pages, guidelines, essays.
Well, here's the problem. When I google-search "Verifiability", the first hit is the Wikipedia policy - it isn't even our article on formal verification (redirected from "Verifiability), or any other link on Wikipedia or elsewhere that describes what verifiability is in the real world. "Naming convention" shows our article first, our policy second, and then all the other real-world information about naming conventions after that. "Arbitration policy" again shows a #1 google-hit direct to our policy. "Copyright violations" takes us first to the Wikipedia article, and second to our Category of possible copyright violations. "Basic dignity" - a fairly common term - first hit is our essay. (And this was just a random sample.)
Our rankings for policies, guidelines and essays are all out of proportion to their importance in the real world, and frankly should not be the first hit for someone looking for general information on the subject. They should definitely be available for searching within Wikipedia, but they do not need to be in the top-10 google hits - ever. They pertain only to the process of editing Wikipedia and have no bearing on any other aspect of the world.
Risker