Addressing this on ALL non-mainspace is quite a bit of overkill. Perhaps you could narrow your request to something a little more specific.
Will Johnson
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car listings at AOL Autos. (http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
On 4/27/08, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Addressing this on ALL non-mainspace is quite a bit of overkill. Perhaps you could narrow your request to something a little more specific.
Will Johnson
Userspace and Wikipedia space are probably the biggest issues, unless I am missing something.
Newyorkbrad
Why is it overkill? What is there on non-encyclopedia pages that should be searchable?
Risker
2008/4/28 WJhonson@aol.com:
Addressing this on ALL non-mainspace is quite a bit of overkill. Perhaps you could narrow your request to something a little more specific.
Will Johnson
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car listings at AOL Autos. (http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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.
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Judson Dunn cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
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.
Not that this is a bad idea, I think a magic would would be great, and would be a huge help to BLP issues on otrs etc. I do think that our policy pages and some other pages in non-mainspace are important and interesting, and in the spirit of openness I think they should be indexed though.
[[WP:NPOV]] should be indexed for example, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/motleycr... maybe not so much :)
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
On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 04:46 +0000, Risker wrote:
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.
If pages (whatever pages) are ranked far out of proportion to their real world importance, or real world popularity, then that's the fault of the search engine to fix, not the content provider end.
Do something need to be in the top-XX (insert one's favourite search engine) hits? That's up to the search engine, and the people who chooses to use that search engine. If the search engine is listing things in a bad order, then it won't take very long for internet user to jump ship to a better one.
If something should be searchable within the wiki, then why shouldn't it be searchable outwith that wiki? Here you are saying "I want this to be found, but I don't want you find find it via there, but only here". That's just making the job of the person searching harder, without actually achieving whatever it is you wanted to achieve.
The solution of a magic _NOINDEX_ on page we don't want index for whatever reason is great, and achieve what's wanted, as long as it mean that it's not index by _any_ search (that follows rules anyway).
KTC
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 11:46 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
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.)
I don't think we should assume what people want to find when they search for things. That is not Wikipedia's job, but googles. I bet when most people search for "arbitration policy" they are looking for Wikipedia, for example. Regardless that's a fairly unrealistic search phrase. The rest are fine too, "naming conventions", why shouldn't the biggest online published of free information's naming conventions come up first in that search? Who's conventions would be more appropriate?
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.
Says you. I'm sure a lot of researchers, sociologists, wikipedians, and the curious would disagree.
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 6:07 PM, Judson Dunn cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 11:46 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
They pertain only to the process of editing Wikipedia and have no bearing on any other aspect of the world.
Says you. I'm sure a lot of researchers, sociologists, wikipedians, and the curious would disagree.
I have to agree that fixing Google results for "verifiability" is not our problem. In addition, try and think of this from the point of view of a newbie trying to figure out how WP works. Being dropped into a bewildering morass of abbreviations, policies, guidelines, essays, precedents and strange social networks, Google is a crucial tool to help them work out what's going on. I had to advise one such editor to use it on Wikipedia projectspace just the other day.
Second, we should attempt to be as transparent to those who are attempting to penetrate our inner deliberations as possible, This is a crucial part of our philosophy, and withdrawing from indexing does not aid it.
Third, surely courtesy blanking solves the problem anyway? That is frequently carried out; I do it regularly myself. What cannot be solved through courtesy blanking?
RR
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 7:55 AM, Relata Refero refero.relata@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 6:07 PM, Judson Dunn cohesion@sleepyhead.org
Says you. I'm sure a lot of researchers, sociologists, wikipedians, and the curious would disagree.
I have to agree that fixing Google results for "verifiability" is not our problem. In addition, try and think of this from the point of view of a newbie trying to figure out how WP works.
Yes, sorry on re-reading what I said seems a little assy. I meant "says you", as "says you, an insider", as everyone on this list is. I don't think we can necessarily do a great job at guessing what people want when they search for things in Wikipedia. I don't search for our neutrality policy either, because I know where it is, and that we have one, but outsiders might.
I'm very aware of the problem though, and think the no-index magic word is a very good, change. Page blanking does work almost all the time, but what about areas that have a high likelihood for problems? Should we not index from the start, or only blank as needed for the sake of transparency? I kinda like both solutions equally. :P
Risker wrote:
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.
That is precisely the intended result, so Google is functioning properly here---Wikipedia's page on "verifiability" is one of the most prominent uses of the term online. It's been quoted in multiple news articles, has been remarked upon by university professors concerned or interested in the use of Wikipedia, etc. The use of "verifiability" to refer to something capable of undergoing formal verification, by comparison, is comparatively uncommon (even in computer science, which field I'm in).
In any case, the discussion here was about *harm to specific individuals*, not about micromanaging Google's search results. Surely we aren't harming specific individuals by letting people search for verifiability find our policy on such?
-Mark
Some people think the web has relevant content that is non-notable... Suggesting to search engines that they not index certain pages will only break one discovery mechanism. If there is irrelevant content why not blank them. There is obviously something there that people don't want others to find, so why not focus on that issue.
The fact that when they do get to the page they can do a lot with the community content under wikipedia licensing terms should be a bigger issue than that of real world consequences of Google (not) doing things with content.
Peter
2008/4/28 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:
Why is it overkill? What is there on non-encyclopedia pages that should be searchable?
Risker
2008/4/28 WJhonson@aol.com:
Addressing this on ALL non-mainspace is quite a bit of overkill. Perhaps you could narrow your request to something a little more specific.
Will Johnson
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car listings at AOL Autos. (http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l