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Will Wikipedia Swallow Google?

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Tag-teaming (was:...

charles matthews

5 Oct 2005 5 Oct '05

10:27 p.m.

Title of a column in today's London Independent, by technology correspondent Charles Arthur. Oh, BTW, it's favourable to WP. Charles

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Andrew Gray

5 Oct 5 Oct

10:36 p.m.

On 05/10/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

Title of a column in today's London Independent, by technology correspondent Charles Arthur. Oh, BTW, it's favourable to WP.

I noticed that... http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article317360.ece "Wikipedia is the top result on Google, the site that the most links point to from elsewhere on the web" Someone seems to have claimed recently that the top ranking of everything on Google is Wikipedia: http://www.socialtext.com/weblog/050930wpvsgoogle.html The problem is, it seems to be a rather impressively flawed claim, for example: http://google.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000260061718/ (Incidentally, the *+* search now seems to not work - it was displaying much odder results earlier in the day. I tend towards the "weird glitch in google" rather than the "sekrit underlying hierarchy of teh web revealed" theory...) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

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Fred Bauder

10:54 p.m.

On Oct 5, 2005, at 2:27 PM, charles matthews wrote:

Title of a column in today's London Independent, by technology correspondent Charles Arthur. Oh, BTW, it's favourable to WP. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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Fred Bauder

10:56 p.m.

We are destined for the top ten. However as we show no ambition to serve as a general search engine Google will not be "swallowed". Fred On Oct 5, 2005, at 2:27 PM, charles matthews wrote:

Title of a column in today's London Independent, by technology correspondent Charles Arthur. Oh, BTW, it's favourable to WP. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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Stan Shebs

11:26 p.m.

Not having seen the column, I can only guess, but if the WP article on X invariably appears at the top of a search for "X", then no doubt some people will get in the habit of starting their searches at wikipedia.org instead of google.com. However, in practice this only works for general information searches, not shopping for products or digging up dirt on (heh-heh) non-notable people, so Google's business is hardly imperiled. Stan Fred Bauder wrote:

We are destined for the top ten. However as we show no ambition to serve as a general search engine Google will not be "swallowed". Fred On Oct 5, 2005, at 2:27 PM, charles matthews wrote:

Title of a column in today's London Independent, by technology correspondent Charles Arthur. Oh, BTW, it's favourable to WP. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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charles matthews

6 Oct 6 Oct

12:01 a.m.

Fred Bauder wrote

We are destined for the top ten. However as we show no ambition to serve as a general search engine Google will not be "swallowed".

Ah, but the amusement comes from speculating that in the fullness of time, we might as well have outsourced the dull business of searching WP, retaining editorial control ... Arthur is a correspondent to take seriously. The article reads slightly curiously, as if WP was a glorified web directory. Charles

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geni

12:22 a.m.

On 10/5/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

Arthur is a correspondent to take seriously. The article reads slightly curiously, as if WP was a glorified web directory. Charles

It can be used for that. -- geni

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Rowan Collins

2:05 a.m.

On 05/10/05, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 10/5/05, charles matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

Arthur is a correspondent to take seriously. The article reads slightly curiously, as if WP was a glorified web directory. Charles

It can be used for that.

But shouldn't, according to long-standing policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not As for "outsourcing our search function", don't we already do that, every time the servers start slowing down? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you - and I haven't RTFA['d]; it is 1am here, after all... -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

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geni

2:26 a.m.

On 10/6/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins(a)gmail.com> wrote:

But shouldn't, according to long-standing policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not

I know. However that policy results in us makeing an effort to select only the best external links which means that we end up being usable as a web directory. -- geni

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MacGyverMagic/Mgm

11:12 a.m.

I think of a webdirectory as a place where any link can be entered. Wikipedia only selects the best. On 10/6/05, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 10/6/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins(a)gmail.com> wrote:

But shouldn't, according to long-standing policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not

I know. However that policy results in us makeing an effort to select only the best external links which means that we end up being usable as a web directory. -- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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participants (7)

Andrew Gray
charles matthews
Fred Bauder
geni
MacGyverMagic/Mgm
Rowan Collins
Stan Shebs