Hi Anthere,
I think the search engine wars will be important to WMF because
Wikipedia plays a key role in them.
That's because the high quality of Wikipedia pages (as compared with a
random sample of web pages) will basically be used to give computers
"world understanding" which in turn is a critical component of "divining
intent" i.e. figuring out what the user wants from the search engine
when he types in a few words into the text box.
There has been some good progress on using Wikipedia to create models of
the world; a recent IJCAI paper improved significantly (according to the
authors) on a computer's ability to figure out how close in meaning two
texts are (simplifying: how close a search request and a webpage are).
So the pure software is getting there. Next to smart search algorithms,
the other critical component you need in search is raw computing power
like Google's data centers. Non-profits will never match Google here, so
the solution has to be a peer-to-peer community approach (think
SETI@HOME), which is probably why you see the yacy people here pushing
their p2p engine.
Now, I think you are right when you say WMF doesn't have anything to do
with the search wars---in principle. So people with a political
conviction that search is a public utility should go to some other
place. However, what I'm trying to say is that they will be back because
Wikipedia will play a critical role in any attempt of making search a
public utility.
Cheers to the future...
Dirk
----
Aphaia wrote:
On 1/18/07, "Thomas Müller"
<thomasasta(a)gmx.net> wrote:
So you know who, you know the battle now
and you know the view on wikifoundation open source intention.
Whose battle for what against whom?
So we know, wikiseek is evel, as google and
advertisements are behind it,
Pardon? And I would like to know who is we in your context...
Dunno about you, but I am getting more and more confused.
Between Wikiasari, wikisearch, wikiseek, peerpedia, peerpedia and other
yacy development, I am wondering if this is still Wikimedia Foundation
mailing list...
Which battles ? which intentions ? which registration ? Which
advertisement ? What what what ?
Could we stick to talk about the Foundation here and all others talking
of other projects, other organisations, other business company, stick to
their own mailing lists to avoid confusion ?
Is there someone here trying to launch a troll or what ?
Ant
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