Hi Mike,
We plan to publish a blog tomorrow that addresses some of the questions
raised here and confusion in the press. To briefly address your questions
specifically, here is where we are today: the the grant allows us to pursue
strictly (1) -- a better Wiki search. In that, it supports testing of some
of our hypotheses on how to best do this.
It is possible we could pursue (2) in the future (for example, integrating
a few specific ones such as OpenStreetMaps or Internet Archive). At some
point we have looked into (2+) -- adding broader knowledge sources, though
we didn't get into specifics there, and have since decided against
increasing the scope. I am not considering (3). Going after general search
engine traffic and users is inconsistent with our mission. Our focus is on
knowledge.
To be clear, search itself is only one aspect of the work of the Discovery
team. This team is also tasked with discovering how to better interconnect
our various formats of knowledge, thus amplifying the impact of our
volunteers' contributions. Only some of our knowledge is actually connected
and discoverable today, other is very hard to find. Search is a simple,
non-invasive point of entry into the Wikimedia knowledge ecosystem.
I welcome and appreciate the feedback and support of members of our
Wikimedia movement. Collectively, our thinking evolves as we learn. We
will continue to make hypotheses, test them, and adjust our path
accordingly.
Lila
On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 3:34 PM, Craig Franklin <cfranklin(a)halonetwork.net>
wrote:
I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this
Michael. Reading the documents
I've seen, it seemed like (1) to me, but a lot of the assumptions seem to
lean towards (3). If it is (1), then that is an entirely reasonable thing
for the Foundation to be putting development effort into. The problem is
that the statements in the grant documents are quite vague, and given the
rest of the shenanigans that the WMF has been involved in lately, people
are quite predictably jumping to the least flattering conclusion.
Cheers,
Craig
On 16 February 2016 at 05:36, Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net> wrote:
On 15 Feb 2016, at 17:10, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Hoi,
> The notion that WMF should out google Google is stupid, certainly at
that
kind of
money.
I'm still confused about what kind of 'search engine' is actually being
proposed here. Is it:
1) Wikimedia specific: index all of Wikimedia's content and make that
easier for users of the sites to find
2) Wikimedia + selected others: like (1), but also allow some other
like-minded sources into the mix
3) Google-scale: index everything (duckduckgo-like)
... or somewhere on the scale between those points?
A lot of people seem to be assuming (3), others are liking the idea of
(1), but (2) (or maybe (1) leading to (2)) might be closer to the
reality?
Thanks,
Mike
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Wikimedia Foundation
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