Anthony schreef:
On 1/18/07, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi,
Recently there has been a lot of traffic about search engines. The tone
of these discussions have been hostile towards Google. I want to remind
you all that it is because of the value Google attaches to our content
that we became the number 10 or whatever in the Alexa rankings.
So Google is to blame for that? You say it as though it is
necessarily a good thing.
I do not "blame" Google for that, I cherish Google for what it did for
us.
When
Google were to drop the value it attaches to Wikipedia in favour of for
instance Citizendium, it will become clear how important Google is for
the dissemination of our Free content.
When STDs and pregnancy can be prevented by an inexpensive, safe and
effective once a day pill, those people distributing free condoms will
be out of business.
If Citizendium becomes the next great thing as a fork, then
Citizendium will be disseminating "your" Free content. If not, then
there's little reason to believe Google would drop Wikipedia, just
move it down to number two.
When Citizendium becomes "the next great thing", we will have
ourselves
to blame for it. I believe in the way /we /do our thing. I do not
believe that Citizendium will be successful. At the same time, I give
them the benefit of the doubt. I do not understand your reference to
STDs. I want to learn more about this as I have an interest in those..
When Wikipedia and Citizendium have more or less the same data, there is
no point in having both with the same relevance, just moving it down to
number two does therefore not make sense.
When Citizendium finally gets its
act together, and does a better job that we do, it will make sense to
Google to change its preference. We should not sit on our laurels but
innovate. Frankly we can use some competition.
The point that I am making is NOT that we might not consider dabbling in
search technology. When we are to do this, we will find a well written
proposal in Meta to consider. My point is that Google did a world of
good to the Open Content movement. It is relevant that we acknowledge
this. They are not like Microsoft who gives us a low ratings because of
us competing with their product. Google did good, Google does good.
A large portion of Wikipedia contributors found the site through
Google. Of course, a large portion of them also use the Windows
operating system. I have as hard of a time imagining a Wikipedia
without Microsoft as I do one without Google. In either case some
other company would have to take up the slack.
Google and Microsoft are for-profit corporations. Their purpose for
existence is to make a profit. The wonderful thing about capitalism
is that a corporation can do a lot of good for the world while
pursuing the goal of making money. But there's really no reason to
acknowledge this.
There is every reason to acknowledge when you benefit from the business
practices of a friendly organisation. The absolute minimum that this
realisation does is to allow you to acknowledge what it is that makes us
a success. When we are smart it means we maintain friendly relations
with those organisations that enable our success. Google fits that bill.
Microsoft does not appreciate Wikipedia for what it does and as a
consequence suffers in its appreciation. I do not touch Microsoft's
search engine with a barge pole because of their bias. It is also
something that enables the argument why Microsoft is "evil".
I'd love to see Google torn down and replaced with
an open source
collaborative search engine run democratically by the world. I'd love
to have access to a search engine as good as Google, with a truly open
API (i.e. sans
http://code.google.com/apis/soapsearch/api_terms.html),
and with all the results being released under an open content license.
Is Wikimedia the one to do that? It's arguable whether it'd be
within the scope of the Foundation's mission. And in any case, I
haven't seen a reasonable proposal of how to do it. So I guess when
it comes to that point, we're both in agreement. And yeah. Google
did good. Google does good. But Google did bad, too. Google does
bad, too. And Microsoft also did/does good/bad.
Anthony
If you want to improve on what Google does, please do. It does not make
sense to decry your wish for an alternative where there is none. Google
has been a boon to us. In my value system it is good to acknowledge
this. I do not begrudge them being one of the most successful companies
at this moment in time. Do better than Google and you may make a
difference, but I am sure that Google is a moving target.
Thanks,
GerardM