New subject: clusty

4 Oct 2004


      Andrew Lih wrote:
...
The original article from SJ Mercury News about Clusty/WP isn't very good:
"Clusty is also one of the first search sites to index and display
results from the sometimes controversial Wikipedia, the online
encyclopedia being compiled from contributions by Internet users. Some
researchers do not view Wikipedia as an authoritative source of
information because it is created by Web users."
They should have said Clusty features Wikipedia in its own tab very
prominently, and it even returns pictures from WP in the search
results. Example:
http://clusty.com/search?query=octopus+card&v%3Aproject=clusty-encyclope...
I was wondering how they reached that rather bizarre piece of 
misinformation. Considering that Dan Gillmor works for the Mercury News 
and has written about Wikipedia frequently (always positively) and knows 
it well, it's quite surprising to see them botch facts like that, even 
if they choose a less glowing tone. However, Gillmor didn't write this 
particular story, and I suppose the original reporter may have been the 
victim of an editor who doesn't actually know anything about search 
engines, but decided the explanation was too complex for the audience.
Anyway, it has to be gratifying when the latest innovations in the 
search wars try to use Wikipedia in their press releases as an example 
of how great they are.
--Michael Snow

Re: clusty