[Foundation-l] pro & con Wikiseek

David Strauss david at fourkitchens.com
Tue Jan 16 23:22:06 UTC 2007


Thomas Müller wrote:
> Hi,
> I like the idea of wikiseek, to index only wikipedia content and the urls edited in wikipedia as weblinks.
> 
> This was as well the concept develped here on the net.
> So it is a "w+1" hop" concept.
> 
> Contra: The problem is, 
> - that the database is still not open (where to download?)

It's not a Wikimedia project. They don't have that obligation.

> - the search box of wikipedia already is doing the function

It's not a Wikimedia project, so the redundancy doesn't hurt us.

> - it is a advertising spin-off of wikipedia ?, which is introducing advertising through the backdoor into wikipedia.

It's a project independent from Wikimedia and Wikia.

> - Is this a Jimmy engine ? or just hosted at wikipedia?

I don't know about the former. It's not hosted at Wikipedia because it's
not a Wikimedia project.

> - quote:, "of course i am sad that it is a company rather than an open source project" - so the spin-of is taking a distance to the open source approace of the coding and the open source approach of the database,

It's not Wikimedia, so I don't think anyone here is specially qualified
to comment on their reasoning. And nothing obligates them to take an
open-source approach to development, even if they index Wikipedia's content.

> - searching wikiseek will found wikipedia? this is not the way to go, as we can found wikipedia directly, all other is oeconomic corruption of an encyclopaedie? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCPA

If you don't like it, don't use it.

> - Searchme was co-founded by Randy Adams, CEO, and John Holland, CMO. The Company received initial funding from Sequoia Capital, so nothing related to the goals of Jimmy?

No idea.

> - not a java engine

That's a *bad* thing?

> - this project is disturbing the community, as no one knows the network and relationships for the collaboration from whom to whom.

I would say it's having no effect on the community.

> - wiki goes oeconomic?

Hmm?

> - if it is not open source, why then not using google.

Use Google if you like. For me, Google still seems to give better
results, even for Wikipedia.

> - wikiseek is violating the GPL licence of wikipedia, as users give the urls reviewed by hand to wikipedia as  well in licence of GPL. Any Bibliographic index has a copyright, and this is GPL for the external lists of weburls to each article, as the url is not just an url, but a content reference of the article. As the database of wikiseek is using and summarizing them, and it is not a GPL database of wikisek, this is a licence conflict.

No, it's not. Search engine indexes do not need to obtain licensing for
the media they index.

> Well, the draft of this search engine proposal is good, but not workable on the market, as any wikipedia has a search box for the works and as well you get the external links in the acticle after you have read it.

I think either success or failure would have little impact on the people
here.

> any comments? ;-)
> 
> -------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 23:37:26 +0100
> 
>> Englisch:
>> http://www.wikiseek.com/index.php
>> http://wikiseek.wikia.com/wiki/Wikiseek_Community_Wiki
> 
> 
> Wikiseek is a new way to search Wikipedia. Wikiseek searches only Wikipedia and external Wikipedia links. Because these links are selected by the Wikipedia community, Wikiseek search results are likely to return more relevant results for many searches. 
> 
> This Wikiseek Community Wiki is hosted by Wikia but Wikiseek is an independent project with no affiliation with Wikia or Wikipedia.
> 

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