[Foundation-l] Wikipedia and the search engine wars (was: Re: P2 - PEERPEDIA

[Dirk Riehle]

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 at 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

----
http://www.riehle.org


Anthere wrote:
> Aphaia wrote:
>   
>> On 1/18/07, "Thomas Müller" <thomasasta at 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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>   


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