[WikiEN-l] Lies, damned lies, and statistics

[Seth Finkelstein]

> geni
>> Seth Finkelstein wrote:
>> 	It's also pretty common for those two type to have conflicts,
>> and that usually ends with the business/marketing type working-over
>> the academic/creative type. Wikipedia is NOT an original story there :-(.
>
> Of course the problem with that description was that Larry was
> involved in conflicts with other wikipedians.

	And Jimbo has been involved in conflicts too (note I'm not
talking about V-wag stuff, but higher-level matters). Don't think the
present is somehow inevitable. If Sanger had stayed on, those early
conflicts would be minimized or forgotten.

>>        Depends on if Google does something to boost that sort of site.
>>(I think the *real*, crucial, irreplaceable, founder of Wikipedia, is Google)
>
> No. Looking at yahoo and MSN it's pretty clear that anything close to
> a normal search algorithm will tend to favor wikipedia for certain
> types of searches.

	Yahoo and Microsoft have copied Google's weighting and factors
somewhat, in what seems to be a deliberate strategy that people have
been trained by Google to "expect" that sort of result, and it would
be too risky to deviate radically. But this does not prove any
"normal" search algorithm will do that. Many sites - Open Directory,
technorati, blog aggregators - have found themselves ranked highly for
a time ... and then not.

	One reason I think projects such as _Citizendium_ are
important is that they provide at least some practical
counter-argument to the monopolistic tendencies of Wikipedia-hype.
Which comes back to the original question about the success of
_Citizendium_, and that being bound up in some very subtle decisions
about Google's algorithm.

>> 	Speaking here just as a very interested observer, apart from
>> matters of personal injustice or formal relevance, there's many issues
>> at the bottom of this about Wikipedia itself. ...
>
> Except several years behind the times. The community has dealt with
> the issue and from what I've seen Jimbo has been back peddling of late.

	Well, let's see if this issue has indeed been "dealt with".
It's only been a few days from the most recent skirmish.

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer
Web site - http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/