[WikiEN-l] Microsoft kills Encarta

[Carcharoth]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 5:57 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

> (In image search, Google and all other search engines still suck.
> Here's to tagging coming to Commons.)

Isn't that because people don't label, keyword or otherwise tag images
properly? If they did, then Google would be able to find them and
provide a good search facility. It might also be because lots of
images are locked up in websites that only allow internal searches
(though some are Google-able).

>> It would take something really spectacular to eclipse it; machine
>> summarisation might do it, but I suspect even the machines will be
>> thumbing the wikipedia over to find out what's important and for a
>> place to start their research ;-)
>
> Data on Wikipedia will tend to become more machine-readable. Templates
> are mostly a good idea.

The worry there is that overuse of templates raises the barrier for
humans to contribute. The trick is to harness the powers of both
humans and machines, and make sure they work together and don't get in
each other's way. But that's been the case all along, right from the
start of the Machine Age, and onwards into the Information Age. Leave
the grunt work to machines. Let humans do the clever stuff. Teach
machines to approximate what humans do, or run on data and input from
humans.

The other worry is that humans coupled with machines can work at a
rate that runs the human body into the ground. So you have to have
things set up so the human can take a break and recharge itself. Less
long sessions editing Wikipedia, and more targeted editing, adding
more value-per-click (ugh, I can't believe I just said that).

Carcharoth