[WikiEN-l] Contextual text in Wikipedia

[Keith Old]

G'day folks,

Google has announced that it has developed a custom search skin for
Wikipedia.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/contextual-search-within-wikipedia.html


We are excited to announce that we've built a Custom Search Wikipedia
skin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Csewiki> that
makes it easier for you to complete your research on Wikipedia. Wikipedia
allows users to register and personalize their Wikipedia environment via the
configuration of options and the use of styles or skins. Just log in to
Wikipedia, enable the Custom Search
skin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Csewiki> and
you'll have quick access to relevant Google Custom Search results from
Wikipedia. With the Custom Search skin, your search results are conveniently
placed inline on the page. After you've reviewed the results, you can
dismiss them and return to the current article of interest without having to
switch to a different tab on your browser; you can access the relevant
Wikipedia articles right within the Wikipedia interface.

The Custom Search skin also features contextual search — searching across
different sets of pages as you navigate Wikipedia. For Wikipedia pages with
a lot of information and links, contextual search lets you limit your search
to only those Wikipedia pages that are linked from the current article,
focusing the results on the topic of the article. So, in addition to getting
all matching Wikipedia articles, you can quickly drill down to contextually
relevant results using the Linked Wikipedia Pages tab.

For example, searching for [sequence] from a Wikipedia page on
DNA<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA> provides
a list of relevant results about DNA sequences and DNA sequence alignment,
instead of the many pages about
sequences<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_%28disambiguation%29>
(in
mathematics, poetry, music, games, etc.) that aren't relevant. Similarly,
searching within the DNA page for [bonds] gives you results in chemistry and
biochemistry, instead of other information about financial instruments and
social sciences. This will help you perform more directed research, often
with shorter queries, and get to relevant Wikipedia articles faster.

More in story

-- 
Keith Old
62050121 (w)
62825360 (h)
0429478376 (m)