[Foundation-l] wiki search & wikimedia foundation collaboration with Limewire and Yacy ?

[Andrew Gray]

On 30/12/06, thomasasta at gmx.net <thomasasta at gmx.net> wrote:

> Anyway, then let´s concentrate on the search-l of wikia, though I think
> it is wrong to have the foundation not in the boat. Then the new search
> engine has nothing to do with wikipedia and then the media hype is
> not understandable. Is Jimmy then a freerider of the wikipedia lable ?

The media hype is entirely a storm in a teacup, as I understand it.

Basically, wikia had a search project, a year or two ago. It fell into
disuse, but the site hung around. Then Jimmy made some passing comment
about how a wiki-based search engine would be a good thing to a
journalist, who rooted around and found the old project site, put two
and two together, and got seventeen. And then everyone else took their
stories from him, so...

Wikia discovered that there were a plethora of news stories about it
suddenly appearing, and took this opportunity to kickstart the old
project. Nothing new was created; it just got a lot of interest
because of the media hype.

Wikimedia/Wikipedia is not involved, and has never been involved; this
is just the fault of people getting confused between Wikia and
Wikimedia, and certainly isn't a deliberate attempt to get leverage
off the name. Journalists tend to assume that anything Jimmy does is
talking about Wikipedia, hence the linkage - if Wikia had announced
this themselves, they'd have been able to make it clear from the
outset that it was *them* not the Foundation doing it, but sadly the
stories sort of ran ahead of them.

One day, we'll be able to get all these subtle differences explained
to journalists. I hope that magic day comes soon... as it is, we have
a hard enough time explaining to people that the Foundation a) does
things which aren't the English Wikipedia, or b) doesn't operate every
wiki on the planet.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk