Re: [Wikimedia-l] An example where search could be improved

-- Pax Ahimsa Gethen | http://funcrunch.org On 7/28/16 5:37 AM, Andrew Lih wrote: > We recently had a thread in the Wikipedia Weekly Facebook group, where we > pretty much concluded the reason why we don’t have word in English for > “looked it up in Wikipedia” is because that word is “Googled it.” :) > > https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/1050447111669786/ > > -Andrew > > > > On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 8:09 AM, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com > wrote: > >> First, some context: >> >> I was in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention earlier >> this week, where I had been invited to speak (in a small side event) >> about connectivity and global development. I spoke about our work in >> the languages of the developing world, and made a point to say that bad >> laws in the developed world which might hurt our work can be damaging >> for the development of the Internet in the rest of the world and urged >> lawmakers to not just think of various Internet legal questions as being >> "Silicon Valley versus Hollywood" but to understand that they impact how >> our volunteer community and many other ordinary people online. >> >> Second, the story: >> >> The main conference was held in the [[Wells Fargo Center >> (Philadelphia)]], an indoor arena where basketball and hockey teams play >> normally. >> >> A journalist friend said to me that he "finally found something that >> Wikipedia doesn't have" and he was surprised. What was that, I said? >> "The history of Wells Fargo". What?!! Really?!! That seemed impossible >> to me. He said we have an article about Wells Fargo that seems to be >> mostly about the contemporary bank, and when you search for Wells Fargo >> history there's also an article about the Wells Fargo History Museum. >> >> I popped on my phone and used my own personal preferred method of >> finding things in Wikipedia: Google. I typed in "Wells Fargo history" >> and sure enough, the first two links are history pages from their >> official websites and the third link is Wikipedia - a normal state of >> affairs. He started to apologize for raising a false alarm >> >> I asked him for more details on exactly how he searched, and explained >> that I regard it to be very sad if some volunteers spend hundreds of >> hours working on an article, painstakingly going over tons of details in >> an effort to get it right, and then someone couldn't find it. >> >> Here's what he did - and I replicated the steps and all was clear. >> >> Go to http://www.wikipedia.org/ >> >> Make sure the dropdown in the search box is set to 'EN' - which it would >> have been for him. >> >> Start typing 'Wells Fargo history' and watch as the dropdown selections >> narrow. You'll have the experience that he had - you'll see the bank >> article prominently featured and then various buildings (they have a >> habit of sponsoring sports arenas in various US cities) and finally as >> you start typing history it focuses in on the History Museum. >> >> If you don't choose any of those, then hit enter, you'll get to the >> search results page. This is the one with a huge box of options at the >> top (which will be confusing and frightening to people who aren't >> already wikipedians) and then by my count the desired article is 13th on >> the page: [[History of Wells Fargo]]. >> >> Now, I strongly suspect this could be fixed by making a redirect from >> [[Wells Fargo history]] to [[History of Wells Fargo]]. >> >> Or a more serious fix could be had if the search engine understood that >> very very often in English [[X of Y]] can be written [[Y X]]. ([[List >> of French monarchs]] becomes [[French monarchs list]], see: >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=french+monarchs+list >> where the desired article is in 10th place. >> >> But my point is not to argue for any specific fix. My point is to >> illustrate that there is a real problem with search, that it is >> impacting users, and that we should invest in fixing it. >> >> --Jimbo >> >>