-----Original Message----- From: wikitech-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Simetrical Sent: 07 March 2008 20:23 To: Wikimedia developers Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] [Commons-l] Category intersection:Newextensionavailable
On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Jared Williams jared.williams1@ntlworld.com wrote:
Could be totally wrong in the database that's why its
being changed.
It's still "right" technically. The results are accurately reflecting the actual contents of the database at a definite point in time. That's all integrity asks for. Returning results that were never correct just because of bad hashing algorithms is something completely different. It's the difference between your stock ticker being five minutes outdated, and generating entirely random numbers sometimes. To say there's no difference, or that the former makes the latter okay, is ridiculous.
But having accuracy in a stock ticker, and wikipedia category intersection are completely different and comparisons with between two are meaningless.
I think if giving an approximate answer is more scalable, then I think its worth it.
A better comparison would be google, with all they're resources they still approximate the number of seach results it expects
Jared