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Google Goes to Answers.com
tod_miller writes "Google has changed its definitions link from dictionary.com to answers.com. A google search for juxtaposition shows the effect. What is interesting is that answers.com pulls information from wikipedia.org, which was provided bandwidth by google.com [and now Google is providing a service that will be used worldwide to pull information off Wikipedia]. Aside from having both a dictionary.com and a wikipedia.org search box in FireFox (as well as Google) the definition link on Google is still useful and I regularly check it for obscure uses or exact definitions of words. Now it uses answers.com we do not get all the different forms of the word, but we do get any medical or wikipedic information. Interestingly, answers.com does not use Google AdSense, but commission junction that looks like it. There is no announcement yet from Google of their change." This change took place several weeks ago, as players of e-scrabble and other compulsive word-checkers might have noticed. Update: 03/13 23:20 GMT by T : (Also mentioned in passing last month.) Update: 03/14 02:13 GMT by T : Brion Vibber writes: "Google does *not* provide any bandwidth to Wikipedia at this time, except in the sense that they 'use up' our bandwidth when people using
their search engine come to our site. ;)"
Frankly, Wikipedia is not ready for the big time. The definitions they have for many words are pretty inadequate. Greater scrutiny and the juxtaposition of a 'real' dictionary with the wiki version should highlight the glaring deficiencies. But really - what is wiki's presence in the definitions list going to provide? Certainly nothing authoritative or expert or even accurate?
You might want to correct the false statement that Google is providing hosting services to Wikipedia. Google has made such a proposal only.
author,
Of course there are bugs in the content of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and the other Wikimedia Foundation projects. But then there are also bugs in Britannica and bugs in Webster's. No reference is bug-free[1].
[1] The faithful allege that Handbook for the Human Soul is perfect, but even there, translations from the original ancient Greek and Hebrew can be dodgy.
For those of you wondering the same thing, since the post didn't really discuss where the feature is located, if you google query for "juxtaposition" (or any other word), at the top right portion of the results page there is a little information about how long the query took: [definition] is the link which the post is referring to, it links to answers.com with the definition of the word.
I'm happy about this change, when I noticed it a couple weeks ago. Dictionary.com is good, but all it only offers definitions. If I wanted those, I could use the google parameter define:WORD. Answers gives a great deal more information. Almost everything I want can be found there -- and to think, I didn't even know about it before google started using it (although I did know about wikipedia).
It's also not as annoying, ad-wise, as dictionary.com.
It'd be nice for google to make their own answers.com type site. Not sure if they will though.
It might be a cleaner interface but it doesn't seem to be near as comprehensive. For example, I looked up the word "roynish" earlier today. Google drew a blank. Dictionary.com had it. This isn't the first time this has happened, although I don't recall the other words off the top of my head.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Hopefully never.
Wikipedia is not peer-reviewed in the classical sense. It is not a replacement for peer-reviewed research. It is not a replacement for primary sources or anything else. It is a replacement for the encyclopedia. Do you trust encyclopaedia britanica as much as academic journals? I hope not.
If you're conducting serious research, you are definitly not going to be using an encyclopaedia beyond the first 5 minutes. Wikipedia won't change that. It's good if you just want a quick overview of a subject or a what books an author wrote or something, but it's not a replacement for actual research.
The first time I had ever used Wikipedia was when Hunter S Thompson died.
Upon going to his page, and reading it thoroughly, I was treated to the little known fact that "he was a big supporter of child-pornography".
This of course came as a shock to me - so I started trying to find ANY coroborating evidence elsewhere.
Of course there was none, and within a few minutes the Wiki page was corrected of the stupiditiy.
With this, I have very little faith in the reliability of Wiki pages. Sure, I happened to know enough about HTS to realize that that statement was probably false, and knew enough to double-check it. But what if I didn't? What about the other X thousand people who read the page at that time, and never bothered refreshing?
This IS a fundamental problem with Wikis.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
Go here:
www.onelook.com
All the dictionaries that matter*.
* - except the OED, which believes more in money than in the free flow of information
As I recall reading (I don't remember where), one of the reasons for the switch was because answers.com is free ie. you can access everything without paying for "premium" services. For example, answers.com has a pronounciation feature for free, whereas dictionary.com charges for it. Don't know how true this is because I lost my source.
68 places more popular. That's how much more mainstream you can get.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
And what about the featured article removal candidates? The existence of these would seem to indicate that the quality of articles, over time, tends not towards brilliance, but mediocrity.
In the past, I've vastly improved articles in the 'pedia (earning much praise in the process, so "improvement" isn't just my ego speaking) and returned to them after many months, only to find them unreadably disorganized or studded dangerously with errors. To me, this asymptotic approach to shitsville is even more damning than the fact that featured articles don't usually remain so for long.
Not necessarily. It is possible, however it doesn't tend to happen. One thing is that the articles have remained of high quality but our selection criteria has become tougher. During the "brilliant prose" days we had some articles that were pretty good (see for instance triangle, however we recently removed this - not because it got worse, but because had it been submitted to FAC today it would not get through.
Incidently, I'm always glad to see someone who helps improve articles, and so I thank you for doing this. That's why I've added my baseline experiment: we can refer people to the "baseline", which people can't modify. As with any wiki, errors and disorganisation can occur. I've seen it myself.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.