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Wikipedia's Search Engine Plan

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-because-you-can dept.

jasonoik writes "Wikia, the commercial company founded by Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales, reveals plans for a new, editable search engine. They say that the goal of the project is to get 5% of the search market. The service does not yet an official release date. The article also leaves open the possibility that the search results may contain ads, and concludes by listing figures of the web advertisement market." Update: 03/11 17:24 GMT by KD : Wikia and Wikipedia are separate companies.

12 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Sheesh, I read that as "edible search engine" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...which sounded delicious.

  2. WP is the Anti-Google by Moryath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Do No Evil" became "Be as corrupt and evil as possible."

    An "editable search engine"? Great, now even MORE of the searches I run will pop up ads for v14GR4 and enhancements for body parts I don't possess, nevermind those linkspam sites that just insert the entire fucking dictionary in metacode.

    You searched for: Bill Gates
    you got: 400 pictures of penises, vaginas, and one picture of a penis covered in something that looks like it came out of the OTHER opening.

    1. Re:WP is the Anti-Google by shudde · · Score: 5, Funny

      You searched for: Bill Gates you got: 400 pictures of penises, vaginas, and one picture of a penis covered in something that looks like it came out of the OTHER opening.

      The system works.

    2. Re:WP is the Anti-Google by owlnation · · Score: 4, Funny

      or more scarily, and likely...

      You searched for: Bill Gates
      You Got: Wikipedia Articles on how wonderful the second coming of Ayn Rand will be.

      You searched for: Vaginas
      You Got: Wikipedia Articles on how wonderful the second coming of Ayn Rand will be.

    3. Re:WP is the Anti-Google by vertinox · · Score: 4, Insightful

      An "editable search engine"? Great, now even MORE of the searches I run will pop up ads for v14GR4 and enhancements for body parts I don't possess, nevermind those linkspam sites that just insert the entire fucking dictionary in metacode.

      True, but to be fair I wish you could have some sort of voting system based off unique IPs.

      Every time I do a search for something, chances are I'll come across a site or two that is listed that is totally crap, spam, or blatantly used some sort of method to get hits with the search.

      If I could only vote "This is spam!", "This is crap!", "This has nothing to do with the search query!" , and "Ban this site from all search engines for all time!" then I think we would see prevalent results more than not.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
  3. New heights of vandalism? by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just imagine what all those malcontents out there with too much time on their hands will do with this! It could be truly amusing.

    Not *everything* works best when edited by the hordes.

  4. Fucking inaccurate by Ignorant+Aardvark · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wikia is not the "company" behind Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation, which is a non-profit foundation, is what's behind Wikipedia. Wikia is a totally separate for-profit company that is run by Jimbo Wales.

    --
    Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
    1. Re:Fucking inaccurate by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Funny

      Bah, you and your facts. Obviously you're not a Wikipedia editor. Feel the wikiality flow through you.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  5. Re:Wikipedia's search sucks ass! by suv4x4 · · Score: 4, Funny

    More often than not, I enter something I'm looking for and it finds the correct article 95% of the time, with the spelling corrected and the missing words inserted. Of course, I have a vague idea of how what I'm looking for is spelled in the first place, perhaps I'm helping the search engine, but really so far I'm really not disappointed with it.

    Everybody can do a search engine that works with the occasional typo. Real search engines know what I mean when I'm not even close.

  6. Disambiguation by Sukhbir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The thing that really rocks about Wikipedia's search is the Disambiguation function. Even Google does not have something like this.

  7. They already have 50 percent of the search market by ckedge · · Score: 4, Insightful


    They might not realize it, but they already have 50 percent of the search market. At least 50 percent of the "Intelligentsia" search market.

    Fifty percent of the stuff I used to "look up" through a google search - I now get through wikipedia. You just have to be smart enough to know that the info you are looking for is most likely in wikipedia. And it most often is. Especially since wikipedia is so open - they've got articles for tons and tons of things that no mainstream encyclopedia would ever touch. I no longer use "fan sites" or "episode guide companies" for the episode guides of TV Series, they're all in wikipedia, and the layout and presentation is even better.

  8. If a Wikinews article were this inaccurate... by brion · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...at least it would get corrected. ;)

    --

    Chu vi parolas Vikipedion?