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Wikia Search Launches Alpha, Not Ready Yet

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the release-early-and-often dept.

babooo404 writes "Jimmy Wales' latest project, Search Wikia has launched into alpha this morning. Most reviews have been negative. The system is a 'social search' and uses the Nutch search algorithm. You can friend people along with creating profiles, and the system uses a Wikipedia-style format for 'mini articles.'"

10 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. no go by jacquesm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I tried it on a bunch of fairly simple queries and got nothing but extremely lousy results.

    On the web first impressions really matter and I think wikia fails horribly in that respect.

    Please Jimmy Wales go and fix wikipedia, it needs urgent attention, especially protection from editors running wild, and please, google go work on getting rid of that spam and fixing the rankings...

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    1. Re:no go by garcia · · Score: 4, Informative

      You need to read some of Jimmy's comments on one of the blogs linked in the summary, especially the one I have copy/pasted below... The most important part is the second paragraph and while I am no Wikipedia fan and certainly agree with your comments that protections need to occur from what I assume you mean by "editors running wild," I think what he says below is very important for this new project!

      From here:

      January 6th, 2008 at 10:50 pm

      Release early, release often.

      It's a project to *build* a search engine, not a search engine. We've been telling everyone that constantly. I'm sorry Michael's disappointed, but having said that, we didn't build it for him, but for people who think that openness, transparency, and participation are more important than slick releases.

      When I launched Wikipedia, I wrote at the top of the first page "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". On that day, anyone reviewing it would have laughed. What's this? There's nothing here! This is not an encyclopedia, it is an empty website with some funny editing syntax!

      So the comparison to Google on day one is just mistaken. Google didn't launch a project to build a human-powered search engine, they launched an algorithmic search engine with a clever new idea. So they didn't have to wait for the humans to come in and start building it.

      We aren't even running with a real index yet, just a placeholder index. Yeah, the search sucks today. But that's not the point. The point is that we are building something different.

  2. Work on wikipedia's search first by mcsqueak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe this will be rolled into Wikipedia once it's done, but it seems me to that their search algorithm needs *plenty* of work. Thanks to the glories of SpellChecker, I can't spell worth a damn... when I misspell something in Wikipedia, it rarely finds it in the results, whereas Google always know what I meant to type AND OFFERS ME A CORRECTION. On Wikipedia, I have to go look how to spell whatever I'm searching for correctly, then put it back into Wikipedia's search just to find what I'm looking for.

    Very frustrating...

  3. Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Highlighted article when I search for "sex":

    Mini Article About "sex"

    Sex is a term which is very often searched in the internet. Thus, a mini-article about pages with free pictures / videos without spam would be important.

    First result for "George Bush"

    George Bush Is A Crackwhore!
    ... handjobs for cash. George Bush is addicted to smack ... some blow.. yah know... like George Bush ...
    http://www.george.bush.isacrackwhore.com/ - Cached - 1.26

    This is genius. I think I know what I'll search site I'll use next time I need some entertainment.

  4. Which part of ALPHA... by KingSkippus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Which part of Alpha did these guys not understand? It is, by definition, "Not Ready Yet"!

    Jimmy has pointed out that they're not even running against a real index yet, just a placeholder index. He even went so far as to say, "the search sucks today." The idea wasn't to launch a finished product that's ready for primetime. It wasn't even to launch a particularly working application. The point was to put something out there to demonstrate some rudimentary functionality while they continue to work towards something that does work.

    You know, like a Beta.

    I think it's kind of sad that Jimmy put something out and said, "Here's what it kinda will look like, and sorta how it will work," and people's first reaction is, "It's not a fully-functional working product? What a piece of crap."

    I think I'll wait a little longer before judging. If you don't like the concept, fine, don't like the concept. But to bust its chops because it's not fully functional is a bit premature and silly at this point.

    1. Re:Which part of ALPHA... by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which part of Alpha did these guys not understand? It is, by definition, "Not Ready Yet"!

      I always took "Alpha" to imply feature-complete.

      I think it's kind of sad that Jimmy put something out and said, "Here's what it kinda will look like, and sorta how it will work," and people's first reaction is, "It's not a fully-functional working product? What a piece of crap."

      Personally I think it's crap not because it doesn't work, but because there aren't any original good ideas to it. Mini articles are cool, but not at all original, and the idea that they're going to populate them solely from user contributions rather than taking them from a free content source or buying them from somewhere is dumb. Sure, rating results doesn't work, but again, not at all original, and probably not that useful unless and until there are millions of people using the thing. Then there's the whole Myspace/Facebook/whatever stuff. Not original, not well integrated into the rest of the site, not interesting to me, and not a good idea in the first place (to integrate the two).

      Wales says "It's a project to *build* a search engine, not a search engine." Fine, but how does Jimmy expect to get people to build a search engine for his for-profit business? There are answers to that question, but I don't see where Jimmy has hit on any of them. The Alpha that launched today doesn't seem geared to developers. Sure, when Wikipedia was launched it sucked. But at least I could edit it and make it not suck! And anything I added could be used by anywhere in the world, not just Jimmy Wales or Bomis. What can I do with Search Wikia? Add to the mini-articles? Lame.

  5. Be careful... by christopherfinke · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not only are the reviews bad, but using it could get you banned from Facebook.

  6. I am willing to be patient and give them a chance by MarkWatson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... before blasting the effort like the top level story poster.

    BTW, last night I looked at their technical information site: http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia

    Some interesting stuff that I did not know about in their "Semantic lab".

    Anyway, it is at least an interesting idea - time will tell how it works out for users, and as a business.

  7. Re:Aha, can't have proofs, but competes with googl by ajs · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ok, let me see if I understand this. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that can't have proofs or in depth reference materials, because more detail is out of scope for really no reason. But, they can somehow try and turn wiki into another google or a facebook. Wow, so much wrong.... so little space.

    Let me wee if I can begin.... nope... trying again...

    OK, so the WikiMedia Foundation, of which Wikipedia is one (and the best known) project, includes Wikibooks, Wiktionary, and many more.

    Wikia isn't any of those.

    Wikia is a project of Wikia, Inc. So you're WAY off in your throwing stones at Wikipedia over Wikia's search... the two have nothing to do with each other, other than the fact that Wikia search will almost certainly index Wikipedia and Wikipedia will almost certainly have an entry for Wikia search.

    Now, on to your proofs beef. Proofs are tough. Sometimes overviews of them can be important, but they're fundamental examples of primary sources, which are not nearly as useful to an encyclopedia as secondary sources that give the context within which the proof is notable.

  8. I beg to differ by SD-Arcadia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wikipedia is so awesome that it has changed by web habits, and half replaced google for me already. When I need to learn about something, from political events to computer games, I find myself starting off with a wikipedia search BEFORE going to google. I usually follow by visiting the external links from the wiki page. Great for getting to the "official page" of whatever I am interested if there is one, without crappy ad spam sites filling up the google search. Not a true knowledge source? Depends what you mean by "true", but Wiki pages beat the regular web for me hands down when what I want is just the naked knowledge and not a whole web page full of "content". Wiki gives me a concise body of text, and a relevant picture most of the times, no ads, no marketing, and no aggressive pushing of any kind of text, image, video etc. When you use wikipedia, you feel in control, while with the commercial nature of the web, you feel like a customer.

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