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Reluctant Wikipedia Lifts Lid On $2.5M Internet Search Engine Project (theregister.co.uk)
The Wikimedia Foundation has finally disclosed details of its controversial Knowledge Engine grant -- and it confirms that Wikipedia is getting seriously into search, despite Jimmy Wales' categorical denial that WMF is "doing a Google." After a Wikipedia signpost article, and coverage at El Reg this week, the WMF caved and posted the Knight Foundation's approval of the $250,000 grant. The grant provides seed money for stage one of the Knowledge Engine, described as "a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy information on the Internet." The discovery stage includes an exploration of prototypes of future versions of Wikipedia.org which are "open channels" rather than an encyclopedia, analyzing the query-to-content path, and embedding the Wikipedia Knowledge Engine "via carriers and Original Equipment Manufacturers."
biased. Sad to see what could have been a great site go downhill.
He hasn't put an end to the out of control deletionists so he dies support censorship.
Cool, I look forward to having a search engine primarily full of family guy episodes, anime characters, and a million roads and tiny towns in rural England.
One of Wikipedia's largest problems is that it cites things which cite things which end up citing Wikipedia if you go far enough back.
It would be great to have Wikipedia akin to Wolfram Alpha but less math and more about factual primary sources.
Wikipedia is a massive trove of knowledge. How is creating a search engine to search said knowledge "controversial"?
Now they want their turn
Are moderators creating content now and promoting it on the frontpage? If you guys start shoving TechCrunch, NYT, ArsTechnica, and Forbes articles down my throat, I'm outta here. I was coming to Slashdot for things I don't see on my Twitter feed, not the same big-media PR-promoted and biased crap. Get your shot together XBIZ... this site is powered by the community, not mod-generated content.
I have a severe problem finding useful information on Google right now. Search the title of any song. The results are always 1) 1,000 lyric websites 2) 1,000 shopping websites 3) 10,000 random linkbait blogs that spam you with ads or try to trick you into downloading malware, and 4) A Youtube link and a wiki page if it's popular enough. Sometimes #4 is useful, but often it's not. I find it incredibly difficult to find what real people are saying about a topic when artificially-generated pseudo content puts so much effort into gaming the search.
One hour into the posting, and there are only ten comments. Also, the summary says $2.5 million, but the initial outlay is a mere $250,000. This is the cost of a couple of corporate executives; so, no big deal.
described as "a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy information on the Internet."
So, Wikipedia isn't going to be the top result for many searches?
Wikipedia is privacy focussed, Wales has sued over the NSA warrantless surveillance, Google is a surveillance operation largely driven by the need to shove more ads into peoples faces. So this is good news.
Plus Google these days is actually not good. Search tries to drive you to log in all the time. Prompting all the time. The results are no better than DuckDuckGo, I usually don't switch back to Google unless DDG doesn't find anything, but am rarely happier with Googles result.
Look at Maps, its a fragmented mess, want to add a map, "Open My Maps", the zoom levels all over the place, lots of maps that are one solid green block with an arrow in the center, you zoom out to see where the f*** the map is suposed to be. Dialogs that are "Unavailable at this time", WTF.
I think Google has lost its mojo.
(BTW try maps.here.com for online maps).
IMO when something becomes as large as google and is a private company there are serious dangers to manipulation and control of it's users(who to vote for, and exploitation of personal info). I know of no other organization so well positioned to provide an unbiased, non-exploitive internet search tool; If they could some how get a functioning peer to peer; backend for search it could even be cheap...
I'd throw my own money behind something like that, do it wikipedia! plz
Confirming the $250.00 grant, estimated to be worth $2.5 million, Wales admitted, "Yes, we received a $250,000 grant. But we are only spending $2.5 billion of it on search. The other $25 is going to expand our article on the base 10 number system.
Nothing posted to
"a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy information on the Internet."
All searches point to Wikipedia website. Enough said.
Honest question, but what kinds of articles do people who complain about Wikipedia's bias look at? I'm legitimately at a loss of knowledge here.
Partially related- I look up things like info about the latest processors from Intel, articles on cities abroad, hard drive manufacturers, etc., and so far the only bias I've seen was one edit that I removed myself which was an advertisement for some website that violated the rules about self-promotion for a website that sold something I was researching.
Maybe we'll finally get the semantic web everyone's been talking about for the past decade?
Their Android app doesn't even select the search field when you press the search button (it's a standard Android key code, and it used to be a common physical button back when touchscreen phones still had those) and they want to get into search?
This is why I don't send them money. How's about spending some money to hire some professional mediators to moderate some of these article wars? That would actually be useful and make Wikipedia a better encyclopedia.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You mean this : https://xkcd.com/978/ ?
You for got to carry the 2.5. You're off by a magnitude of eleventeen.
You have your head in the clouds my friend. All you need to do is Google for the answers you seek.
Several commenters here have suggested that building an alternative to Google, based on values like Wikimedia's, may be a good thing. This is a worthwhile point, and a worthwhile discussion; but it misses the point of what's problematic here.
The problem here, the thing that has many Wikimedians worried, is that Wikimedia trustee Jimmy Wales has apparently been telling outright lies about whether the organization has considered pursuing a search engine to rival Google et al. He has made a number of unequivocal statements in recent weeks -- he himself has accused ousted trustee James Heilman of lying on the subject (but Heilman's narrative is now verified by the published grant application).
https://wikimediafoundation.or...
The thing that has shaken Wikimedia up is not the idea of search, but the question of whether we can expect honest communication from those entrusted with the Wikimedia brand and organization. Beyond that, it's whether that organization in fact wishes for the input of Wikimedia's stakeholders in determining its strategic direction -- something it actively pursued five years ago, but is pursuing only minimally and reluctantly now, with the Knowledge Engine grant as merely the strongest indicator of how its activities fail to align with any strategic document with strong buy-in.
Pete Forsyth
Well said. It's gotten to the point where whenever Wales starts badmouthing people and calling something "utter fucking bullshit" or a "total lie" (as he did in this case), you have to suspect that something very much resembling the exact opposite of what he says is actually true. At the same time, he claimed in those discussions he was "a much stronger advocate of transparency than James [Heilman]", the community representative he and the others had thrown off the Wikimedia board.
The problem with your rant, Pete, is that I have told the absolute truth at every point here. We are not pursuing a search engine to rival Google et al. This grant is not about that type of project, and that type of project would be - quite frankly - ludicrous to attempt on a $250,000 grant.
Discovery at Wikipedia is awful, this is universally understood and acknowledged. This grant is the beginnings of an exploration of how to improve it.
The bullshit - and it is bullshit, and I have said it before and will say it again, that this is some kind of google competitor or was ever conceived to be - is a fantasy based on absolutely no facts of any kind, and a very very very skewed and aggressive reading of a preliminary document.
Wikia