[WikiEN-l] RE: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 13, Issue 66

Thu Aug 26 22:22:08 UTC 2004

Search for George Washington on www.google.com. There doesn't seem to be any 
stuff about George Washington's underwear on the internet that Google has 
indexed. But there are some stuff about George Washington's penis (go 
figure) so we have that as example. With the search "George Washington" you 
will not encounter anything about his penis in the 100,000 first hits or so. 
The reason is that Google manages to figure out that there are atleast 
100,000 pages that are more releveant to the search George Washington then 
the pages about George Washington's penis.

I don't know why Google in almost all cases seem to, almost magically, to 
figure out what you were looking for. One reason appears to be that Google 
rates pages that many pages link to higher, and therefore kinda exploits 
what other humans thinks are relevant. Google's search algorithm is a secret 
and there are many more around that knows much more and can explain it much 
better. See also [[Googlebomd]].

In anyway, the argument that bad articles will cripple the search function, 
is false.

>Why not?  It's going to bring up every article with the term "George 
>Washington" in it, and if [[George Washington's underwear]] begins ... 
>[[George Washington]] wore white [[boxer shorts]], then Google will 
>certainly pick it up.
>
>RickK
>
>"Eric B. Rakim" <eric_b_and_rakim at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >So, what happens when you search for "George Washington" and "George
> >Washington's underwear" shows up?
> >
> >RickK
>
>It will not show up. Atleast not if google search is used. I can't test
>whether it would show up with mediawiki's search algorithm, but if it does,
>that algorithm would be very much broken.
>
>__________________________________________________
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>------------------------------
>
>Message: 8
>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 21:05:25 +0200
>From: ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Image of Gandhi
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID: <51dd1af8040826120559af4bcd at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mahatma_Gandhi.jpg
>
>"This image may not have information on its source. It may be usable
>under fair use but this has yet to be verified. It might be public
>domain or under a licence compatible with the GNU FDL. To the
>uploader: Please provide licensing information as soon as possible.
>Images without this information may be deleted in the future. If you
>want to publish an image as fair use, please list it on Wikipedia:Fair
>use."
>
>We do not know.
>
>On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 08:15 -0700, Danavir Goswami (USA)
><danavir.goswami at pamho.net> wrote:
> > Dear Friends,                           Aug. 26, 2004
> >
> > Greetings. I am a monk writing a book on celibacy---the title is "Brain
> > Gain" (1,000 copies) and would like to use, within the book, an image of
> > Gandhi I found on your website.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
> >
> > If you could be so kind as to inform me A) whether the image is in the
> > public domain (copyright-free), or B) if you have the ability to grant
> > permission for its use, or C) you could suggest how I might seek 
>permission.
> >
> > The seminary is non profit and the publication is also not a profit
> > enterprise.
> >
> > Thank you so much for your help.
> >
> > With best regards,
> >
> > Dr. Dane Holtzman
> >
> > Rupanuga Vedic College (USA)
> > 5201 Paseo, Kansas City, Missouri 64110
> > Tel: (816) 924-5619, (800) 340-5286, Fax: (816) 924-5640
> > E-mail: danavir.goswami at pamho.net  Website: www.rvc.edu
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 9
>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:53:39 -0500
>From: <dpbsmith at verizon.net>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Renaming VfD now under discussion...
>To: <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID:
>	<20040826195339.JKAR24594.out001.verizon.net at outgoing.verizon.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>I got enough of an encouraging reception on this list to have started a
>discussion about it at
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion
>
>There does seem to be support for renaming VfD and rewriting the VfD page
>notice, so I want to concentrate on that part of my proposal.
>
>And my campaign slogan for the change is: as we currently present VfD, some
>newbies are feeling _bitten_ when they should really only feel _barked at._
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 10
>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 16:52:19 -0400
>From: Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Renaming VfD now under discussion...
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Message-ID: <742dfd0604082613526f445692 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
>I'm all for it.
>
>It *would* be nice to be able to tell people who scoff at WP's lack of
>editorial review,
>"actually, [[WP:Editorial Review]] is the three most active pages on the 
>site."
>
>=sj=
>
>On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:53:39 -0500, dpbsmith at verizon.net
><dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
> > I got enough of an encouraging reception on this list to have started a
> > discussion about it at
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion
> >
> > There does seem to be support for renaming VfD and rewriting the VfD 
>page
> > notice, so I want to concentrate on that part of my proposal.
> >
> > And my campaign slogan for the change is: as we currently present VfD, 
>some
> > newbies are feeling _bitten_ when they should really only feel _barked 
>at._
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 11
>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 22:08:26 +0100
>From: Pete/Pcb21 <pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com>
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 13, Issue 65
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Message-ID: <cglj4p$b6h$1 at sea.gmane.org>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>
>Rick wrote:
>
> > Why not?  It's going to bring up every article with the term "George 
>Washington" in it, and if [[George Washington's underwear]] begins ... 
>[[George Washington]] wore white [[boxer shorts]], then Google will 
>certainly pick it up.
>  > that algorithm would be very much broken.
>
>If Google listed it that highly (in GW's case in the first dozen pages
>or so) then people are clearly interested in it, and that is a strong
>argument for having the article.
>
>Pete
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
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>
>End of WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 13, Issue 66
>****************************************

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