Comments on: Wikipedia’s search engine dominance = informational homogeneity? http://ragesoss.com/blog/2009/01/24/wikipedias-search-engine-dominance-informational-homogeneity/ assorted blogging by Sage Ross Sat, 17 Jul 2010 11:53:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Marco http://ragesoss.com/blog/2009/01/24/wikipedias-search-engine-dominance-informational-homogeneity/comment-page-1/#comment-2305 Marco Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:22:07 +0000 http://ragesoss.com/blog/?p=128#comment-2305 "Wikipedia is the first in Google because its articles are the best on average" I think this assertion is seriously wrong, regardless of the quality of Wikipedia articles. Even if the articles are good, which they often are, THE reason why Wikipedia is first in Google is simply because most bloggers and journalists are too lazy to do what Wikipedia itself suggest ("quote several primary sources"). They just add a link to Wikipedia. it's the number of links given to Wikipedia even when a primary source exist that makes its pages first. That's why I added lazy quoting of Wikipedia to my 2010 Online Loser Guide at http://stop.zona-m.net/node/66 (which also includes links to Wikipedia policies on quoting sources). “Wikipedia is the first in Google because its articles are the best on average”

I think this assertion is seriously wrong, regardless of the quality of Wikipedia articles. Even if the articles are good, which they often are, THE reason why Wikipedia is first in Google is simply because most bloggers and journalists are too lazy to do what Wikipedia itself suggest (“quote several primary sources”).

They just add a link to Wikipedia. it’s the number of links given to Wikipedia even when a primary source exist that makes its pages first. That’s why I added lazy quoting of Wikipedia to my 2010 Online Loser Guide at http://stop.zona-m.net/node/66 (which also includes links to Wikipedia policies on quoting sources).

]]> By: Tgr http://ragesoss.com/blog/2009/01/24/wikipedias-search-engine-dominance-informational-homogeneity/comment-page-1/#comment-122 Tgr Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:21:00 +0000 http://ragesoss.com/blog/?p=128#comment-122 Wikipedia is the first in Google because its articles are the best on average, thus it is easier and cheaper (both for a search algorithm and a human reader) to identify them as (mostly) high quality than to assess the quality of individual pages. This is the very point of an encyclopedia (EB is not the best book for all topics, actually, it is probably not the best for any of them; but it is better for the most topics than any single book), so it is a bit strange to read this lamentation on information homogenity on the EB blog, of all places. They didn't have any problems with it while they were the top suppliers of homogenized information... Wikipedia is the first in Google because its articles are the best on average, thus it is easier and cheaper (both for a search algorithm and a human reader) to identify them as (mostly) high quality than to assess the quality of individual pages. This is the very point of an encyclopedia (EB is not the best book for all topics, actually, it is probably not the best for any of them; but it is better for the most topics than any single book), so it is a bit strange to read this lamentation on information homogenity on the EB blog, of all places. They didn’t have any problems with it while they were the top suppliers of homogenized information…

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