Wikimedia’s Secret Search Engine Project Under Interrogation
Wikimedia foundation, the parent organization of information hub Wikipedia.org has finally decided to launch its own search engine in a bid to enforce the democratization of content by retaining its not for profit organization status.
Last year, the Wikimedia foundation was granted a large sum of $250,000 from John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to develop a search engine based on CirrusSearch, a MediaWiki extension that will provide publicly curated, transparent, open source, unbiased and reliable content to the seeker.
San-Francisco based Wikipedia claimed that in order to stand out from other search engines, one needs to provide unbiased information to the user with minimal advertisement. Wikipedia is confident that their new search engine may go a long way in enhancing the internet experience as a whole.
However, the Wikimedia foundation and the Wikipedia community were involved in an internal conflict of sorts and failed to converge at a particular idea. Going completely against the ideology of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia team had initially kept it a secret from the Wikipedia community, the editorial board extensively credited for maintaining the content standard in Wikipedia.
The First Look of Knowledge Engine
Jimmy Wale, the founder of the Wikimedia founder claimed that the project undertaken would vastly improve the searching methods within Wikipedia and would in no way attempt to compete with Google. Although such a declaration has been released, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-10/In_focus" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Wikipedia:wikipedia Signpost/2016 02 10/In Focus</a>indicates the contrary.
The upcoming search engine named ‘Knowledge engine’ would take at least six years to be complete. In a recent press release, Wikipedia assigned a 16 months’ periodic growth, in which four important points including discovery, advisory, community and extensions will be under scrutiny.
Signpost, Wiki’s internal newspaper had previously taken the initiative to announce the business deal between the Knight foundation but the Wiki community had stood up against Wikimedia for highlighting the concealment of such an action and this even resulted in the removal of Wikimedia trustee member James Heilman. Such an incident was completely unexpected from a highly respected company such as Wikipedia.
It will be interesting to see how the new search engine takes shape and whether it will truly be a threat to Google.
Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-10/In_focus" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Wikipedia:wikipedia Signpost/2016 02 10/In Focus</a>
Last year, the Wikimedia foundation was granted a large sum of $250,000 from John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to develop a search engine based on CirrusSearch, a MediaWiki extension that will provide publicly curated, transparent, open source, unbiased and reliable content to the seeker.
San-Francisco based Wikipedia claimed that in order to stand out from other search engines, one needs to provide unbiased information to the user with minimal advertisement. Wikipedia is confident that their new search engine may go a long way in enhancing the internet experience as a whole.
However, the Wikimedia foundation and the Wikipedia community were involved in an internal conflict of sorts and failed to converge at a particular idea. Going completely against the ideology of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia team had initially kept it a secret from the Wikipedia community, the editorial board extensively credited for maintaining the content standard in Wikipedia.
The First Look of Knowledge Engine
The upcoming search engine named ‘Knowledge engine’ would take at least six years to be complete. In a recent press release, Wikipedia assigned a 16 months’ periodic growth, in which four important points including discovery, advisory, community and extensions will be under scrutiny.
Signpost, Wiki’s internal newspaper had previously taken the initiative to announce the business deal between the Knight foundation but the Wiki community had stood up against Wikimedia for highlighting the concealment of such an action and this even resulted in the removal of Wikimedia trustee member James Heilman. Such an incident was completely unexpected from a highly respected company such as Wikipedia.
It will be interesting to see how the new search engine takes shape and whether it will truly be a threat to Google.
Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-10/In_focus" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Wikipedia:wikipedia Signpost/2016 02 10/In Focus</a>
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