Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Knol Edge Is Power
> Wikimedia Discussion > General Discussion
Pages: 1, 2
Jon Awbrey
Dynamic Update Page

Topics that I search on a routine basis, listed here for the purpose of tracking Google rankings, with special attention to the relative rankings of Knol versus Wikipedia over time.
  1. Ampheck
  2. Charles Sanders Peirce
  3. Differential Logic
  4. Hypostatic Abstraction
  5. Inquiry
  6. Logic of Relatives
  7. Logical Graph
  8. Logical Graphs
  9. Peirce's Law
  10. Peirce’s Law
  11. Praeclarum Theorema
  12. Pragmatic Maxim
  13. Propositional Calculus
  14. Relation Theory
  15. Semeiotic
  16. Sign Relation
  17. Triadic Relation
  18. Zeroth Order Logic
Jon cool.gif
thekohser
Jon, it would be a good idea to use this thread as a longitudinal tracker, but you'll have to provide data points on a regular interval (such as monthly). We'll want to know WHERE in your search engine results pages, the various iterations of your content dumps show up.

The small-type message that follows is not intended to be read by strong supporters of Guy and Poetlister. Just move along, don't read it.

.
.
.
.
.

(Now that Guy and Poetlister are gone, you might even throw in Wikipedia Review pages into the Knol vs. Wikipedia mix, just as another point of reference.)
Dzonatas
A program that measures these rankings daily could be a handy statistic. Do it for various topics, like 100 or so.

I bet the medical related knols rank higher on google.

Wouldn't be hard to write such a program. I've done it before... before the MP3.com boom... to help find MP3s. LOL... told the guy he could add my code to his site when he asked, which i put in public domain, as "fallen off the tree". That was before the time yahoo invented the term "scriptkiddies" against those that wrote web-page scrubbers.
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 30th July 2008, 10:08am) *

Jon, it would be a good idea to use this thread as a longitudinal tracker, but you'll have to provide data points on a regular interval (such as monthly). We'll want to know WHERE in your search engine results pages, the various iterations of your content dumps show up.

… you might even throw in Wikipedia Review pages into the Knol vs. Wikipedia mix, just as another point of reference.


Sure, but that's waaay more work than I'm in for at present. And I didn't say that Knol vs. Wikipedia was my exclusive interest, just that it seems timely to focus on them.

Anec<dot>ally speaking, though, I notice that the knol for Differential Logic that I created just yesterday is already half-way up the first page of my namesake search, if that gives you any hint of the Shape of Things to Come.

Jon cool.gif
Dzonatas
Since greasemonkey came out, writing simple scripts became a bit easier and interactive.

Here is one modified awhile ago to put a "play" button on the revision history:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dzonatas/script/history

So, one could be made to, for example, highlight the wikipedia hits and the knol hits when one enters anything in the google search. More could be done.
The Joy
I'm rather disappointed. I looks like the majority of articles at the moment are for medical conditions.

It's bad enough I sometimes look up symptoms I have on Wikipedia and find out I might need painful injections to cure gout or my eye twitch could mean death is approaching. sad.gif
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(The Joy @ Fri 1st August 2008, 8:50pm) *

I'm rather disappointed. I looks like the majority of articles at the moment are for medical conditions.

It's bad enough I sometimes look up symptoms I have on Wikipedia and find out I might need painful injections to cure gout or my eye twitch could mean death is approaching. sad.gif


I'm guessing that the Knol team at Google probably invited a lot of people from various medical and public health communities to write knols during their pre-roll-out phase — that's a ready source of authors with fairly impressive credentials, and they always have a lot of patient education and research quality papers in the can at any given time.

To assist with your sampling, there's a knol for New Knols that's being maintained manually at the moment, as Googlepetto's workshop is pretty primitive when it comes to power tools at this stage of construction.

Jon cool.gif
Milton Roe
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Fri 1st August 2008, 6:08pm) *

I'm guessing that the Knol team at Google probably invited a lot of people from various medical and public health communities to write knols during their pre-roll-out phase — that's a ready source of authors with fairly impressive credentials, and they always have a lot of patient education and research quality papers in the can at any given time.
Jon cool.gif

Your cynicism has failed you, for once. Most of this stuff ultimately derives from pharm company promotional writing. Some parts have been more carefully laundered than others, but in general, practicing physicians don't have time to write patient education. And research physicians write grant proposals, and reviews based on grant proposals, but these are often either funded directly by pharma, or else based on work originally done by pharma. It's all pretty much like those "erectile dysfunction" commericals you see on TV...

QUOTE
I knew I had high cholesterol, but I was suprised when my doctor said it could have led to my ED.

But then my doctor told me about Mycoxadril. Mycoxadril works longer, so even if my kids show up unexpectedly on weekends, I can still get it on, after they're out of here. Mycoxadril doesn't do a thing for the Crisco and Velveta clogging my coronaries, so I'm still headed for the Big One, followed by a quadruple bypass. But do I care? No, look at me, sitting naked in this tub on the beach. Do I look like I'm worried?*


*Mycoxadril does not protect from sexually transmitted diseases, and if you thought it might, probably the blood flow to your brain is as compromised as what's going through your clogged coronaries and clogged peepee. Micoxadril is not for everyone, but we wish it was, and hope that everybody will try it at least. Men should only take Micoxadril if they are healthy enough for sexual activity, and if they need it because of cholesterol, they probably aren't, but that's not our problem. Tell your doctor if you experience an erection lasting all weekend and into Monday or Tuesday, as it may be a sign the your peepee is about to fall off. Report any visual changes to your doctor, and this might be sign of impending blindness, just like the nuns warned you about. Unlike denture commercial actors who are required to be toothless, the actor in this commerical is a 40 year-old perfectly healthy man with hair dyed gray, who has never had impotence in his life, and if you think he has the same problems as you do, O fat, bald, elderly, hypertensive diabetic couch-potato, well then, this commercial has suceeded.
JohnA
Jon,

Why haven't you written the definitive Knol biography of CS. Peirce?
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Fri 1st August 2008, 11:25pm) *

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Fri 1st August 2008, 6:08pm) *

I'm guessing that the Knol team at Google probably invited a lot of people from various medical and public health communities to write knols during their pre-roll-out phase — that's a ready source of authors with fairly impressive credentials, and they always have a lot of patient education and research quality papers in the can at any given time.

Jon cool.gif


Your cynicism has failed you, for once. Most of this stuff ultimately derives from pharm company promotional writing. Some parts have been more carefully laundered than others, but in general, practicing physicians don't have time to write patient education. And research physicians write grant proposals, and reviews based on grant proposals, but these are often either funded directly by pharma, or else based on work originally done by pharma. It's all pretty much like those "erectile dysfunction" commericals you see on TV —


Now looky here, I worked as everything from a student data coder, to a grad student statistical aide, to a statistical package jockey, to a consultant on research methodology in Colleges and Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Osteopathic Med, Public Health, and even Vet Med (Parasitology and Tropical Diseases often fall under Vet Med) — so I know whereof I speak here. Pharmer Brown peddling his wares in every hallway, sure enough, but that's just MED-USA, as we know her. Doesn't stop folks from caring about their end-patients, though, even the ones afflicted with River-Blindness in the Sudan, who can't take Western Pills without their immune systems going into shock.

Jon cool.gif
Milton Roe
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Fri 1st August 2008, 8:54pm) *

Now looky here, I worked as everything from a student data coder, to a grad student statistical aide, to a statistical package jockey, to a consultant on research methodology in Colleges and Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Osteopathic Med, Public Health, and even Vet Med (Parasitology and Tropical Diseases often fall under Vet Med) — so I know whereof I speak here. Pharmer Brown peddling his wares in every hallway, sure enough, but that's just MED-USA, as we know her. Doesn't stop folks from caring about their end-patients, though, even the ones afflicted with River-Blindness in the Sudan, who can't take Western Pills without their immune systems going into shock.

Jon cool.gif

Ivermectin can be taken by anybody and indeed is one of the few really good examples of drug company altruism.

It's not that most drug companies are trying to make a buck against patients' best interests (though this does happen again and again). It's just that drug companies have more time and money than anybody to describe the diseases they have pills for.

If you will give me some specific links, I will tell you what drug company provided the initial source material, or subsidized the writing of it. Try it as an exercise. For example, guess the drug: http://www.sightsavers.org/What%20We%20Do/.../World1622.html
Jon Awbrey
They had different dopes for different folks back in the '80s, but it wasn't the pill that kills the patient, not directly. It's what happens when your body is so full of parasites that are fooling your immune system into happily accepting them as kin, but the pill that kills them all at once leaves your immune system with all those dead bugs to clean up at once. Not a pretty para-site.

Jon cool.gif
Milton Roe
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Fri 1st August 2008, 9:12pm) *

They had different dopes for different folks back in the '80s, but it wasn't the pill that kills the patient, not directly. It's what happens when your body is so full of parasites that are fooling your immune system into happily accepting them as kin, but the pill that kills them all at once leaves your immune system with all those dead bugs to clean up at once. Not a pretty para-site.

Jon cool.gif

Sure, but it's never a reason not to treat onchocerciasis. It just has to be done slowly. Quite often starting with treatment of the parasite's co-agent, the bacteria Wolbachia, with a tetracycline. However, you won't find nearly as much about this, as the people who make and sell tetracycline-derivatives like doxycycline (these are industrial cattle industry antibiotics produced by the ton generically) don't make enough money from it to do squat, ad-wise. People like Merck who sell ivermectin have many uses for it from high-paying customers (the US vet market, for example) and can thus afford to divert some of that for charity to Africa, and write about it.

If you have some idea that there are non-Western treatments for this, which sponsor writing about the disease, give a link. Or, just find some links which don't get money from Merck, etc. Or from people who rely on materials which ultimately derive from Merck.

You're the one who brought up this disease. However, I'm afraid the more you look, the more you'll dig a hole for your argument. However, that will be good for you. Have at it.
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(Milton Roe @ Sat 2nd August 2008, 12:24am) *

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Fri 1st August 2008, 9:12pm) *

They had different dopes for different folks back in the '80s, but it wasn't the pill that kills the patient, not directly. It's what happens when your body is so full of parasites that are fooling your immune system into happily accepting them as kin, but the pill that kills them all at once leaves your immune system with all those dead bugs to clean up at once. Not a pretty para-site.

Jon cool.gif


Sure, but it's never a reason not to treat onchocerciasis. It just has to be done slowly. Quite often starting with treatment of the parasite's co-agent, the bacteria Wolbachia, with a tetracycline. However, you won't find nearly as much about this, as the people who make and sell tetracycline-derivatives like doxycycline (these are industrial cattle industry antibiotics produced by the ton generically) don't make enough money from it to do squat, ad-wise. People like Merck who sell ivermectin have many uses for it from high-paying customers (the US vet market, for example) and can thus afford to divert some of that for charity to Africa, and write about it.

If you have some idea that there are non-Western treatments for this, which sponsor writing about the disease, give a link. Or, just find some links which don't get money from Merck, etc. Or from people who rely on materials which ultimately derive from Merck.

You're the one who brought up this disease. However, I'm afraid the more you look, the more you'll dig a hole for your argument. However, that will be good for you. Have at it.


Now why would you think I would say something that bluddy stupid !?

IANAD, IABAS, but you are not telling me anything I don't know about ¤€$£¥-genic bias in research. That was my job, to keep the studies honest, and any other day I'd be delivering that same lecture about ¤€$£¥-genic bias — in ♠s. People have to get the requisite ¤€$£¥ from somewhere to fund their institutions and their research — and it's the evisceration of the Public Sector in all phases of US Life that has created this side effect on Medicine. But the people I worked with were not ipso facto prostitutes, and they were not naive about ¤€$£¥-genic bias. As a rule, researchers do tend to be somewhat blindly sanguine about what is probably the worst source of bias, and that is the researcher's Need To Believe that his or her Pet Hypothesis is Some Kinda Bluddy Stroke Of Genius.

The question was, "Why are there so many health-related knols on that Knol starter page?" I may have glanced at all of about 3 of them, read a few Bio knols, and so I made an educated guess about why that might be. It may be a wrong guess, but I know from experience that all of the facts I adduced in support of it are true.

Jon cool.gif
Milton Roe
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Fri 1st August 2008, 9:56pm) *

The question was, "Why are there so many health-related knols on that Knol starter page?" I may have glanced at all of about 3 of them, read a few Bio knols, and so I made an educated guess about why that might be. It may be a wrong guess, but I know from experience that all of the facts I adduced in support of it are true.

Jon cool.gif

Well, I know from experience just the opposite, so there tongue.gif
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Fri 1st August 2008, 9:56pm) *

IANAD, IABAS, but you are not telling me anything I don't know about ¤€$£¥-genic bias in research. That was my job, to keep the studies honest, and any other day I'd be delivering that same lecture about ¤€$£¥-genic bias — in ♠s. People have to get the requisite ¤€$£¥ from somewhere to fund their institutions and their research — and it's the evisceration of the Public Sector in all phases of US Life that has created this side effect on Medicine. But the people I worked with were not ipso facto prostitutes, and they were not naive about ¤€$£¥-genic bias. As a rule, researchers do tend to be somewhat blindly sanguine about what is probably the worst source of bias, and that is the researcher's Need To Believe that his or her Pet Hypothesis is Some Kinda Bluddy Stroke Of Genius.

That may indeed be the worst source of bias, but it's not the one that produces all the writing for the public, and the nice illustrations. Don't confuse the two.

In the US, pharma does roughly 15 billion a year of research and so does the NIH. There has NOT been any "evisceration" of biomedical research funding-- it goes up year by year and always has (you cannot find a single year where it has gone DOWN, even in inflation adjusted dollars). But pharm research has gone up faster, and in addition, a far larger fraction of pharm research is clinical research producing clinical data which is hard to ignore, and pharm spends something about the same range as research funding in shear advertising, and some (large) fraction of THAT is writing for the "public". You can't escape it. Drug ads in the NEJM, drug ads in Lancet, drug ads on TV, drug ads just about everywhere. (I've mentioned Cochrane, but there aren't many Consumer Reports style things like this, in medicine, in the US or anywhere else). Drug money is so pervasive it's not even noticed, like air.

Just google a disease and see what's written about it on the web, that is NOT Wikipedia. Pick one at random. Provide concrete examples.

Let's take something very general, like .... cancer. Not even a single disease. But what the hell.
My first Google hit is the American Cancer Society. Do you know anything about the funding of the ACS, John? http://www.preventcancer.com/losing/acs/wealthiest_links.htm

Pick another.
Jon Awbrey
Now here's an interesting thing —

Knol's Similar Content On Web (SCOW) widget apparently has access to previous versions of Wikipedia articles. For example, if you look at the report for my incipient knolicule on Logic of Relatives, it currently reports "wikipedia.org 57%", but that links to a version of the main Peirce article from 21 Dec 2007.
Kewl!

Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
Now how the devil am I going to maintain a dynamic list if I can't edit my entries after a few days!? Do we all have to suffer shackles because of 1 or 2 people's outrages!?

Jon cool.gif

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Wed 30th July 2008, 4:16am) *

I'm going to start a dynamic list of topics that I do routine searches on, for the purpose of tracking Google rankings, with special attention to the relative rankings of Knol versus Wikipedia over time.Jon cool.gif


thekohser
Yes, it appears that Somey has denied us all the power to edit our posts here.

Jon, I had pointed out that Knol has the ability to show what % of some other web domain's page contains duplicate content as the Knol page in question. I copied a page of mine from Wikipedia Review, changed a sentence, and it rendered a "99% similar" link in the sidebar. It is really cool. You must have missed my post about it.

Milton, tell us how this was puffed out by pharma PR:

http://knol.google.com/k/don-c-rockey/cirr...n4VJ9Vw/Tq-BFA#

I'm not challenging you. I just want to learn more about how to spot it.
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 2nd August 2008, 3:18pm) *

Yes, it appears that Somey has denied us all the power to edit our posts here.

Jon, I had pointed out that Knol has the ability to show what % of some other web domain's page contains duplicate content as the Knol page in question. I copied a page of mine from Wikipedia Review, changed a sentence, and it rendered a "99% similar" link in the sidebar. It is really cool. You must have missed my post about it.


Could be, as I was ↑ ↑ & awaaay for a fortnight, or if you posted it outside of General or Meta, which is about all I frequent anymore.

Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Sat 2nd August 2008, 3:24pm) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 2nd August 2008, 3:18pm) *

Yes, it appears that Somey has denied us all the power to edit our posts here.

Jon, I had pointed out that Knol has the ability to show what % of some other web domain's page contains duplicate content as the Knol page in question. I copied a page of mine from Wikipedia Review, changed a sentence, and it rendered a "99% similar" link in the sidebar. It is really cool. You must have missed my post about it.


Could be, as I was ↑ ↑ & awaaay for a fortnight, or if you posted it outside of General or Meta, which is about all I frequent anymore.

Jon cool.gif


Well I just got back from vacation and it looks like it's time to take another &hellip;

Greg, could you please drop me a line by email when the Review Mods give us back the ability to edit our old posts?

Cheer-i-o &mdash;

Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Wed 30th July 2008, 11:44am) *

QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 30th July 2008, 10:08am) *

Jon, it would be a good idea to use this thread as a longitudinal tracker, but you'll have to provide data points on a regular interval (such as monthly). We'll want to know WHERE in your search engine results pages, the various iterations of your content dumps show up.

You might even throw in Wikipedia Review pages into the Knol vs. Wikipedia mix, just as another point of reference.


Sure, but that's waaay more work than I'm in for at present. And I didn't say that Knol vs. Wikipedia was my exclusive interest, just that it seems timely to focus on them.

Anec<dot>ally speaking, though, I notice that the knol for Differential Logic that I created just yesterday is already half-way up the first page of my namesake search, if that gives you any hint of the Shape of Things to Come.

Jon cool.gif


Let me just give a brief rule of thumb, back of the envelope or cocktail napkin — you pick your poisson — estimate of how things stand with respect to the questions on this page after a week or so of working with Knol.

Google Search on "Jon Awbrey" — listing just the domain leaders in order of appearance:

Results 1 – 100 of about 69,500 for "Jon Awbrey". (0.56 seconds)
  1. Directory:Jon Awbrey — Wikipedia Review, Author Your Legacy
  2. Category:Wikipedia Sockpuppets of Jon Awbrey
  3. OntologWiki: Jon Awbrey
  4. User:Jon Awbrey — MathWeb
  5. Re: SUO: Jon Awbrey's Postings
  6. Misc.Ontology.General (Thread)
  7. Wired Campus: U. of California Researchers Hold Wikipedia Authors …
  8. Re: Signation — Jon Awbrey — org.w3.www-rdf-logic — MarkMail
  9. CeryleWiki: Jon Awbrey
  10. Name Tag — Jon Awbrey — Citizendium
  11. Differential Logic — a knol by Jon Awbrey
  12. The Wikipedia Review → Meta Discussion
  13. [plt-scheme] Forwarded Message from Jon Awbrey
  14. (At this point we begin to e-counter people named "Jon Awbrey" who are not me. — So don't even think of sending me their bar bills and 3rd notice overdue Aye Carrumba House of BVD DVD™ dunnings.)
Jon cool.gif
thekohser
Wow, Jonny... Look at that "little site that could", chuffing and puffing its way up to the NUMBER ONE position on Google... ahead of even that big, bad wolf named Wikipedia!

No wonder the Wikipediots don't want anyone to learn about semantic web and directory sites deploying it.

ph34r.gif
Jon Awbrey
Mid-Moon Update —

QUOTE

Raider Advisory —

The Wikipedia Review Homeland Insecurity Committee (WR:¤HIC¤), currently operating under Condition Fuchsia 2, has determined that I must update these updates in a non-dynamic faschion for the Duration of the Host-Ediocies.


QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Wed 30th July 2008, 4:16am) *

I'm going to start a dynamic list of topics that I do routine searches on, for the purpose of tracking Google rankings, with special attention to the relative rankings of Knol versus Wikipedia over time.

Jon cool.gif
Kelly Martin
Condition Fuchsia? How dare they misappropriate one of my favorite colors! I demand that this cease and desist immediately!
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Mon 11th August 2008, 10:11am) *

Condition Fuchsia? How dare they misappropriate one of my favorite colors! I demand that this cease and desist immediately!


Sorry, «Macht vor Retch», you'll have to use the generic, Condition Magenta.

Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
Now Thaß Wot I Call Slick Pickins!

I wrote up a knol with my canonical bit on the Pragmatic Maxim a few days ago, and Knol's «Similar Content On Web» (SCOW) bot picked up the German translation of my old Wikipedia article that had been scraped and spliced into a German-language website!

Vide, Vide, Vide — Pragmatische Maxime

I didn't even know this was out there!

Jon cool.gif
Milton Roe
QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 2nd August 2008, 12:18pm) *

Yes, it appears that Somey has denied us all the power to edit our posts here.

Jon, I had pointed out that Knol has the ability to show what % of some other web domain's page contains duplicate content as the Knol page in question. I copied a page of mine from Wikipedia Review, changed a sentence, and it rendered a "99% similar" link in the sidebar. It is really cool. You must have missed my post about it.

Milton, tell us how this was puffed out by pharma PR:

http://knol.google.com/k/don-c-rockey/cirr...n4VJ9Vw/Tq-BFA#

I'm not challenging you. I just want to learn more about how to spot it.

It can be subtle, and this is (I admit) actually a pretty good article with little evident overt bias or (more importantly) the bias that comes from having information on cirrhosis but not a medical condition which has no drug treatments at all.

I'm somewhat inhibited by no references to where the figures for it come from, which is often a good "tell." Possible sources for support on this article are the American Liver Foundation (heavily supported by drug companies), and various "ask your doctor" information sites supported by Hep A, B, and C vaccines (the two last viruses are causes of cirrhosis, and the first one can make a cirrhotic person much more ill), and makers of treatments for chronic viral hepatitis.

The only residual bias my readers actually picked up is the idea that treatments for chronic heptitis C are "interferon alpha" based. That's only part of the truth. The gold standard is interferon alpha and ribavirin, an antiviral. Both are needed: interferon alone is far less likely to be curitive. But ribavirin is generic now and cheap, and interferon alpha, though recently generic, is by far the most expensive drug of the combo. So it's interesting that only it is mentioned.

Some of this stuff is like doing textual analysis. But thus saith me doctor friends.
Jon Awbrey
It has been 10 days since my last confection …

Here's an update on how Knol, Wikipedia Review, PlanetMath, Wikinfo, etc. are doing in the race to displace Wikipedia from the top o' th' heap that Google heaps onus.

Last week's standings —

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Tue 5th August 2008, 12:12am) *

Google Search on "Jon Awbrey" — listing just the domain leaders in order of appearance:

Results 1 – 100 of about 69,500 for "Jon Awbrey". (0.56 seconds)
  1. Directory:Jon Awbrey — Wikipedia Review, Author Your Legacy
  2. Category:Wikipedia Sockpuppets of Jon Awbrey
  3. OntologWiki: Jon Awbrey
  4. User:Jon Awbrey — MathWeb
  5. Re: SUO: Jon Awbrey's Postings
  6. Misc.Ontology.General (Thread)
  7. Wired Campus: U. of California Researchers Hold Wikipedia Authors …
  8. Re: Signation — Jon Awbrey — org.w3.www-rdf-logic — MarkMail
  9. CeryleWiki: Jon Awbrey
  10. Name Tag — Jon Awbrey — Citizendium
  11. Differential Logic — a knol by Jon Awbrey
  12. The Wikipedia Review → Meta Discussion
  13. {plt-scheme} Forwarded Message from Jon Awbrey
Jon cool.gif


I first noticed Wikipedia Review nosing ahead of Wikipedia in my Google Bio-Mass E-Limination Trials around about Harry Potter's Birthday, but the rankings are always so shifty at the top that I didn't bother commenting until they had stayed that way for a week or so. This week WP edges out MWB again, but MWB continues to nip at WP's heels.

Here are the first score search results:

Google Search on "Jon Awbrey" — listing just the domain leaders in order of appearance:

Results 1 – 100 of about 69,200 for "Jon Awbrey". (0.12 seconds)
  1. Category:Wikipedia Sockpuppets of Jon Awbrey
  2. Directory:Jon Awbrey — Wikipedia Review, Author Your Legacy
  3. OntologWiki: Jon Awbrey
  4. User:Jon Awbrey — Wikinfo
  5. Viewing Profile @ The Wikipedia Review
  6. Re: SUO: Jon Awbrey's Postings
  7. User:Jon Awbrey — MathWeb
  8. Jon Awbrey @ PlanetMath
  9. Misc.Ontology.General (Thread) @ OSDir
  10. Differential Logic — a knol by Jon Awbrey
  11. Re: Signation — Jon Awbrey — org.w3.www-rdf-logic — MarkMail
  12. Brainstorm: The Wikipedia Style — Chronicle.com
  13. CeryleWiki: Jon Awbrey
  14. Name Tag — Jon Awbrey @ Citizendium
  15. User:Jon Awbrey/TEXTEP — Textop Wiki
  16. Ceryle Wiki: Jon Awbrey
  17. A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum — View Profile
  18. {plt-scheme} Forwarded Message from Jon Awbrey
So it looks like that first Knol article is moving up rather quickly as these things go.

Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
→Wik↓End ¤ Up↑Date←

Here's a desultory longitudinal sketch of how Knol, Wikipedia Review, PlanetMath, Wikinfo, etc. are doing in the race to displace Wikipedia from the top o' th' heap that Google heaps onus.

Google Search on "Jon Awbrey" — listing just the domain leaders in order of appearance:

05 August 2008

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Tue 5th August 2008, 12:12am) *

Results 1 – 100 of about 69,500 for "Jon Awbrey". (0.56 seconds)
  1. Directory:Jon Awbrey — Wikipedia Review, Author Your Legacy
  2. Category:Wikipedia Sockpuppets of Jon Awbrey
  3. OntologWiki: Jon Awbrey
  4. User:Jon Awbrey — MathWeb
  5. Re: SUO: Jon Awbrey's Postings
  6. Misc.Ontology.General (Thread)
  7. Wired Campus: U. of California Researchers Hold Wikipedia Authors …
  8. Re: Signation — Jon Awbrey — org.w3.www-rdf-logic — MarkMail
  9. CeryleWiki: Jon Awbrey
  10. Name Tag — Jon Awbrey — Citizendium
  11. Differential Logic — a knol by Jon Awbrey
  12. The Wikipedia Review → Meta Discussion
  13. {plt-scheme} Forwarded Message from Jon Awbrey


15 August 2008

QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Fri 15th August 2008, 8:52am) *

Results 1 – 100 of about 69,200 for "Jon Awbrey". (0.12 seconds)
  1. Category:Wikipedia Sockpuppets of Jon Awbrey
  2. Directory:Jon Awbrey — Wikipedia Review, Author Your Legacy
  3. OntologWiki: Jon Awbrey
  4. User:Jon Awbrey — Wikinfo
  5. Viewing Profile @ The Wikipedia Review
  6. Re: SUO: Jon Awbrey's Postings
  7. User:Jon Awbrey — MathWeb
  8. Jon Awbrey @ PlanetMath
  9. Misc.Ontology.General (Thread) @ OSDir
  10. Differential Logic — a knol by Jon Awbrey
  11. Re: Signation — Jon Awbrey — org.w3.www-rdf-logic — MarkMail
  12. Brainstorm: The Wikipedia Style — Chronicle.com
  13. CeryleWiki: Jon Awbrey
  14. Name Tag — Jon Awbrey @ Citizendium
  15. User:Jon Awbrey/TEXTEP — Textop Wiki
  16. Ceryle Wiki: Jon Awbrey
  17. A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum — View Profile
  18. {plt-scheme} Forwarded Message from Jon Awbrey


22 August 2008

Results 1 – 100 of about 54,500 for "Jon Awbrey". (0.20 seconds)
  1. Category:Wikipedia Sockpuppets of Jon Awbrey
  2. Jon Awbrey @ PlanetMath
  3. Directory:Jon Awbrey @ Wikipedia Review
  4. OntologWiki: Jon Awbrey
  5. User:Jon Awbrey — Wikinfo
  6. Semeiotic — a knol by Jon Awbrey
  7. Jon Awbrey @ WIKI.TCL.TK
  8. Re: SUO: Jon Awbrey's Postings
  9. Viewing Profile @ The Wikipedia Review
  10. User:Jon Awbrey — MathWeb
  11. Misc.Ontology.General (Thread) @ OSDir
  12. Re: Signation — Jon Awbrey — org.w3.www-rdf-logic — MarkMail
  13. CeryleWiki: Jon Awbrey
  14. Wired Campus: U. of California Researchers Hold Wikipedia Authors Accontable
  15. Name Tag — Jon Awbrey @ Citizendium
  16. User:Jon Awbrey/TEXTEP — Textop Wiki
We observe that my entries at Knol have moved up from 11th to 6th place in just over 2 weeks.

Jon cool.gif
thekohser
Damn that PlanetMath! I'ze hates the bronze medal!
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(thekohser @ Sat 23rd August 2008, 1:28am) *

Damn that PlanetMath! I'ze hates the bronze medal!


I normally do a lot of searches on my own name because it's the only way I can cudgel my scattered, er, distributed brains to remember what I was writing last week, and it bugs me that the 10 months I spent on Wikipedia outweighs the many years that I spent writing on many other sites.

But topic searches are probably more to the point of what Search Engine Opportuners care about. So here's a consolation prize:

Google Search on Logic of Relatives

This was one of those really "curious" cases where Wikipedia maintained pride of place even long after the article dedicated to the topic in question had been deleted(!) But now it plays also-ran even to its own scrapers.

Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
→Wik↓End ¤ Up↑Date←

Snooz Flash!!!

Wikipedia Review Deep-Sixes Wikipedia on the Cache-o-Meter …

I don't know if this morning's e-lection returns are a transient or not, but I thought it might be worth recording the event in any event.

Google Search on "Jon Awbrey" — listing just the domain leaders in order of appearance:

25 August 2008

Results 1 – 100 of about 53,800 for "Jon Awbrey". (0.72 seconds)
  1. Directory:Jon Awbrey — Wikipedia Review, Author Your Legacy
  2. Jon Awbrey @ PlanetMath
  3. OntologWiki: Jon Awbrey
  4. User:Jon Awbrey — Wikinfo
  5. User:Jon Awbrey — MathWeb
  6. Re: SUO: Jon Awbrey's Postings
  7. User:Jon Awbrey — Wikipedia, the Feeb Encyclopedia
  8. Semeiotic — a knol by Jon Awbrey
  9. Jon Awbrey @ WIKI.TCL.TK
  10. Viewing Profile @ The Wikipedia Review
  11. Misc.Ontology.General (Thread) @ OSDir
  12. CeryleWiki: Jon Awbrey
  13. Re: Signation — Jon Awbrey — org.w3.www-rdf-logic

Jon cool.gif
JoseClutch
That is a big drop. Any explanation?
thekohser
QUOTE(JoseClutch @ Mon 25th August 2008, 10:59am) *

That is a big drop. Any explanation?


It's quite simply the power of Wikipedia Review's little semantic web engine. Wikipedia cannot compete, if only people would start copying the Wikipedia model on MWB, tagging content with semantic attributes and relations, there'd be no contest.

Look up "Emily Hatten". Wikipedia Review in first position; Wikipedia in eighth.

</promotional rant>

Okay, it has more to do with linking elsewhere on the Internet, on reliable sites, that you and other readers suggest going to the specific Wikipedia Review page, rather than to the (unwanted) Wikipedia page. It takes a bit of work, and the semantic tagging certainly helps, but I think the cross-linking is the biggest bit. Awbrey has tagged his "preferred" destinations in dozens of places over the web, while nobody's tagging his Wikipedia user page as the place to go for all things "Jon Awbrey".

Just my two cents. If you're curious to perform your own search engine optimization experiments on my site, you're more than welcome.
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(JoseClutch @ Mon 25th August 2008, 10:59am) *

That is a big drop. Any explanation?


No idea.

This is a peculiar type of Google probe, fascinating to yours truly, but probably not the first subject that springs to anyone else's mind.

As a long time watcher, Google results on this query shift dramatically and periodically, both in number and order of results. I can often tell when they are going through a transition period by the number of phishy-looking off-the-wall sites that show up, and there are several of those in this haul — I skip them in my reports because they often have viruses and upload demons of various sorts.

I don't detect any effects of no-index tagging, as the Usual Suspects all seem to be there, just further out of sight.

Jon cool.gif
JoseClutch
QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 25th August 2008, 11:09am) *

QUOTE(JoseClutch @ Mon 25th August 2008, 10:59am) *

That is a big drop. Any explanation?


It's quite simply the power of Wikipedia Review's little semantic web engine. Wikipedia cannot compete, if only people would start copying the Wikipedia model on MWB, tagging content with semantic attributes and relations, there'd be no contest.

Look up "Emily Hatten". Wikipedia Review in first position; Wikipedia in eighth.

</promotional rant>

Okay, it has more to do with linking elsewhere on the Internet, on reliable sites, that you and other readers suggest going to the specific Wikipedia Review page, rather than to the (unwanted) Wikipedia page. It takes a bit of work, and the semantic tagging certainly helps, but I think the cross-linking is the biggest bit. Awbrey has tagged his "preferred" destinations in dozens of places over the web, while nobody's tagging his Wikipedia user page as the place to go for all things "Jon Awbrey".

Just my two cents. If you're curious to perform your own search engine optimization experiments on my site, you're more than welcome.


Frankly, with no horse in the financial race, I just do not have the patience for this. Maybe I should acquire such a horse ...
thekohser
QUOTE(JoseClutch @ Mon 25th August 2008, 11:16am) *

Frankly, with no horse in the financial race, I just do not have the patience for this. Maybe I should acquire such a horse ...


If your subject is specific and not super-famous already (example, "Jelena Cleary"), it's awfully easy to get Wikipedia Review to be the #1 search result.

If your search is something more common universally, like ""heating oil" dyed "distillate fuels"", about 27th place is what you can expect.

I've just added Keywords "heating oil" and "distillate fuels" to the Wikipedia Review article about Heating oil, so given about a week's time for Google to notice that, and I'll bet that MWB might pop into the top-ten for that (admittedly) specific search. But adding Keywords as semantic attributes takes about 30 seconds -- nifty for those with no patience.

Greg
lolwut
I think this is a decent Knol about Wikipedia. Fairly accurate, and down-to-earth. Since editors are all human and thus opinionated, NPOV does not exist and is an unquantifiable and immeasurable concept. So it's nice just to see a decent opinion for a change, instead of some dogmatic bullshit that promotes ridiculous ideals.

http://knol.google.com/k/david-blomstrom/w...i6e04re3w2kp/5#
Jon Awbrey
Here is the updated list of search topics that I'm watching, on the last 6 of which I recently wrote knols. As I get time I will try to do a more detailed analysis — okay, speculation — as to why our sites of interest place as they do on these topics.

Of course, I would've have preferred to maintain a dynamically updated list at the top of the thread, so that I don't keep losing track of the list and keep having to recopy it at the bottom —
But NOOOOOOoo…
  1. Charles Sanders Peirce
  2. Differential Logic
  3. Hypostatic Abstraction
  4. Logic of Relatives
  5. Logical Graphs
  6. Pragmatic Maxim
  7. Semeiotic
Jon cool.gif
The Wales Hunter
The main obstacle Wikipedia Review faces, though, Greg (and this isn't meant as an attack, because I appreciate you have practically zero resources compared to Wiki), it took me just under 24 seconds to go from the Emily Hatten Google entry to the page being loaded on your site (on a connection running at about 8MB right now).

Nobody wants to wait around for that long, especially if they are aiming to carry out multiple searches on various subjects. Without the speed, less external sites will link in, which will lower the Google ranking.

Google Knol itself it just a complete mess, in my view, at the moment. If Google had wanted to, they could have wiped out Wikipedia via the search engine, but haven't chosen to. On top of that, Knol just looks archaic.
thekohser
QUOTE(The Wales Hunter @ Tue 26th August 2008, 10:56am) *

The main obstacle Wikipedia Review faces, though, Greg (and this isn't meant as an attack, because I appreciate you have practically zero resources compared to Wiki), it took me just under 24 seconds to go from the Emily Hatten Google entry to the page being loaded on your site (on a connection running at about 8MB right now).

Nobody wants to wait around for that long, especially if they are aiming to carry out multiple searches on various subjects. Without the speed, less external sites will link in, which will lower the Google ranking.


Not taken as an attack -- it's a real problem. Our server/hosting costs $215 per year, and you get what you pay for. Something is just not right with the architecture, but I don't even know how to upgrade the site to the newest stable version of Semantic Mediawiki. Yet, my sister and I decided that we're not going to go nuts with improvements and solving performance issues, until we see evidence that the concept appeals to a significant number of active users. Frankly, I'm not seeing that yet, so we're kind of stuck in this vicious circle. If that day does arrive, my intention is to bring on a bona fide wiki-sysop nerd and offer shared ownership of the site in exchange for performance/maintenance duties.

I just clicked the Emily Hatten link and the page loaded in MSIE for me in less than 3 seconds. I'm at 12.5 Mbps, though. And, I'll bet you were using Firefox browser, which I have found can choke (sometimes miserably) on the page loading (but which I've found can be averted sometimes by just clicking the Refresh button while it's choking). I just tried it on a cleared-cache Firefox, and the page did take 7 seconds on this 12.5 Mbps connection, which is very disappointing.

So, you make a perfectly valid point, but I'll politely disagree with you that it's the "main obstacle". I think the main obstacle is that 98% of regular human beings don't have any talent toward or desire to create a webpage using Mediawiki markup language.

Greg
thekohser
Someone from the Philippines just searched Yahoo! for "who conceptualize the differential calculus?".

Out of 70,000 possible links, they chose the one at the top. A paper that Jon Awbrey keeps in his Wikipedia Review Directory.
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 27th August 2008, 10:39am) *

Someone from the Philippines just searched Yahoo! for "who conceptualize the differential calculus?".

Out of 70,000 possible links, they chose the one at the top. A paper that Jon Awbrey keeps in his Wikipedia Review Directory.


E-Maze-Zing!

But let's not talk about how long it takes that BadBois to lode …

Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
YAP¬DUOJASEW —

Yet Another Periodically Non-Dynamic Update Of Jon Awbrey's Search Engine Watchlist —
  1. Charles Sanders Peirce
  2. Differential Logic
  3. Hypostatic Abstraction
  4. Logic of Relatives
  5. Logical Graphs
  6. Peirce's Law
  7. Praeclarum Theorema
  8. Pragmatic Maxim
  9. Semeiotic
  10. Zeroth Order Logic
Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Tue 2nd September 2008, 1:12pm) *

YAP¬DUOJASEW —

Yet Another Periodically Non-Dynamic Update Of Jon Awbrey's Search Engine Watchlist —
  1. Charles Sanders Peirce
  2. Differential Logic
  3. Hypostatic Abstraction
  4. Logic of Relatives
  5. Logical Graphs
  6. Peirce's Law
  7. Praeclarum Theorema
  8. Pragmatic Maxim
  9. Semeiotic
  10. Zeroth Order Logic
Jon cool.gif


The more I look at concrete cases like these, the more I realize that Google's ranking algorithm is totally skrewed, er skewed. More like it's been totally skrewing all of us for a decade now with the Worst Warped Web Weltanshauung you could possibly imagine. And to think I used to think those Google Guys were smart or something. But they have fallen Hook, Line, and Sinker for freshman textbook statistical biases.

I don't have all that much time to spend on this stuff any more, and what I have is intermittent. If the WR Staff would remove that Ediotic time limit on post-editing posts I would try to do some detailed examination of individual cases over time, but it's gotten to be too much of a Bluddy Pain trying to conduct organized, reflective, detail work under the current time-window conditions.

Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
→Wik↓End ¤ Up↑Date←

Not sure what's going on, or how long it will last — things have been much in flux the last couple of weeks — but here's the current standings on my exact name search:

Google Search on "Jon Awbrey" — listing just the domain leaders in order of appearance:

04 September 2008

Results 1 – 100 of about 43,500 for "Jon Awbrey". (0.22 seconds)
  1. Jon Awbrey @ PlanetMath
  2. OntologWiki: Jon Awbrey
  3. Directory:Jon Awbrey — Wikipedia Review, Author Your Legacy
  4. Semeiotic — a knol by Jon Awbrey
  5. User:Jon Awbrey — Wikinfo
  6. User:Jon Awbrey — Meta
  7. Re: SUO: Jon Awbrey's Postings
  8. Jon Awbrey @ WIKI.TCL.TK
  9. User talk:Jon Awbrey — Wikipedia, the Feeb Encyclopedia
  10. Viewing Profile @ The Wikipedia Review
  11. CeryleWiki: Jon Awbrey
  12. Misc.Ontology.General (Thread) @ OSDir
  13. Name Tag &mdash Jon Awbrey @ Citizendium Forums
Jon cool.gif
Jon Awbrey
Congratulations are in order to our own Greg Kohs for getting his Picture on the Cover of the Knolling Stone for this fine article about a Famous In-Vester.

High Fives All Around !!!!!

Jon cool.gif
thekohser
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Tue 9th September 2008, 5:10pm) *

Congratulations are in order to our own Greg Kohs for getting his Picture on the Cover of the Knolling Stone for this fine article about a Famous In-Vester.

High Fives All Around !!!!!

Jon cool.gif


Thank you, Jon. Wow, that's gonna go on my permanent record.
thekohser
QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 25th August 2008, 12:01pm) *

If your search is something more common universally, like ""heating oil" dyed "distillate fuels"", about 27th place is what you can expect.

I've just added Keywords "heating oil" and "distillate fuels" to the Wikipedia Review article about Heating oil, so given about a week's time for Google to notice that, and I'll bet that MWB might pop into the top-ten for that (admittedly) specific search. But adding Keywords as semantic attributes takes about 30 seconds -- nifty for those with no patience.


Well, it took longer than a week, but three weeks ain't too bad for a jump from 27th place to 9th place, just by adding a few Keywords (which takes about a half a minute).
the fieryangel
Wow, my knol about Germaine Tailleferre was on the front page of Knol on August 29th!

Hey, pretty kewl, huh? (I'm banned from editing anything about Germaine Tailleferre on Wikipedia....Oh, and before anybody points out any similarities between the WP article and this knol...that's normal. I wrote both of 'em!)
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.