I'm not a Google apologist by any means -- I just wouldn't attribute
political pressure to this particular algorithm modification or
characterize it as driven by a newspaper article. I view it more that
the article brought to their attention yet another mechanism by which
people attempt to gain an advantage unfairly. Just as the revelation
that people use html coding and repetition of keywords to make their
pages look more relevant or create spurious unrelated webpages with
links back to their principle site to make it look like lots of
independent entities have linked to them. Every time Google learns of
one of these machinations, they modify their algorithm -- and I think
they have a right to keep their algorithm a secret - it is, after all,
the source of their business.
Which isn't to say that I am naive about the power that Google has - I
just don't think this situation is an example of misuse of that power.
- Michele
On 12/6/2010 3:30 PM, Lovins, Daniel wrote:
> I just want to add that, in addition to Jim's point about political pressure affecting Google page rank (i.e., vs. the way library ranking decisions may be made), another major difference is that Google's search algorithm is a carefully-guarded secret. Library search algorithms, by contrast, especially when harnessed to open source search engines like Lucene/Solr, can be verified by others for accuracy and objectivity.
>
> Big difference I think.
>
> Daniel
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On
>> Behalf Of Weinheimer Jim
>> Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 3:21 PM
>> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: Re: Cablegate from Wikileaks: a case study
>>
>> Michele Newberry wrote:
>> <snip>
>> Oh my goodness -- isn't this exactly what we do when we "tweak" our
>> relevance ranking algorithms in our own systems? We call it the "On the
>> road" tweak -- doing what we need to do to make this obvious titles
>> appear on the first page of the results preferably near the very top.
>> You could also call it the "Gone with the wind" tweak or even the
>> "Nature" tweak.
>> </snip>
>>
>> On 12/6/2010 2:10 PM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>> <snip>
>> Of COURSE Google's algorithms are the result of subjective human
>> judgements in how to best apply available technology to meet user
>> needs. This should surprise nobody that knows that software isn't magic,
>> it just does exactly what programmers tell it to.
>> </snip>
>>
>> Interesting reactions. Google very clearly tweaked its results based on a story from
>> the NY Times, and the purpose was to downgrade certain results based on what they
>> considered to be the "greater good" or something like that. The articles very clearly
>> pointed out that being able to do this is *incredibly powerful* in terms of societal
>> impact, and I agree. After all, people trust Google.
>>
>> I confess, I have never understood relevance ranking in library catalogs, although I do
>> understand the concept rather clearly in general search engines such as Google, which
>> is based on various types of citation analysis. In this article, Google pretty much
>> admitted that they tweak results based on political considerations (i.e. articles in the NY
>> Times). How would Google have tweaked things during the US Civil War? Or during
>> WWI? What else is Google doing today that we don't know? Do libraries tweak results
>> based on political considerations? I hope not.
>>
>> I brought up these articles as examples of some very difficult matters that the entire
>> information world needs to deal with today, since these matters often have very
>> tangible consequences for society.
>>
>> James L. Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
>> Director of Library and Information Services
>> The American University of Rome
>> Rome, Italy
>> First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
>>
>
--
~NOTE EMAIL ADDRESS CHANGE TO FCLMIN_at_UFL.EDU~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michele Newberry Assistant Director for Library Services
Florida Center for Library Automation 352-392-9020
5830 NW 39th Avenue 352-392-9185 (fax)
Gainesville, FL 32606 fclmin_at_ufl.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Received on Mon Dec 06 2010 - 15:55:23 EST