- From: Kjetil Kjernsmo <kjetil@kjernsmo.net>
- Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:43:19 +0100
- To: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Cc: public-rdfa@w3.org, RDFa mailing list <public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf@w3.org>
On Friday 13 February 2009, Ian Hickson wrote: > Note that you can already "ask questions" on the Web. For example, I > just searched for "which country napolean", which is neither the > right question nor correctly spelt (though that wasn't intentional), > and Google answered: Well, you just proved that google sucks, didn't you? It couldn't get the answer to that basic question right... Another example, I'd like to have the latest version of the SPARQL Update spec, and I expect to get it if I ask for "sparql update". See, the problem with google is that you will only get a good answer if you are able to ask the right question. So, yeah, as a good searcher I could add "sparql update latest version", but frankly, it won't impress me as long as it is. Natural language has too many ambiguities, too many metaphors, synonyms etc, those searches are not more to opening lines, they are really not useful in many cases. I've done a lot of work with librarians, and you'd be surprised to learn how many people regularly seek physical public libraries, as they find google unhelpful. People are simply not very good at getting the questions right and for good reason. For example, I was looking for a disease, and all I knew about it was that it was something that it often occured as a result of tuberkulosis. That's the kind of things humans often start out with. Try that on google! Add a some relations, and you have a decent chance, so that's what we did, so what you can do now is just search for what you know, and with two clicks, you'll find several things that will give you some associations, such as "inflammation of the lining of the lungs", or pleuritis, which gets you on the right track. Google requires you to offer these associations up front, it doesn't assist with anything beyond simple speling mistakes, whereas just a little bit of knowledge organisation will assist people in finding what they want. Kjetil -- Kjetil Kjernsmo Programmer / Astrophysicist / Ski-orienteer / Orienteer / Mountaineer kjetil@kjernsmo.net Homepage: http://www.kjetil.kjernsmo.net/ OpenPGP KeyID: 6A6A0BBC
Received on Friday, 13 February 2009 22:43:59 UTC