Comments on: The Matthew Effect & Search Results

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:51:27 +0000

I didn’t see that post, thank you for the link. I’ve certainly enjoyed the exchange, but I can understand why you might be getting bored with the discussion.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:15:52 +0000

There is also the id search, of course.

By: Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri Vieuxtemps — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:25:40 +0000

In extreme, all you’ll see is what Google’s model of you wants to see, which is necessarily different than you.

But do you really know what you really want to see? Perhaps a good search engine should return three sets of results: one for your ideal ego, one for your ego-ideal , and the third one for your superego?

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:53:35 +0000

Hi Patrick, I gave a short response to that post in the Cosmopolitanism post. (I could elevate it to true post status, but perhaps people have had enough of that go-round.) Did you see this comment by me?

http://crookedtimber.org/2009/09/17/a-citizen-of-where-exactly/#comment-288731

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:55:02 +0000

Maybe a stochastic element to search results? Randomly putting lower ranked results into the top, so that they’ll get some views.

There is more to this than the Matthew Effect, though. Personalized results, can have the same effect of decreasing the diversity of your results. In extreme, all you’ll see is what Google’s model of you wants to see, which is necessarily different than you.

p.s. I still want to see your response to McArdle’s response:
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/09/the_governments_role_in_rd.php

By: Lichen

Lichen — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 07:24:10 +0000

For the “Plato” lover in you.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/chi/748263604.html

By: Cryptic Ned

Cryptic Ned — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:45:06 +0000

While "Halbo ploto" produces Susana Juarez's Blog, "Plobo halto" gives us a poorly digitized Latin primer from 1884.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 05:59:25 +0000

It’s a good example of word order making a difference. ‘Plato holbo’ produces the irrelevant old link. ‘Holbo Plato’ does not.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 05:57:11 +0000

Hey thanks andrew, I didn’t actually even remember that that old version was still up. It’s years old. Gotta update.

By: andrew

andrew — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 04:28:17 +0000

Where I am, searching "plato holbo waring" returns Neil the Ethical Werewolf recommending the book just above the Amazon page. Searching just "plato holbo" returns this top result.

By: jholbo

jholbo — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 02:26:54 +0000

“Not to offend the resident philosophers’ sensibilities, but any anomalies – like the “Matthew effect” – will loom larger if you search for a topic that isn’t very popular.”

But that’s why I chose Plato. There are actually a lot of sites and pages dedicated to this famous philosopher. I could have picked ‘intensional semantics’ if I wanted an unpopular topic.

By: Witt

Witt — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:29:31 +0000

Kenny and whoever mentioned regional issues are on to something important—there isn’t a Google results page for a given topic; there are millions, perhaps tens of millions. I don’t even stay logged into my Gmail when I’m searching Google, and even I get remarkably different results when I search the same phrase from home versus work.

This phenomenon already leads to some semi-amusing, semi-frustrating disputes when, say, a group of people is trying to decide on a restaurant. “It’s the first hit that comes up on Google” is often not true for all users, and if the people involved don’t know what’s going on they may start to feel like they’re being gaslighted.

It also comes up in library work, particularly when a parent and child have done some preliminary online research at home and then come into the library to do more. Particularly for people who feel “tricked” if they aren’t getting the same page of results, it can be frustrating and confusing. (They want to know why it isn’t like old-time phone listings—that is, why aren’t they seeing the exact same listings in the library’s Google results as they would from their home computer, just as in the old days, the library’s phone books would have been identical to the local phone book they had at home.)

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:25:48 +0000

SEO is easy, as you can see by Googling “romantically linked with Angelina Jolie”.

By: yoyo

yoyo — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:09:12 +0000

if even a small fraction of google users downloaded a gear/widget/thingie that monitored for quick clicking of ‘back’ once you got onto a page, if you bookmarked a page, etc, and reported this, it could be good feedback on which sites were actually good. you’d need penalties for sites upranked by spammers though.

overall this problem seems about the same as trying to stamp out any silly meme that spreads though society. if you can’t get rid of people’s respect/talking about/sharing of astrology or whatever, how is a search engine going to distinguish good and bad writings on Plato?

Also, having wiki on top of results seems bad. or, there should be GooglePlus, which avoids things like links to wiki and mayo and whatever; if I search google for Plato, its because i want something different to what wiki says or what even waht “site:crookedtimber.com Plato” says. Maybe more accounting for quality, as opposed to volume/notoriety measures.

By: christian h.

christian h. — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:51:28 +0000

Not to offend the resident philosophers’ sensibilities, but any anomalies – like the “Matthew effect” – will loom larger if you search for a topic that isn’t very popular. If the total number of sites dedicated to it, and of links to such sites, is small then everything is obviously amplified.