I sent Google some feedback on that, citing this page. (From the Google search page, select “Settings”, and select “Send feedback” from the menu that pops up.)
I once googled David Mitchell (wanting the novelist, not knowing there was a comedian) and got words for the novelist and pictures of the comedian. I sent feedback to Google and the mismatch was corrected for a while.
Every now and then I check again, though. Sometimes there have been pictures of both men (with words about the novelist); today there are only pictures of the comedian, with words about the novelist. (I’m talking about the quick-info box at the right, not the listings.)
I’m honestly a little flabbergasted that this is a thing Google can’t do right. Can’t they tag the pictures somehow?
I mean, I get it that if I don’t specify which one I want, it could be either. But it still doesn’t make sense to show a picture of one and info about the other.
Well, it is certainly true that when you translate, especially from a dead language, you are making up a lot of it, so maybe this Victorian gentleman and his school deserve quite a bit of the credit we unthinkingly give to Euclid. Also, what’s really important in the attribution of authorship is who’s getting the royalty checks, though one suspects that Mr. Heath’s estate is not so properly lawyered up that they still collect those checks. This Google entry, now unfortunately apparently changed to make it less interesting and original, was undoubtedly not a mistake at all, but crafted this way to reflect reality.
This sort of thing happens frequently with hymns. No, John Mason Neale did not write “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”; or “All Glory laud and Honor”; or “Now that the daylight fills the sky.” (He translated all of them, and they were a millenium old when he did.)
“maybe this Victorian gentleman and his school deserve quite a bit of the credit we unthinkingly give to Euclid.”
T.L. Heath deserves a *lot* of credit–brilliant Classicist of the polymathic variety that era produced so often. His works on the history of mathematics and astronomy are fundamental in those fields, and his translation of Euclid is an amazing commentary as well.
But, no, he deserves none of the credit that we give to Euclid, who was far more brilliant still. Must credit Euclid.
Guy Harris @2 From the Google search page, select “Settingsâ€, and select “Send feedback†from the menu that pops up.
Out of curiosity I just clicked on “Settings,” which I’d never done before, and got a menu with six options. None of them was “send feedback.” So, I’m puzzled…
Out of curiosity I just clicked on “Settings,†which I’d never done before, and got a menu with six options. None of them was “send feedback.†So, I’m puzzled…
So you went to http://www.google.com, and clicked on “Settings” on the right side of the grey bar at the bottom of the page? What were the six options you did get? I get “Search settings”, “Advanced search”, “History”, “Search Help”, and “Send feedback”, with both Safari and Chrome on macOS.
My initial reaction is that this was NBD, but I just noticed that Google attributes “Hallelujah” to Jeff Buckley, rather than Leonard Cohen. (Cohen’s original is listed under “other recordings”.) Now Google has gone too far.
LFC and Guy Harris: I get different things from clicking “Settings” depending on whether I’m on Firefox (configured not to allow scripts) or Chrome (configured to allow them). On Firefox I get taken to a screen with a menu, but there’s no “Send Feedback.” On Chrome I get a popup menu that includes “Send Feedback.” (Ditto Internet Explorer, which I use so rarely that I don’t remember how I have it configured.)
Interestingly, at this moment (on all my browsers :), Google attributes Hallelujah to Leonard Cohen. I was going to say that if the attribution is in the right-hand summary box that usually comes from Wikipedia, I’m not surprised; Wikipedia can be expected to be less reliable than Google…no?
But the David Mitchell picture thing I mentioned above is *not* Wikipedia (at least not attributed there, and in fact the wiki page on David Mitchell the novelist has a proper picture of him), so I’m still flummoxed/disappointed that Google is messing stuff up this way.
Bah, a modicum of genealogical research has taught me that facts are hard to come by. I guess Google is only human. ;-)
LFC and Guy Harris: I get different things from clicking “Settings†depending on whether I’m on Firefox (configured not to allow scripts) or Chrome (configured to allow them). On Firefox I get taken to a screen with a menu, but there’s no “Send Feedback.â€
The “Settings” pop-up menu is implemented with JavaScript, so, if you’ve disabled scripts (which mainly means “disabled JavaScript”), it won’t work – it’ll just go to Google’s “Search settings” page, which doesn’t have a “Send Feedback” item. It does, however, have a “Help” item in the sidebar on the left, and if you click on that, it takes you to the “Search Help Center”, which has a “Troubleshoot & request removals” item. If you open that up, there’s a “Report a problem with Google Search” item, and clicking on that takes you to the “Report a problem with Google Search” page, which, for “COMPUTER” (rather than “ANDROID” or “IPHONE AND IPAD”) says that, to report a problem, you can “Scroll down to the bottom of the results page” and then “Click Send feedback“. That appears to work even if JavaScript is disabled.
Interestingly, at this moment (on all my browsers :), Google attributes Hallelujah to Leonard Cohen. I was going to say that if the attribution is in the right-hand summary box that usually comes from Wikipedia, I’m not surprised; Wikipedia can be expected to be less reliable than Google…no?
The attribution I see for a search for “Hallelujah” might come from Google Play’s information on the song, given the “Full lyrics on Google Play Music” link.
And the Wikipedia page for the song is titled “Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen song)”, so Wikipedia gets that right.
As for Euclid, our new robot overlords probably just did a crap job of reading Wikipedia, somehow finding the page about the translator and scraping information from that. Perhaps said robot overlords are not quite ready for prime time yet.
@Guy Harris
Ok, I was clicking “settings” not from the initial Google search page, but from the page that shows up to display search results. Now that you’ve clarified it for me, yes I do get “send feedback” as one of the options there.
{ 17 comments }
Gabriel 12.09.16 at 7:26 am
Not even history is safe from UKIP.
Guy Harris 12.09.16 at 8:19 am
I sent Google some feedback on that, citing this page. (From the Google search page, select “Settings”, and select “Send feedback” from the menu that pops up.)
John Holbo 12.09.16 at 8:55 am
Thanks, Guy, I didn’t notice you could do that. Interesting to see how quick it gets fixed.
JanieM 12.09.16 at 2:00 pm
I once googled David Mitchell (wanting the novelist, not knowing there was a comedian) and got words for the novelist and pictures of the comedian. I sent feedback to Google and the mismatch was corrected for a while.
Every now and then I check again, though. Sometimes there have been pictures of both men (with words about the novelist); today there are only pictures of the comedian, with words about the novelist. (I’m talking about the quick-info box at the right, not the listings.)
I’m honestly a little flabbergasted that this is a thing Google can’t do right. Can’t they tag the pictures somehow?
JanieM 12.09.16 at 2:02 pm
I mean, I get it that if I don’t specify which one I want, it could be either. But it still doesn’t make sense to show a picture of one and info about the other.
Glen Tomkins 12.09.16 at 4:12 pm
Well, it is certainly true that when you translate, especially from a dead language, you are making up a lot of it, so maybe this Victorian gentleman and his school deserve quite a bit of the credit we unthinkingly give to Euclid. Also, what’s really important in the attribution of authorship is who’s getting the royalty checks, though one suspects that Mr. Heath’s estate is not so properly lawyered up that they still collect those checks. This Google entry, now unfortunately apparently changed to make it less interesting and original, was undoubtedly not a mistake at all, but crafted this way to reflect reality.
SamChevre 12.09.16 at 6:10 pm
This sort of thing happens frequently with hymns. No, John Mason Neale did not write “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”; or “All Glory laud and Honor”; or “Now that the daylight fills the sky.” (He translated all of them, and they were a millenium old when he did.)
pnee 12.09.16 at 6:37 pm
Since Euclid’s famous work is Elements I suppose we’re lucky that a picture of the Periodic Table wasn’t included.
oldster 12.09.16 at 7:24 pm
“maybe this Victorian gentleman and his school deserve quite a bit of the credit we unthinkingly give to Euclid.”
T.L. Heath deserves a *lot* of credit–brilliant Classicist of the polymathic variety that era produced so often. His works on the history of mathematics and astronomy are fundamental in those fields, and his translation of Euclid is an amazing commentary as well.
But, no, he deserves none of the credit that we give to Euclid, who was far more brilliant still. Must credit Euclid.
LFC 12.10.16 at 2:28 am
Guy Harris @2
From the Google search page, select “Settingsâ€, and select “Send feedback†from the menu that pops up.
Out of curiosity I just clicked on “Settings,” which I’d never done before, and got a menu with six options. None of them was “send feedback.” So, I’m puzzled…
Guy Harris 12.10.16 at 4:17 am
LFC:
So you went to http://www.google.com, and clicked on “Settings” on the right side of the grey bar at the bottom of the page? What were the six options you did get? I get “Search settings”, “Advanced search”, “History”, “Search Help”, and “Send feedback”, with both Safari and Chrome on macOS.
Walt 12.10.16 at 8:41 am
My initial reaction is that this was NBD, but I just noticed that Google attributes “Hallelujah” to Jeff Buckley, rather than Leonard Cohen. (Cohen’s original is listed under “other recordings”.) Now Google has gone too far.
JanieM 12.10.16 at 3:17 pm
LFC and Guy Harris: I get different things from clicking “Settings” depending on whether I’m on Firefox (configured not to allow scripts) or Chrome (configured to allow them). On Firefox I get taken to a screen with a menu, but there’s no “Send Feedback.” On Chrome I get a popup menu that includes “Send Feedback.” (Ditto Internet Explorer, which I use so rarely that I don’t remember how I have it configured.)
Walt: Seconded.
JanieM 12.10.16 at 3:28 pm
Interestingly, at this moment (on all my browsers :), Google attributes Hallelujah to Leonard Cohen. I was going to say that if the attribution is in the right-hand summary box that usually comes from Wikipedia, I’m not surprised; Wikipedia can be expected to be less reliable than Google…no?
But the David Mitchell picture thing I mentioned above is *not* Wikipedia (at least not attributed there, and in fact the wiki page on David Mitchell the novelist has a proper picture of him), so I’m still flummoxed/disappointed that Google is messing stuff up this way.
Bah, a modicum of genealogical research has taught me that facts are hard to come by. I guess Google is only human. ;-)
Guy Harris 12.10.16 at 6:20 pm
LFC:
The “Settings” pop-up menu is implemented with JavaScript, so, if you’ve disabled scripts (which mainly means “disabled JavaScript”), it won’t work – it’ll just go to Google’s “Search settings” page, which doesn’t have a “Send Feedback” item. It does, however, have a “Help” item in the sidebar on the left, and if you click on that, it takes you to the “Search Help Center”, which has a “Troubleshoot & request removals” item. If you open that up, there’s a “Report a problem with Google Search” item, and clicking on that takes you to the “Report a problem with Google Search” page, which, for “COMPUTER” (rather than “ANDROID” or “IPHONE AND IPAD”) says that, to report a problem, you can “Scroll down to the bottom of the results page” and then “Click Send feedback“. That appears to work even if JavaScript is disabled.
Guy Harris 12.10.16 at 6:29 pm
(Sorry, my other post should have started with “JanieM” – that’s the post to which I replied with the detailed “feedback to Google” instructions.)
JanieM:
The attribution I see for a search for “Hallelujah” might come from Google Play’s information on the song, given the “Full lyrics on Google Play Music” link.
And the Wikipedia page for the song is titled “Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen song)”, so Wikipedia gets that right.
As for Euclid, our new robot overlords probably just did a crap job of reading Wikipedia, somehow finding the page about the translator and scraping information from that. Perhaps said robot overlords are not quite ready for prime time yet.
LFC 12.10.16 at 9:27 pm
@Guy Harris
Ok, I was clicking “settings” not from the initial Google search page, but from the page that shows up to display search results. Now that you’ve clarified it for me, yes I do get “send feedback” as one of the options there.
Comments on this entry are closed.