Contextual text in Wikipedia

[Keith Old]

G'day folks,

Google has announced that it has developed a custom search skin for
Wikipedia.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/contextual-search-within-wikipedia.html


We are excited to announce that we've built a Custom Search Wikipedia
skin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Csewiki> that
makes it easier for you to complete your research on Wikipedia. Wikipedia
allows users to register and personalize their Wikipedia environment via the
configuration of options and the use of styles or skins. Just log in to
Wikipedia, enable the Custom Search
skin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Csewiki> and
you'll have quick access to relevant Google Custom Search results from
Wikipedia. With the Custom Search skin, your search results are conveniently
placed inline on the page. After you've reviewed the results, you can
dismiss them and return to the current article of interest without having to
switch to a different tab on your browser; you can access the relevant
Wikipedia articles right within the Wikipedia interface.

The Custom Search skin also features contextual search — searching across
different sets of pages as you navigate Wikipedia. For Wikipedia pages with
a lot of information and links, contextual search lets you limit your search
to only those Wikipedia pages that are linked from the current article,
focusing the results on the topic of the article. So, in addition to getting
all matching Wikipedia articles, you can quickly drill down to contextually
relevant results using the Linked Wikipedia Pages tab.

For example, searching for [sequence] from a Wikipedia page on
DNA<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA> provides
a list of relevant results about DNA sequences and DNA sequence alignment,
instead of the many pages about
sequences<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_%28disambiguation%29>
(in
mathematics, poetry, music, games, etc.) that aren't relevant. Similarly,
searching within the DNA page for [bonds] gives you results in chemistry and
biochemistry, instead of other information about financial instruments and
social sciences. This will help you perform more directed research, often
with shorter queries, and get to relevant Wikipedia articles faster.

More in story

--
Keith Old
62050121 (w)
62825360 (h)
0429478376 (m)
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Ryan Delaney]

Great! Daniel Brandt will love it :D

- causa sui

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 1:50 AM, Keith Old <keithold@...> wrote:

> G'day folks,
>
> Google has announced that it has developed a custom search skin for
> Wikipedia.
>
>
> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/contextual-search-within-wikipedia.html
>
>
> We are excited to announce that we've built a Custom Search Wikipedia
> skin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Csewiki> that
> makes it easier for you to complete your research on Wikipedia. Wikipedia
> allows users to register and personalize their Wikipedia environment via
> the
> configuration of options and the use of styles or skins. Just log in to
> Wikipedia, enable the Custom Search
> skin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Csewiki> and
> you'll have quick access to relevant Google Custom Search results from
> Wikipedia. With the Custom Search skin, your search results are
> conveniently
> placed inline on the page. After you've reviewed the results, you can
> dismiss them and return to the current article of interest without having
> to
> switch to a different tab on your browser; you can access the relevant
> Wikipedia articles right within the Wikipedia interface.
>
> The Custom Search skin also features contextual search — searching across
> different sets of pages as you navigate Wikipedia. For Wikipedia pages with
> a lot of information and links, contextual search lets you limit your
> search
> to only those Wikipedia pages that are linked from the current article,
> focusing the results on the topic of the article. So, in addition to
> getting
> all matching Wikipedia articles, you can quickly drill down to contextually
> relevant results using the Linked Wikipedia Pages tab.
>
> For example, searching for [sequence] from a Wikipedia page on
> DNA<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA> provides
> a list of relevant results about DNA sequences and DNA sequence alignment,
> instead of the many pages about
> sequences<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_%28disambiguation%29>
> (in
> mathematics, poetry, music, games, etc.) that aren't relevant. Similarly,
> searching within the DNA page for [bonds] gives you results in chemistry
> and
> biochemistry, instead of other information about financial instruments and
> social sciences. This will help you perform more directed research, often
> with shorter queries, and get to relevant Wikipedia articles faster.
>
> More in story
>
> --
> Keith Old
> 62050121 (w)
> 62825360 (h)
> 0429478376 (m)
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l@...
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Nathan Awrich]

I predict role account drama...

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[David Goodman]

From that blog, I see that the project caries the signatures of both
Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Search  at Google,  and
Mathias Schindler, WMF .

I am a little puzzled a tthe way it is implemented, from an apparent
role account user page.  Is Mathias doing this as a personal project,
or an official WMF project?



David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 1:24 PM, Nathan <nawrich@...> wrote:
> I predict role account drama...
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l@...
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Erik Moeller-4]

2009/10/27 David Goodman <dgoodmanny@...>:
> I am a little puzzled a tthe way it is implemented, from an apparent
> role account user page.  Is Mathias doing this as a personal project,
> or an official WMF project?

Mathias has been working with Google on this as a community volunteer;
the byline is a bit confusing in that regard. As I noted in our blog
post, this is not an official WMF undertaking.

http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/10/26/google-experiments-with-new-ways-to-search-wikipedia/
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[geni]

2009/10/28 David Goodman <dgoodmanny@...>:
> From that blog, I see that the project caries the signatures of both
> Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Search  at Google,  and
> Mathias Schindler, WMF .
>
> I am a little puzzled a tthe way it is implemented, from an apparent
> role account user page.  Is Mathias doing this as a personal project,
> or an official WMF project?

With the privacy issues it's somewhat questionable if it is something
that should be supported.

--
geni

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[David Goodman]

In this particular case , the privacy problem is inseparable from the
application--the system relies upon google's Personalized search in
order to work in the first place. Now, I must admit I do have their
personalized search enabled on my own personal computer, and have done
so despite the privacy considerations & the strange places I sometimes
go for a WP article, because it works. The longer I've had it there,
the better it works--as it should be.  I use them for even my
confidential email, and I think most of us do.  I have made what i
admit is the hazardous choice of judging the benefits of their system
to be worth the possible exposure to , say, a possible future
totalitarian government.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 8:33 AM, geni <geniice@...> wrote:

> 2009/10/28 David Goodman <dgoodmanny@...>:
>> From that blog, I see that the project caries the signatures of both
>> Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Search  at Google,  and
>> Mathias Schindler, WMF .
>>
>> I am a little puzzled a tthe way it is implemented, from an apparent
>> role account user page.  Is Mathias doing this as a personal project,
>> or an official WMF project?
>
> With the privacy issues it's somewhat questionable if it is something
> that should be supported.
>
> --
> geni
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l@...
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

[Mathias Schindler-2]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 4:51 AM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny@...> wrote:
> From that blog, I see that the project caries the signatures of both
> Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Search  at Google,  and
> Mathias Schindler, WMF .
>
> I am a little puzzled a tthe way it is implemented, from an apparent
> role account user page.  Is Mathias doing this as a personal project,
> or an official WMF projectt.

Hi David,

this project is entirely done as a volunteer effort on my side.

Speaking of volunteer work, I would like to thank everybody in
contributing feedback and code to the feature. The page has moved to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Google_Custom_Search based on
feedback from the talk page.

The syntax to include the Google CSE tool has been simplified, it is
now down to one line of code.

All in all, I am extremely pleased about the reception this project
has received. It is a test case on how flexible users can change their
own user interface and integrate more feature. I would like to
encourage everyone to experiment and to share his or her experiences
and code.

Mathias

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@...
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l