Isawiki FAQ
What is the difference between Isawiki and other search engines?
There are four main differences between Isawiki and other search engines:-
- Isawiki is a "User Edited" search engine where you can in most cases directly edit how the search results will be displayed, or at least make suggestions to an authorized editor on how to improve a search result.
- With Isawiki pages can be submitted and made searchable "instantly". When a web-master or user submits a page, that page will be included in the index within a second or so. The web-master can then optimize that page so that it will be found for all relevant search phrases. There is a system for dealing with biased or irrelevant search phrases (see below).
- Isawiki uses "Query Strings" With a search engine there is a balancing act between relevance (only showing the pages that are relevant to the users search) and breadth (the number of different search phrases that a user could type in to find a particular page). Isawiki's Query Strings are specially designed to have the right balance between these two goals.
- Regional Search Isawiki can do searches down to a city or town level, and will in the future be able to do a search down to a suburb level. Isawiki is intended to become a giant directory of businesses, so you would for example be able to find the nearest "out-door furniture shop" near where you live. The shops page can either be from its own web site, or from a page created in Isawiki.
Surely a "user edited" search engine will be completely chaotic. How will you separate the good edits from the bad ?
Each search article is also graded from zero to five stars. A zero star search article can be edited by anyone. A one star search article can only be edited by a user with one or more stars. Anyone can however make suggestions. The most contentious search articles will be graded as a five star article which can only be edited by five star editors. Stars are earned by the number and quality of edits made. If an article becomes particularly contentious, then the star rating of that article will be increased, and will be left in the hands of more trusted editors.
All edits made by users with no stars (either registered or unregistered) will be checked by an editor with one or more stars.
How is the star rating of an editor determined ?
When a user creates a log-on, they are initially still a zero star editor. Once the editor has done a decent number of good edits, then the editor will be promoted to one star.
An editor who does too many bad edits will remain on zero stars. An editor can be promoted or demoted depending on how many of their articles are accepted or reverted.
To be more specific, each edit is scored automatically by an algorithm which looks at the amount of information that is added. If the edit is reverted then the score becomes negative number. There are thresholds for each of the star rating. When an editor goes over a threshold, the edits which the editor has made are reviewed by an Isawiki staff member and provided they are good edits, the star rating of the editor is increased.
Editors with one or more stars can in a similar manner be demoted by doing too many edits which are reverted.
How does a reviewer distinguish between malicious edits and conflicts of opinion?
Malicious edits can be spotted within seconds. They usually have profane language, or delete large sections of text, or add a whole lot of rubbish. A reviewer can revert that article without much thought. If the editor persists in defacing a search article, then that editor can be blocked from editing that article, or if the editor is an unregistered editor, the search article can have its "star rating" increased to one star, or even two stars if the malicious editor persists as a one star editor.
To handle conflicts of opinion, Isawiki allows comments to be embedded in a search article so that the problem can be discussed. Anyone add a comment or recommendation. Just like Wikipedia, it is the editors responsibility to make the search article reflect the consensus of opinion shown in that search article.
Do you think that Isawiki will be the next Google?
Although Google and Isawiki are both search engines, they are not directly comparable with each other. Isawiki is different to Google in that it is a 'human edited' search engine and directory. Isawiki wants to organize the worlds information using people rather than computer algorithms (such as Google PageRank). This makes Isawiki more similar to web sites such as Mahalo and dmoz.
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