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SINGAPORE : We're all familiar with Wikipedia, the Internet's biggest free encyclopedia. Online collaboration with the masses has fuelled the growth of 7 million articles in more than 200 languages on the encyclopedia.
Now Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales is looking at a new search tool that leverages the same concept of community-generated content.
"The basic idea with Wikia Search is to have a freely-licensed open source search engine in which all the software is released publicly," said Mr Wales in a phone interview with TODAY. "It's designed Wiki-style, so anyone can enter and change anything."
So, if you think the search results at Wikia Search on the durian is incomplete, you can contribute by adding an address for a website that is relevant to the search subject. Your additions will appear the next time someone queries the same search term in Wikia Search.
"Every edit that you make is a public act so other people can check your work and see what you've done," said Mr Wales.
You can also edit the text that accompanies search results and add comments. On top of that, you can compare results from search engines such as Google and Yahoo!.
The algorithm-driven search engines of Google and Yahoo! have not seen much advances in the past three years and Mr Wales hopes Wikia Search will bring something new to the game.
"We've reached a plateau in search. There's a possibility that by re-introducing some human intelligence into the process, you can get better results," he explained.
Of course, allowing anyone and everyone to tamper with search results means that people can use the editing tools to promote their own agenda.
But Wikia is working on ways to deal with misuse and spam.
"There are tools available that the community needs to self-manage, so that you can have aneffective community that keeps out spam and works on quality," said Mr Wales. Wikia Search is currently in alpha mode and is working on growing a critical mass of users to edit its search results.
"A lot of it has to do with making progress with the ease of use of the tools. For us, it's about product design and execution and being able to make something that people find useful. Then, they'll come and use it," said Mr Wales. - TODAY/fa
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