Comments on: An Experiment in Social Engineering http://blog.diysearch.com/2006/06/23/an-experiement-in-social-engineering/ a blog for diysearch.com Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:55:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 by: pythor http://blog.diysearch.com/2006/06/23/an-experiement-in-social-engineering/#comment-10 Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:53:28 +0000 http://blog.diysearch.com/2006/06/23/an-experiement-in-social-engineering/#comment-10 I wouldn't go so far as to say your ideas are crap. I'm just suggesting a little bit of caution, and maybe some ideas to look to for the future. I'm not even sure I'm the right audience to be asking here. I'm not a creator of anything, really, except some small python scripts. I'm not particularly interested in music or art. I try to browse the categories that look interesting, but most of what I find is either stale (not updated since 99) or re-routed to a search page. That said, the code behind the scenes and the algorithms that get used interest me. I like to think, both to understand, and to imagine something better. I wouldn’t go so far as to say your ideas are crap. I’m just suggesting a little bit of caution, and maybe some ideas to look to for the future. I’m not even sure I’m the right audience to be asking here. I’m not a creator of anything, really, except some small python scripts. I’m not particularly interested in music or art. I try to browse the categories that look interesting, but most of what I find is either stale (not updated since 99) or re-routed to a search page.
That said, the code behind the scenes and the algorithms that get used interest me. I like to think, both to understand, and to imagine something better.

]]> by: blinder http://blog.diysearch.com/2006/06/23/an-experiement-in-social-engineering/#comment-9 Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:21:40 +0000 http://blog.diysearch.com/2006/06/23/an-experiement-in-social-engineering/#comment-9 pythor: first, yeah wordpress, in their ineffable wisdom, did not implement a preview function. *sigh* second. you raise some interesting points. you are right clickthru rate is not an indication of quality, but its an indication of either a bit of cleverness and thought on behalf of the link owner, and therefor, is *often* (not always) some indication of the *relevance* of the target site. That to me is the key. My gut tells me that this system would promote relevance, not popularity. But then again, my gut has been wrong in the past. So, being objective here, lets say my ideas are crap, or at least add no value to the user experience - what would? Really, I'm really quite open to all ideas and my only desire is to make the user experience more rich and useful, more valuable. pythor:
first, yeah wordpress, in their ineffable wisdom, did not implement a preview function. *sigh*

second. you raise some interesting points. you are right clickthru rate is not an indication of quality, but its an indication of either a bit of cleverness and thought on behalf of the link owner, and therefor, is *often* (not always) some indication of the *relevance* of the target site. That to me is the key. My gut tells me that this system would promote relevance, not popularity. But then again, my gut has been wrong in the past.

So, being objective here, lets say my ideas are crap, or at least add no value to the user experience - what would?

Really, I’m really quite open to all ideas and my only desire is to make the user experience more rich and useful, more valuable.

]]> by: pythor http://blog.diysearch.com/2006/06/23/an-experiement-in-social-engineering/#comment-8 Mon, 26 Jun 2006 13:34:53 +0000 http://blog.diysearch.com/2006/06/23/an-experiement-in-social-engineering/#comment-8 About clickthrough, you need to be careful of the snowball effect. Any site that gets promoted better will be seen first by future users, and will therefore get more clickthrough, and get promoted again. Perhaps giving new links a little boost into the top would offset that, I don't know. As for neighborhoods, I think you've got most of what you need already in your keywords. For a given link, it's neighbors would be any other link that it shares a keyword with. You could make a couple passes through expanding the neighborhood by compilining a list of the most common keywords in the neighborhood, and then adding any other link to the neighborhood if it has one of those keywords. Not sure if you want to join the two properties. You could, for example, give higher precendence in the neighborhood to keywords from sites with a high click-through. Incidentally, click-through is not really a good indicator of the quality of the actual site's content. It's more a measure of the quality of the link description. It's not likely that a large number of people will find a site, wander around enough to decide it's a good fit, and then come back to diysearch to click it again. If it's a good site, they'll bookmark it, and it it's not, they'll use the back button and click some other link next. I've always wondered if there was a good way of capturing this type of data. Consider it a downvote whenever someone clicks a link and then returns to the page within less than a minute. If they don't come back at all, consider it an upvote. That's very simplistic, and gameable, and the data would have a lot of noise. I'm not sure if there's a good way to clean it up. Hmmm no preview option for comments? OK... Hope I didn't mess up my spelling too bad ;) About clickthrough, you need to be careful of the snowball effect. Any site that gets promoted better will be seen first by future users, and will therefore get more clickthrough, and get promoted again. Perhaps giving new links a little boost into the top would offset that, I don’t know.
As for neighborhoods, I think you’ve got most of what you need already in your keywords. For a given link, it’s neighbors would be any other link that it shares a keyword with. You could make a couple passes through expanding the neighborhood by compilining a list of the most common keywords in the neighborhood, and then adding any other link to the neighborhood if it has one of those keywords.
Not sure if you want to join the two properties. You could, for example, give higher precendence in the neighborhood to keywords from sites with a high click-through.
Incidentally, click-through is not really a good indicator of the quality of the actual site’s content. It’s more a measure of the quality of the link description. It’s not likely that a large number of people will find a site, wander around enough to decide it’s a good fit, and then come back to diysearch to click it again. If it’s a good site, they’ll bookmark it, and it it’s not, they’ll use the back button and click some other link next. I’ve always wondered if there was a good way of capturing this type of data. Consider it a downvote whenever someone clicks a link and then returns to the page within less than a minute. If they don’t come back at all, consider it an upvote. That’s very simplistic, and gameable, and the data would have a lot of noise. I’m not sure if there’s a good way to clean it up.

Hmmm no preview option for comments? OK… Hope I didn’t mess up my spelling too bad ;)

]]>