I happened across an article through a spam comment post, which led me to webmasterworld and their discussion on the subject. The owner of wikipedia, Mr. Whales, calls out Google results are SPAM! He goes on to explain how his software is the wave of the future to combat companies like Google and their automated algorithmic methods that were easily manipulated by interested parties of their respective markets. He explains how his software (wikiasari) will be edited by a human before it is allowed within an index.

So there are many angles I could go on this, so lets dive in and hit them one at a time:

  1. Initially, I was like, he might be on to something. A way for humans to have the say so on if a document deems the right to be listed well. Then I quickly thought of how well wikipedia does and there is so much spam plugged into those documents all over, it’s not even funny. Then the idea of corruption for those who have the power. I’m a pretty honest guy, but I was on DMOZ editorial staff back in its inception. I was very fair to anyone that submitted, but when it came time that I had sites that made money, I was probably too fair to let them in as quick as I did.
  2. I then visited the site and it initially looks just like wikipedia. So what exactly will be the difference? I was hoping for a sample of results, but either missed it or it didn’t exist yet. I also noticed that in the article, Mr. Whales took a few shots directly at Google, yet, when you visit their mock site, it’s laced with Google AdSense ads on the right panel.
  3. Finally, this guy speaks as if his model is fool proof. It’s definitely what you want to see in a leader to the free world, but obvious holes in his story make me giggle a bit more than get excited about the project. Billions of legitimate documents and you’re telling me they will all be judged fairly and accordingly by a real human initially? And what happens after time passes and 50,000,000 documents need to be reviewed again to ensure all is well? You hiring a sweat shop to do this all for the statistical data that makes humans feel better knowing it is being done?

In summary, this debate is quite an interesting one. There are some smart people over at webmasterworld quizzing some great points on the subject. Hey, regardless of what my post here sounds like, I would like to see Mr. Whales get this into production. There is nothing better than a little competition when it comes to company giants like Yahoo & Google!

I think Mr. Whales needs to speak with LinkWorth on how we can provide his new Wikiasari with the proper advertising system to differentiate himself further from the search giants. 😉 John Whales, give me a call (Ron Wicker), and I can tell you about the perfect platform for you that would be pay per performance without the ads taking up side bars or head & foot locations.