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I wrote the last blog primarily in response to some general sentiment in the SEM world that Google treats Wikipedia with "unfounded" kindness. Therein I mentioned the basic issue that "experts" on a particular subject were just a free as anyone else to contribute, but their contributions were not necessarily differentiated from those of the rather larger teeming mass of "non-experts."

It was very shortly after that post the Wikipedia "editor scandal" broke, wherein one such "expert", a self-proclaimed tenured professor, turned out to be, well, "some guy." Yes, the editor known as "Essjay" was nothing more than some rather common Internet fauna of the species "nimium vicis in vestri manuum." Ryan Jordan, nee-Essjay, had been on the rise with the Wikimedia Foundation until the minor snafu with his credentials.

Jordan's meager defense?

"It was, quite honestly, my impression that it was well known that I was not who I claimed to be, and that in the absence of any confirmation, no respectable publication would print it."

This is kind of like equating Wikipedia user profiles with Yahoo profiles whose photos are a bit too perfect to be anything but a flight of fancy on the part of the user who uploaded it. The: "C'mon, you had to know it was fake, right?" defense.

The point to this is that Wikipedia has proclaimed it will start carding people, at least for those who claim to have cardable credentials in the first place. Details on how this will be done, and what, if any, indication "expert" contributions to Wikipedia will receive are not known at this time. The basic idea is simply to ask anyone who claims to have some expert status in a subject to back that status up.

Not all are happy with the proposal. Some feels it goes against the all-inclusive nature of the site, or that enforcing citations is the better way to go. As I pointed out before, it's pretty easy to whip up citations. Deciding what represents a valid citation is another argument ripe for foundation-rattling controversy, no doubt. Further, no one is being kept from editing Wikipedia. I can still edit mostly to my heart's content, where I disposed to doing so. It's only if I did so and claimed to have a PhD in physics that I would have to back that PhD up.

Sure, can-o-worms wise you've now got issues with deciding what claims warrant backing up. Degrees and tenure seem pretty straightforward, but what about years of "in-field" experience at a particular job? How long does it take to be "expert"? When will you need to step up and prove who, exactly, you are? If you have a PhD in physics and edit an entry on The Backstreet Boys, will you still need to verify those credentials?

In my case, I don't think the BA in Philosophy I currently have will give me much "expert" juice in any topic, actually. As the old joke would have us believe, perhaps I'm at least qualified to edit this entry.

Cloaking Afterthoughts

The Wikipedia "our story thus far" took a little longer than I expected, but I think there's ample room to work in the other recent search "controversy." This being over "cloaking" and whether it's always wrong, sometimes right, and whether Webmasterworld is doing it, and whether, whatever they're doing, is kosher with Google's Webmaster Guidelines or not. Well, that sentence took a little longer than I expected...

I'll relate the basics of the situation via personal anecdote, one called "Why I don't click on Webmasterworld results in the Google SREPs anymore." Title should be pretty self-explanatory, but just in case, the bottom line is, if I see a "WMW" result for any search, I automatically skip it. Why? Easy: the tantalizing fruit of the result you see in Google stands a chance of being nothing more than a registration screen. Essentially, the "access denied" of modern online information retrieval. Much like a classic behavior modification experiment, the "electric shock" of the WMW registration screen cured me of the bad behavior that was... seeking useful information from WMW.

Arguments abound over whether this behavior can be considered "cloaking", though it certainly fits the "content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the users' browser" one. WMW says the screen is necessary because of all the bots that come by to scrape content and drive up their bandwidth bill. If you happen to be an unfortunate soul accessing the net in a way similar to these bots, (which I, with some regularity, was, apparently) you could be sent packing too.

It is claimed by WMW founders they've been working to improve their system, give out fewer fall positives. It's still not perfect, and none of this would on anyone's mind if Google's Matt Cutts hadn't posted he was "looking into it."

Though I am sympathetic to bot issues, and I even kind of believe that might be the only reason their challenge system is in place, I still don't care. Even if they announced tomorrow they fixed it completely, and no human would ever be given the registration screen from a Google SREP again, I would still never click on their results again. If it truly is the purpose of Google to provide useful results in natural search, then WMW has to clean up the registration act. Clicking one of their links only to get the registration page is more than just a useless result; it's a useless result with a back-up chorus from Nelson Muntz.

"Ha-Ha!"