G: Google
How do people come to know that there is an encyclopedia?
In previous times, people (maybe) learned at school that there exist
encyclopedias, what they are good for and where to find them. The publishers
on their hand tried to reach as many people and also convince them to buy an
encyclopedia.
人們是如何知道那兒有一部百科全書?
在從前的時代，人們(也許)從學校學得百科全書位於何處，人們知道百科的益處並了解如
何找到百科全書。出版商試圖讓儘可能更多的人接觸到百科，並說服人們去敗。
How appalling that this is totally history by now, because of two internet
giants which rose at the eve of the new millennium. Nowadays, pupils (and
adults alike) open their web browser and often find Google pre-installed as
the start page. When they ‘google’ for something, a Wikipedia article is
almost always among the first five search hits. It is absolutely unnecessary
that a teacher tells them ‘where to find the encyclopedia’. [1]
今日來看，這段歷史有了令人驚異的發展，肇因於網際網路的兩大巨頭在千禧年蓬勃發展
。今日，人們開啟網路瀏覽器並時常將谷歌設作首頁。當人們 google 搜尋某字時，維基
百科的條目幾乎總位在搜尋結果的前五條。 已全然不需要老師告訴他：如何能夠找到百
科全書。
Andrew Lih in The Wikipedia Revolution recalls a case from April 2004, when
antisemites had manipulated Google in a way that searches for ‘jew’
produced an antisemitic site at the top of the search. A site appears at the
top if many other sites link to it. So internet activists asked people to
link to another site, to beat the antisemites with their own weapon. The
suitable site was Wikipedia because of its neutral point of view. [2]
Also Wikipedia itself became a victim of Google manipulation. It is legal and
even legitimate to create a new site and use Wikipedia content there, so some
people created Wikipedia ‘clones’ with adverts. Normally nobody would have
looked at these clones, but some clone owners were capable enough to
manipulate the Google search. Around 2005 there was a period when it was
difficult to find the Wikipedia article among all those clones; after Google
improved its PageRank, this problem became history too.
維基百科自身也成為谷歌操縱的受害者。 運用維基百科的內容創造一個新網站，是完全
合法的，因此一些人建立了維基百科拷貝並掛上了廣告。通常沒有人要看那些拷貝版，但
是拷貝版的擁有者有能力操縱 Google 搜尋結果。大約在2005年，已經很難在拷貝版之中
找到維基百科文章；之後 Google 改善了 PageRank，這個問題已經成為歷史。
Some people even speak about a symbiosis between Google and Wikipedia,
although it is not clear what the benefit for Google would be. On the
contrary, Google is unhappy about the fact that for about one-third of the
search hits go to Wikipedia articles – meaning, pages without (Google)
adverts. So Google came up in 2008 with a knowledge platform of its own,
Google Knol.
有人認為 Google 與維基百科是共生關係，雖然尚未釐清Google將從何獲取利益。相反的
，Google 對於有三分之一的搜尋點擊是前往維基百科而感到不悅，意味著那些頁面沒有廣
告。因此，Google在2008年自行成立了知識平臺，Google Knol。
The media liked to present Knol as a Wikipedia killer that wants to avoid the
flaws of Wikipedia. Knol wishes people to write under their real name, that
they can own an article, are not bound to encyclopedic rules, and can make
money per page views.
媒體喜歡將 Knol 形容是一個維基百科殺手，說它要想避免維基百科的缺失。Knol 期望
人們以實名寫作，作者能夠擁有文章， 且不一定要遵循百科全書的原則，甚至能夠從閱
覽人次賺錢。
Of course, Knol came into existence when there was already a strong
competitor (Wikipedia) on the market. But the main reason for the very
limited success of Knol is more inherent: Knol is just another one of many
places for single authors to publish, without control by anyone. Nobody at
Google checks whether the authors really are the experts and professors they
claim to be.
想當然爾，Knol誕生後立即就在市場上面臨了維基百科這個強大的競爭者。但是 Knol
受限的成就肇因於 Knol只是另一個各別作者發佈文章的地方，一個不由任一網民
所控制的地方。沒有人幫 Google 驗證在 Knol 上宣稱自己是專家或教授的人，其身分是
否為真。
Anyhow, the intimate relationship between Google and Wikipedia will probably
remain for a long time. A friend of mine once explained to me how he proceeds
on the web. The retired archivist googles, and usually comes to Wikipedia,
and then reads the article and maybe clicks on an internal link. And when he
wants to look-up something else, he does not use the Wikipedia search (of
which he doesn’t know at all) – he clicks the home button of his web
browser and googles again.
無論如何，Google 與維基百科的親密關係將會再延續好一段時間。
....................。當他想要尋找另一項東西，他不使用維基百科的搜尋功能(他根
本不曉得)- 他按下網路瀏覽器上的首頁按鈕，並且再 google一次。
—-
Previously: A as in Advertisement, B as in Balance, C as in Cooperations, D
as in Deletions,E as in Encyclopedia, F as in Free
—-
[1] Andrew Lih: The Wikipedia Revolution, Hyperion books, 2009, p. 115.
[2] Andrew Lih: The Wikipedia Revolution, Hyperion books, 2009, p. 115, pp.
202-204.
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