Responding to the Response to My Response
A blogger took exception to my post about opening the PageRank algorithm in my O'Reilly blog. I responded to the response here. The blogger responded to my response, and I made the following response to the response to the response (confused yet?). (This was originally posted as a comment to the other blog, but I thought it worth adding here as well.)
As far as I am concerned, this is a much more reasoned comment than your first one (although I still wish you would sign your name as I don't want to spend the time looking you up, and I don't want to refer to someone I am having a dialog with as "il minore" whatever).
The primary thing you said I said that I didn't (and that in fact I don't believe) is that everything should be open. I do not believe this, and never said I did. Some things should, and some things shouldn't -- although I think Linux is a case in point of something that has clearly benefited from being open.
It's both a blessing and a curse to see both sides of an issue. The reason for the "polarity" of my position is, of course, I see the problems with any kind of disclosure of PageRank. Bearing in mind these problems, and the unlikeliness of it ever being disclosed, here are the reasons I think at least some more community discourse regarding the precise nature of PageRank would be helpful:
(1) PageRank, based on my searches, is not working as well as it used to. My impression is that the rate of deterioration is increasing. So it is not the case of "if it isn't broken, don't fix it." Rather, it is this isn't working, and Google is playing catchup to try to make it work, kludging together something with 100 variables (!). The elegant simplicity of the PageRank concept has clearly been lost.
(2) The time delay built into newer iterations of the Google model really bugs me. I like my information fresh! And as someone who is frequently putting up web sites, I like to be able to get them picked up fast without resorting to chicanery myself.
(3) In fact, Google is the predominant way people find information on the web. Anyone who thinks this is not very important to people, politics, and life is naive. And, Google itself is more of a community effort than may be apparent. Case in point: Google uses the community-run Open Directory Project for major taxonomic information.
(4) It's bad when Microsoft is heavy-handed and secretive, but OK when Google is? Come on, Googlers may be the good guys, but let's hold them to the same standards as everyone else.
(5) No, I do not believe Google has hired all the smart people with something to contribute to search. What baloney! Sometimes the best ideas in fact do come from outside the box.
Posted by Harold Davis at April 20, 2005 10:10 AM
