[Web4lib] Re: Google News Timeline

[Thomas Dowling]

On 04/24/2009 02:33 PM, Peter Noerr wrote:
> Katherine, I'm intrigued by your last sentence. ("That's just silly and increasingly sophisticated users know it.")
> 
> Why is relevance ranking silly in this case or any other? (I'm not arguing for it, I would like to hear your reasons)
> 

If you search for "articles from volume 5, number 3, September 2007", which
hits are most relevant?  To humans, the answer is none: they're all the same.
To a relevance algorithm, the answer is likely to be either "the shortest one
since 'volume 5 number 3' makes up a higher percentage of the record"; or "the
one that happens to have 'a volume of 3 to 5 gallons' in the abstract, since
there are more matches on search terms".

The disconnect can certainly seem silly.


-- 
Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu