Re: [Seeks-users] Seeks Project.

[Emmanuel B. <ebe...@se...>]

Hi David,

I'm moving this conversation off to the mailing list, with your agreement.

On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 01:16:29AM -0400, David Mackey wrote:
>    Emmanuel,
>         Its getting late here, so I'll be brief.
>      * I've changed my password on the wiki and also made a number of small
>        edits to the wiki documentation. I focused mainly on spelling
>        corrections, correcting some grammar errors, and clarifying some
>        definitions.

Thanks for that. I'm planning a series of blog entries to go with the
soon to be released new API,
http://seeks-project.info/wiki/index.php/API-0.4.0

This would be great if you can find the time to correct these entries
too when I'm done writing. More on this in the coming days anyways!

>      * I have successfully gotten Seeks running on Windows using VirtualBox
>        and Ubuntu. This could be made into a distributable package if we can
>        find a way to automate a seeks config file update with the virtual
>        machines' IP address.

Wow, this is great news! I'm not familiar at all with virtualization
(and VirtualBox). I have a few questions:

- What are the steps for installation ? Would you be interested in
  writing a piece on the blog or on the wiki, that we can share around ?

- Could you share instructions for building up the package ? (I'd
  suggest the wiki for this, in the Developpers' section).

- What do you mean exactly by "find a way to automate a seeks config file
  update with the virtual machines' IP address" ?
  How can we help ?

Since the package seems to be requiring some addtional work, I suggest
you make a ticket on the redmine (http://redmine.seeks-project.info/)
so that we can all keep track of the changes and help you as much as
we can.

>         Is there any way for me to actively reorder results to queries at
>    this juncture? For example, to remove certainly links I find useless or to
>    move links I find useful to the top of the list?

The way it works until 0.3.5 included is as follows:
- your clicks make the clicked results go up.
- your rejection of results (little red cross) forces them down.
- rejection builds a filter that is local to the node you're using:
  the other nodes are not affected. (To summarize it, recommendation
  is 'global' while rejection is 'local').
- you can ban result forever to appear,
http://seeks-project.info/wiki/index.php/Seeks_Configuration#Websearch_patterns
(use the 'reject' pattern file).

The new API will offer a finer control. Though while we could grant a
full control, i.e. let users rank the results up & down 'by hand',
experience suggests that this is too much of a daunting task to
generalize to the daily use of a search engine.
More thoughts on these issues are particularly welcome!

Thanks again David, this is great support to the project!

Em.