On 4/12/06, Keith Jenkins <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'd argue that search relevance is a product of two factors:
>   A. The overall popularity of an item
>   B. The appropriateness to a given query

I'd argue that people either know what they're after or they don't,
and as such you can prioritize A and B in any order. In a research
library, B might be more important than A, but in a public library
possibly the opposite.

With every search there is more than one topic of interest; clustering
often expands on these topics, but the problem is often than people
either want everything around the topic, or everything inside the
topic. Various ways to define these clusterspaces are actually very
interesting; we're experimenting with having both as distinct cluster
clouds allowing users to drill into the "outward" looking or "inward"
looking clusters of topics.

I think the main thing here is to remember that general searches are
easy, specific is hard, and so it is with finding out what information
sets to present to the user.


Alex
--
"Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know."
                                                         - Frank Herbert
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