Two days ago, Wikia launched Wikia Search, a very early-stage version of its open search engine. Wikia (and Wikipedia) co-founder Jimmy Wales believes that it’s necessary for the public to take control of search, which he sees as a shared need and thus a shared resource.

The site is for users who want to “help us build a search engine,” Wales said. So don’t expect a Wikia-powered Google killer on Day One. “We want to be sure people aren’t expecting a Google-quality experience on Monday.”

Here’s what Wikia is building: a human-ranked search engine and mini-Wiki, with a social network angle. The first two parts are the most interesting.

Wales says that initially the engine will crawl and index the Web, and give users algorithmically generated results. But users will be able to rank results up or down, which will have a strong influence on further results. This extra, intentional step of rating results will, I am sure, help little-known but high-quality pages rise in the rankings, and encourage link-farmed search spam to sink. Assuming, that is, that users take the time to rate, and that suitable antigaming technologies are put in place.

Via News.com

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