[whage]

This resonates with me so freaking much. I am disgusted by how every bit of information on webpages seem to be buried between paragraphs of empty EMPTY talk and even when they seem to get to the point, most of the time there is no real information there. Sorry, this had to come out. We really need better search engines.

[danyork]

My understanding from reading a number of articles about this "helpful content" update from Google is that they want to get rid of pages like what you describe and instead prioritize pages that get right to the point. So perhaps you'll get what you are asking for.

[rchaud]

This is true of most non-fiction literature as well (self-help and business books especially), so I'm not sure if Google can necessarily discourage people from adding unnecessary padding.

Google is already scraping bits of website content and showing it to the user as a "featured snippet". Nobody is going to write short pages if Google can already rob you of a click so easily.

[civilized]

I think it's going to require a social rating system. Which is why people append "reddit" to searches these days.

[layer8]

It’s safe to assume that a social ranking system covering the whole web will be gamed.

[hattmall]

Yes, but if it's truly social it won't be easy. There need to be ways to see who did what and filter them out and various groups / spheres of influence. Just like in real life.

If it is a hidden algorithmically social function then of course it will be gamed.

But IRL there are certain people whose advice and recommendations you value and those whose you ignore. And in other cases you can easily ask the source of other information to find out if it is high value or not. MLM is the gamification of the IRL social structure and it's fairly easy to opt-out.

That's what search needs, a way to see the path information took to be presented to you and a way to filter it.

Unfortunately right now, so much of the best information is in Facebook groups, post and comments. The interface there is absolutely horrible though and not designed to provide you information, but to maximize the amount of ads that come across your screen.

The same is true for video information. It's not easily searchable or digestible. The web peaked when information was predominantly text form and not fragmented into walled gardens.

[lotsofpulp]

> Yes, but if it's truly social it won't be easy. There need to be ways to see who did what and filter them out and various groups / spheres of influence. Just like in real life.

Appending site:news.ycombinator.com instead of Reddit?

[jfoster]

There is an extent they can go to with account verification where gaming is not very feasible.

Can you create a fake account with a verified credit card number, verified phone number, passport, drivers license, account history consistent with human usage, Google One subscription, etc.? You probably can, but doing it at-scale is going to be quite costly.

[candiodari]

Can you get a lot of people to install a piece of software and then use their account instead? Could you even pay those people per hour of usage of their account?

Quite cheaply

[feanaro]

I don't think we need this that bad so as to jeopardize our privacy and freedom over it. So I'll pass on this idea.