Re: An idea whose time has com: NetBib

[Dave Mellinger <dave@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Date:         Fri, 24 Apr 1998 14:49:27 -0500
> From: "Steven M. Boker" <sboker@CALLIOPE.PSYCH.ND.EDU>
>
> Why not use the existing web search engines to our benefit?  If we
> all just put a unique word in our web pages, we could use AltaVista
> to search and find only the participating web pages.

That's an intriguing idea.  One problem might be incomplete coverage
by the search engines.  A recent article in Science -- 3 or 10 April,
I think -- showed that the best search engines cover only about 1/3 of
the web pages thought to exist, and that's not even counting pages
hidden behind type-in (forms) interfaces.  The coverage of some
engines is down around 15%.

Of course, whether your page is included in engines' databases
undoubtedly depends on how well linked-to your page is.  All AUDITORY
subscribers' pages, I presume, have links from thousands to millions
of other pages across on the Internet....

> A word like "AuditoryMailingListNetBib" would be a word that no one
> else on the web would be using.

If we do decide to go with this scheme, it would probably be wise to
use a shorter word than that one.  I would guess that the web indexers
keep only the first 10 or 15 letters of a word.  "NetBibAuditory"?

                                Dave Mellinger
                                dave@mbari.org