This talk page is intended for discussion of template content and links. For discussions relating to technical aspects of the Find sources template, see Template talk:Find sources
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Reminder to self (or any interested party) that we have {{Find France sources}} as a working template that should be converted to the Module config. More eyes to look it over again and refine the search urls if possible would be nice (I just tweaked one param on Qwant that improved results a lot), and then convert it over. Mathglot (talk) 04:49, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
-wikipedia
This has been previously brought up in 2019 and 2021, and I'd like to bring it up again and see about pushing it to the finish line. The Find Sources module adds "-wikipedia" to the search strings by default. Personally, I'm just tired of removing that every time I use the template links. Adding "-wikipedia" to a search term may have once been a good idea, but in 2022, it's no longer a good idea, because these days, the word "Wikipedia" appears in many, many reliable sources, and "-wikipedia" would exclude any page that has the word "wikipedia" on it (indeed, many reliable sources now cite Wikipedia, even if they do so with caution, and almost every Google Book page for a book by a notable author has a knowledge panel with the word "Wikipedia", example below). If we want to exclude this website from search results, the correct string would be "-site:wikipedia.org". So, I'd like to propose removing "-wikipedia" or changing "-wikipedia" to "-site:wikipedia.org", which would exclude results from this website without excluding every other website that has the word "wikipedia" on it.
For example:
Searching Google Scholar for wikipedia[1] brings 2.5 million results. That's how many pages are excluded by adding -wikipedia to a Google Scholar search string.
Searching Google Scholar for "quantum mechanics"[2] yields as the top result a 2012 book published by Springer called Principles of Quantum Mechanics. That's working as it should. BUT...
Searching Google Scholar for "quantum mechanics" -wikipedia[3] yields as the top result a book from 1998 called Quantum Mechanics. The 2012 book Principles of Quantum Mechanics is pushed down to the third page of search results [4].
Why? I think because the Google Books page for the 2012 book has the word "Wikipedia" on it -- it's the author knowledge panel that Google pulls from us -- but the Google Books page for the 1998 book doesn't have that Wikipedia knowledge panel on it and thus doesn't have the word "Wikipedia".
In sum, adding "-wikipedia" de-emphasizes the newest and thus most relevant results, so we should remove that string or replace it. It kind of defeats the purpose of having these Find Sources links in the templates in the first place.
I'm not sure if anyone is watching this page, but thoughts? What's the process for establishing consensus and making a change to a protected module? Thanks, Levivich (talk) 16:51, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We should keep the exclusion term, but modify it to add the site: search param. The idea behind adding -wikipedia as an exclusion search term is a good one, but per your objections, it wasn't executed properly. The term should be: -site:wikipedia.org. If done that way, it will no longer exclude books or other documents with the word wikipedia on it.
Your comment and reasoning are valid, even if your example was not. Principles appears on the third page anyway, even if the query is formatted properly (e.g., like this). Further, in the original version of the query, the fact that Principles appears on the third page is good evidence that the book does *not* have the word wikipedia in it anywhere (that's the whole point of the exclusion term, to exclude such results; that this isn't always the case gets into the fine points of the search ranking algorithm, but that's getting way beyond scope here and doesn't change the argument). The fact that it's still on the third page anyway, means that Google's ranking algorithm is ranking other results higher, and has nothing to do with documents that do, or do not, have the term wikipedia in them.
However, keeping the exclusion term is still a good idea, and your basic argument is still correct, so the exclusion term in the module should be modified accordingly to add the site: search param. Mathglot (talk) 08:41, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but what is the purpose of adding -site:wikipedia.org to a Google Scholar or Google News search string, since neither site indexes Wikipedia.org? (Remove the minus sign and I get no results.) It makes sense to add the exclusion for Google Web tho. Levivich (talk) 14:27, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Template-protected edit request on 12 December 2022
Just as a passing comment: TWL is a lot unclearer for me as someone who knows nothing about The Wikipedia Library. TWL is just another TLA on wikipedia (of many) whereas at least you can gather that WP Library stands for Wikipedia Librabry even if you have a passing knowledge of Wikipedia. Terasail[✉️]22:27, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Description of suggested change: Change the link for the "WP refs" link to the one used in WP:RSSE. Much more accurate than the current one (which as an example, the current one, when searching "Euro Truck Simulator 2", has a top result for "download.com" to "download" the game, as opposed to the RSSE one which has the top result of the game's page on Metacritic) ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#654501:09, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have the list of domains searched by the RSSE google custom search? The existing one lists 496 sites, and the list is open to view to anyone. I don't think we should change it to any list that isn't transparent about what is being searched. If it's already there, maybe I didn't see it; can you point me to it? Mathglot (talk) 10:28, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe the existing one is actively maintained. Is there an issue with one that isn't transparent about what's being searched? It says its limited to those published by "well-known reliable sources", but I"ve asked on the talk page about what sources are specifically used. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#654513:53, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not done: 1. We will not be linking to Sci Hub. 2. We already have one Google search. I don't see a reason to use a second. Izno (talk) 22:19, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Moved from Module talk:Find sources/links
Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the