Making Search Humane

Having added the various sets of new links to LGSearch, aside from keeping the list of links up-to-date, I think LGSearch is pretty much fully developed with what’s available from Google Coop right now.

I still wonder, though, whether there should be a further way of presenting information found on the web with a human element of quality control, whether by rating web pages or documents as to their usefulness or some other means.

I don’t think I could build this sort of functionality into LGSearch itself, but it could be stored in a subsite off there easily enough.

I had a go previously with an open source package called (I think) Scuttle which was in effect a de.icio.us clone but which lacked robust user accounts and spam filtering, with disastrous results. Another option might be to use Pligg, which is a digg clone, which features accounts and voting on links and might be the better option.

I’d like to know whether people here can see the value in having a human-determined list of good quality web based material that could be searched, and what ideas people have with regard to how it might work, whether using Pligg or not.

Also, would people in any great numbers use such a service? I think the benefits are significant, but you need people in early to make that obvious.