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I decided to find out if any progress had been made on the science behind why some ants are attracted to electrical fields. After filtering out exterminators (it's so demoralizing to search for information on creatures you love and find nothing but people who know nothing about them boasting about how they will kill them all) I found what looked like a blog. But, who the heck is "James Brown"? Never heard of the dude. Maybe he could be my new friend if he likes ants enough to blog about them!
As far as I can tell these people are phantoms. That's cruel on multiple levels. If I was not familiar with this SEO trick I'd spend time looking for them both (to politely tell them about the errors in their blog... which I would assume they would care about since they love insects.)
But I know what this is now. It's probably the exterminators. To get their page ranks up they need "legitimate" pages... like personal blogs by enthusiasts to link to them.
They are pretending to be *ME*
We are expected to take this kind of BS as "harmless gaming of the system." but I find it incredibly distrustful and hurtful. It's making it harder for people to find each other by putting all these fake people in the way. It's LIES the pages are full of half-true nonsense. It's making people know less and filling their heads with false facts.
And this kind of page is what you find FIRST. You won't find @alexwild or the formiculture forum.
You find these mendacious SEO ghosts.
@futurebird @alexwild SEO and the marketing as a whole are toxic as fuck. They want to push themselves in your space, without your consent only to gain more power/money. There is not a single acceptable thing about it ...
These fake pages ought to be blacklisted to oblivion. But I don't see any search engines taking this seriously at all.
Not really in their interest to do that. We need to make more noise about just how terrible these pages are. Fake experts? Fake people? Fake images? Fake facts?
Information pollution & fragmentation of natural networks of human learning. A rot on the body of human knowledge: any search engine that puts such pages at the top should be ashamed.
I wonder if a non-profit search engine is possible. I can’t believe Google is willing to burn down their brand like this. Also, an opening for curated information services like Wikipedia and Encylopedia Brittanica.
I was initially skeptical of Wikipedia and I feel a little bad about the article I contributed about hummingbirds hitching rides on the backs of geese (it didn’t last long) but Wikipedia has proven very reliable for what I need.
@futurebird @wa7iut @wmd
Me too!
I use their website almost daily.
Every time I use my phone to ID a plant, I am directed to Wikipedia to confirm the information. I adore Wikipedia and I feel that I can help protect it with my small contribution. I use iNaturalist to triple confirm or when Wikipedia and my phone ID function aren’t helpful, but they usually help when I need info quickly.
I’ve been contributing too, though annually and recommend everyone who uses it also contribute what you can. They are generally the first place I look for information. The techical articles in the areas I know about have been very good quality. Certainly should be supported. Anything free means you’re the product.
I'm scared for Wikipedia.
Honestly I was amazed they've been holding out so well against the enshittification-- I was avoiding getting emotionally invested in Wikipedia or contributing to them because from the start I was fully expecting them to get bought out / eaten / enshittened real quick.
The information predators probably have some kind of plan for it and I hope everyone fights like hell to keep Wikipedia out of their jaws.
@futurebird Internet Archive is my pet web charity. These various pages are so important. @wa7iut @wmd