

Do you find WolframAlpha inflexible and unhelpful re: question phrasing? - CalmQuiet

My experience with WA has been disappointing. Although it sometimes shares a lot of <i>interesting</i> info, I experience little or no improvement for "ask Jeeves" sort of questions.  It seems that there'll be quite a learning curve, and I am prone to turn elsewhere.  How much <i>more likely</i> to be turned off is the (less-techie) public in general.<p>Here is the feedback I sent to WA (who have not responded to my earlier concerns). Perhaps HNers will have thoughts:<p>&#62;When you aren't "sure what to do with your(my) input"... WA certainly is <i>not</i> helpful in designing a search.<p>&#62;Today, for example, the news is hot with Dell's drop in sales.  So I thought WolframAlpha might have links to stories comparing Dell with other manufacturers 2009 sales. Nope.<p>&#62;I entered into WA:  computer server sales 2009<p>&#62;Result: <i>nothing</i> "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input."<p>&#62;I <i>thought</i> that was a pretty specific, objective request (per your "tips for good results").<p>&#62;I would <i>like</i> to like WA... and have an alternative to Goog &#38; MS.  Are your marketers &#38; user-interface people listening?<p>[/rant]
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ErrantX
Such data is VERY new and so the chances of WA having it are low (the latest
data I have seen is 08)

Dont forget WA isnt really into "popular" data - searching for stuff relevant
to whats happening "now" wont find you anything productive. It's a
computational engine and statistical data engine.

Also dont forget they only have 1000 data entry "experts".Only a teeny tiny
percentage of useful data has been hand picked for inclusion yet.

Plus the responses are mostly fairly strongly hardcoded and the AI is very bad
at recognising your questions unless it is a very mathematical term (basically
it appears to try to apply math to the phrase, and then falls back to hard
coded, keyword based searches).

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fhars
And it isn't even very good at math. It knows about the microfortnight, but if
you ask it for attoparsec per millifortnight, it parses it as (attoparsec /
(1/1000))*fortnight which isn't even a speed.

[Edit: typo, why is there no preview?]

