Talk:Local search

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What is the difference to hill climbing? Stern 08:28, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This question was asked before the splitting into Local search (optimization) and Local search (Internet). The answer is now in the first article. Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 16:46, 18 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

There is not much to discuss here... two completely different things. The only doubt is about the titles of the two articles. Possible titles for the first one:

• Local search (metaheuristics)
• Local search (algorithm)
• Local search (computer science)
• Local search (optimization)
• Local search algorithm

For the second one:

• Local search (web search)
• Local search (Internet)
• Local search (search engine)
• Web local search

Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 19:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

local search (optimization) and Local search (Internet) would be fine with me. And I do agree with the split. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:45, 8 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

I don't agree with the way it would be split up. The main usage of the term local search comes from optimization. I think it would be better to keep the contents of optimization in this article, and add a link to a Local search (internet) article from within, without the disambiguation article. --Anthony Liekens 09:10, 8 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

Splitting off the internet search is even a better idea. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:04, 8 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

That's fine for me. I will wait some more days before doing the split. Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 11:56, 11 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

Oleg is actually incorrect. Perhaps the main usage of "local search" within computer science and academic circles is regarding the metaheuristic programming approach. However, the more-common usage of "local search" by the general population has come to be about search engines and their movement to assist people in finding information about local geographic areas. Don't believe me, though - check out news stories for the past few years. Also, check out mentions of it by the usership of webmasterworld and searchenginewatch -- they probably have more users combined than the entire academic community which is concerned with the programming method. Using the term "optimization" to refer to the programming method would be extremely confusing to the general population, since Search Engine Optimization (methods for improving rankings of sites and pages in search engine results) is extremely well known, and "Local Search Optimization" has come to refer to improving the rankings of local information sites/pages in search engine results. I suggest that you either keep the articles combined since they are so brief, or else name both of them specifically. There are far more people involved in local search as a type of search engine and in search engine optimization than there are involved with the programming theory/method. No one has touched on the gentleman's suggestion for "hill climbing" -- why not? Use of that term would disambiguate the issue completely. Silvery 13:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

There's 11 "metaheuristic" articles pointing to this one, and only one search related article (Search Engine). Also because of this, it would not be a good idea to move the current metaheuristic contents out, into e.g. Hill climbing, as it would be confusing for the layman interested in optimization. "Local search" is an important optimization term on the web, in the text books and in the community. I understand however that the way this article should be split up is not that obvious. It might be indeed be useful to put a disambiguation page up, as Paolo originally proposed. We then also have to make sure that all (12 or so) articles that link here are updated to point to their specific Local search (internet) or Local search (optimization) article. --Anthony Liekens 21:33, 11 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

Just to clarity a couple of points: the disambiguation page would say something like:

Local search may refer to:
  - local search (optimization), a method for problem solving; or 
  - local search (Internet), the web search engine for findind 
    web sites relevant to a given place.

I do not see what's wrong with that. Rather, I would not keep two completely different concepts in the same article just because they have the same name.

In the naming convention of this encyclopedia, a title X (Y) means: the X relative to Y, or the X that is an Y; therefore, “local search (optimization)” means the local search relative to [the field of] optimization and not optimization of local search. A possible way for avoiding confusion is to use both the disambiguation page and the disamb link at the top of each article, that is, each article starts with the sentence making reference to the other concept rather than a link to the disambiguation page.

Hill climbing is a specific kind of local search [1]. Moving the stuff of local search to the article on hill climbing will be wrong. This point should be clarified in the articles (I will do it after the split). Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 10:52, 12 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

Ok, we do not have consensus, but at least there is a majority for the split. I will leave the talk page here, since it is more relevant to the disamb page than to the separated pages. Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 15:51, 18 October 2005 (UTC)Reply