Search field in window footer, search link in page footer

[coevolving]

As a newbie, I'm not sure what behaviour I should expect when there's a field at the bottom of the window that says "search", as opposed to the link at the bottom of a wiki page that says "search".

If I stop and think about it these, the search field is beside the count of pages in the neighbourhood. However, my newbie sense has become accustomed to the idea of Google Search, which might be different from the older idea of Yahoo Search that went into categories (i.e. YAHOO as a backronym for Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle").

For a newbie, is "search" the right term for either the window search field, or the page bottom link?

[WardCunningham]

The original wiki offered a "Find Page" that provided several search mechanisms. I've always like the more optimistic notion of finding rather than just searching.

Note: our "remodeling" of the site froze the text while improving the service. The incremental title search is now quite fun. Ignore the instructions. Start with a capitalized word.
http://wiki.c2.com/?FindPage

[coevolving]

Perhaps I've found the distinction at http://fed.wiki.org/view/welcome-visitors/view/how-to-wiki .

How to Search Sites nearby the ones you've visited.
How to Find Sites that share with you.

Am I reading correctly that the hint inside the box at the bottom of the window should read "Search Sites", and the link at the bottom of each wiki page should be "Find Sites" (rather than "Search")?

[WardCunningham]

You can search for our discussions about "search". Here I have done so on your behalf and saved the result for reference.

http://ward.asia.wiki.org/search-for-search.html

For a broader perspective repeat the search from the "goals pod" neighborhood.

http://goals.pods.wiki.org/goals-for-federated-wiki.html

[coevolving]

In the progress of rebuilding my personal wiki site, I would like to formally open some usability requests for discussion and action, that may reduce confusion amongst novices.

(1) The field in the footer of the web page currently reads "Search". This should be relabelled as "Find in neighborhood".

There is a "Search" in the bottom of every card (which has been called a wiki page by most, but tends to get confused with web page), is appropriate.

(2) The number of "pages" appears next in the footer. The text could be changed to "in neighborhood".

Having the number of cards/pages "in neighborhood" next to a "Find in neighborhood" field adds redundancy, but is helpful to a novice. If he or she doesn't grasp the knowledge of neighborhood, the federated wiki becomes totally confusing. The lineup can be composed of both contributions from the originating site, and from neighbors.

The "pages" label in the footer is confusing because it doesn't make the distinction between wiki pages and web pages. I can appreciate that people might resist my relabelling "cards" from "page", and am sidestepping that.

(3) The label "Site owned by" could be reduced to "Site by". When a new Welcome Visitors page gets generated, that's a copy.

Federated wiki is, by definition, a Creative Commons. This follows from copyright law. An author doesn't "own" his writing, he copyrights his writing. Coming into federated wiki presumes an origin, but that card/page doesn't follow property law, it's intellectual.