Whitehouse.gov search engine has blinders on

Search for 'global warming' to no avail

Posted by Coby Beck (Guest Contributor) at 2:06 PM on 01 Feb 2007

Check out a post from James Annan, who details how, out of 438 documents on Whitehouse.gov the contain the phrase "global warming," only a single one is returned when using the Whitehouse.gov search engine.

Color me stupefied. It's almost like they are trying to hide something. On purpose even. Who'da thunk it?

[Update] As most of you probably know, this may be one of those "don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence" moments. (see more detailed update here).

I'd have to say that in analyzing the current Whitehouse policy on just about anything, figuring out which it is, malice or incompetence, is a black art.

Of course, the end result is one and the same, from Katrina to Iraq to fiscal policies to the environment to homeland security to international diplomacy to...

For story: Whitehouse.gov search engine has blinders on
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Unreal

Huh, a single search engine routine has exposed them as propagandists. How characteristically clever of them.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 3:49 PM on 01 Feb 2007

Perfectly understandable

Well, obviously the White House has to censor its search engine. If people could find out too much about global warming from the site, the White House would be guilty of Global Warming Alarmism, for Trying To Scare Ordinary Citizens. And that would be Very, Very Bad.

If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?

by tico89 at 5:20 PM on 01 Feb 2007

Diaried on Daily Kos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/1/201211/0424

(with links here, of course, thanks for helping get the word out on it. Anyone grab any screen shots?)

by raines at 6:13 PM on 01 Feb 2007

Perhaps we were premature...

Actually, having examined the site more closely, it looks like it's just a case of the Whitehouse.gov search engine being case-sensitive. "global warming" turns up 1 item, as mentioned. "Global warming" turns up nothing, "GLOBAL WARMING" brings up four results, and "Global Warming" turns up 102 results. Of course, this can't compare with the 438 found by Google, which is not case-sensitive, so perhaps there is still some censorship in place (also, what kind of search engine acts like that?).

Interestingly, "global climate change" (which, of course, doesn't specify whether it's warming, cooling, or a happy combination of the two) comes up with 230 hits (on the White House search engine). "Global climate change" is a nice way of twisting "global warming" so that it sounds inevitable, natural, and less dangerous, so it is hardly surprising that this is a much more popular phrase than "global warming". Sigh.

By the way, I turned up this on the site, looking for "Global Warming". I can't help wondering what's happened in the last 5 and a half years.

If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?

by tico89 at 7:39 PM on 01 Feb 2007

So it was unreal, literally

Oh well. I wonder how long that one will circle the net.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 8:14 PM on 01 Feb 2007

the discussion on the dKos diary

is tending towards believing it's an issue of searching-by-tag/category rather than by fulltext. So, pending further data, categorize this one as mild annoyance rather than deep-seated conspiracy.

R (preferring "Global Climate Crisis" myself)

by raines at 9:42 PM on 01 Feb 2007

The tag theory does fit the facts

The whitehouse.gov help page makes it clear that the full text is indexed and other documents are tagged:

"Don't worry about missing a document because it doesn't have one of the words in your search -- your search returns relevant results even if they don't contain all query terms"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/help/?la=en&text=0

A ...

If it's tags, then they are tagging "issue of global" but not tagging "issue of global warming" or "global warming". That is not plausible.

I will post these arguments over at kos as soon as my 24 hour waiting period for a kos account is over.

by tadamsmar at 1:16 PM on 02 Feb 2007

The tag theory does fit the facts

Also, consider this case found by real climate:

"First off, there are some curious patterns in the whitehouse.gov search engine. It turns out that it has been blocked from returning most results if the search phrase includes "global warming" - even if it's from the President himself. For instance, searching for "issue of global" gives as top result the President's Rose Garden speech in June 2001 on Global Climate Change, but searching for "issue of global warming" (which of course is the full phrase used) returns nothing. Hmmm....."

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/qui ...

If it's tags, then they are tagging "issue of global" but not tagging "issue of global warming" or "global warming". That is not plausible.

by tadamsmar at 1:17 PM on 02 Feb 2007

Much better site

http://www.whitehouse.org/

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 1:56 PM on 02 Feb 2007

Tag theory does NOT fit the facts

That's the title that I meant to put on my posts above! The evidence is contrary to the notion that they are only searching tags.

"Global Warming" does find more than "global warming". But it seems to find the upper case usages in the text. It finds only one press briefing where "Global Warming" appears with caps. Goggle reveals 70 where global warming is used. Or it could be that "Global Warming" is used as a tag and only one press briefing is tagged and the full text search is being censored.

The help page says the lower case searched are case insensitive and upper case searches are case sensitive, but clearly is does not work as documented.

Clearly, the search engine has problems, but that does not mean they are not blocking "global warming" from full text searches. The two are not mutually exclusive.

by tadamsmar at 3:01 AM on 04 Feb 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

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