What is EthioIndex and how does it work?
Most people incorrectly assume there is a person or persons who manually post news links found on the website. In reality however, EthioIndex is a computer program; a search engine. It is simply a script that queries and dynamically posts links to news sources on ethioindex.com. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding may confuse some users on how the site is run.
As a search engine, Ethioindex does not generate, editorialize, review, filter, select or alter news stories before they are posted on its website. It is simply a service, which acts as an organized vehicle for accessing news stories on Ethiopia published by other sources around the world. The computer program on which this service is based is completely free of any socio-political or economic bias because it is a very simple keyword search technology.
Understandably since most websites operate with a Webmaster who picks and chooses articles or news to link based on his or her preference or a specific guideline, it is easy to understand people making the same assumption about EthioIndex.
However, EthioIndex is actually manned by a computer program which is a specialized internet news search engine, contrary to a traditional system where there is a human being on the website responsible for posting or linking to news stories.
Simply put, as much as we are interested in the media, we are primarily programmers who develope computer programs which continuously, and without manual interference, query for keywords related to Ethiopia and automatically post them on the website.
An example of some of the keywords, which the Ethioindex system is programmed to search for, are "Ethiopia", "Addis Ababa", "CUD", "UEDF", "EPRDF", "Badme", etc". This means our computer program picks up news articles, even those with little or no relevance so long as they contain one or more of the keywords in our library. In a way, it is a very simple system but has, nevertheless, proven to be effective and free of human bias in the decision to post articles or determine their relevance.
The upside of such a computer-generated news indexing system far outweighs the downside. Doing this has allowed us to provide the public with unfiltered, uncensored links to thousands of articles on Ethiopia every week. The downside is that, from time to time, articles that have little relevance to Ethiopia get picked up by our search engine because of the keyword match. However, our experience is that these are few and far between and have thus far had negligible negative impact on the overall quality of information provided.
This is exactly what makes EthioIndex unique. Unlike other websites, we don't decide which link to post or even review the news before it is posted. It is up to the reader to decide what to read and what to skip or we want to decide for the public what gets listed on the index page and this is possible only because it is a computer-generated system. However, this is not to say editorial websites are not appropriate. In fact we believe our service complements other well-managed and resourceful editorial websites, which equally serve an important niche and purpose.
It is important to note is that EthioIndex posts news chronologically in descending order and not by relevance. The computer program cannot decide what is relevant or timely as the keyword match is the only logic on which it is based. Therefore, the program simply displays its most recent match at the top continuously pushing the oldest news down. Hence, there is no significance to the order of display. Therefore, please do not assume that because a story is not at the top of the list, we are making a statement about its significance or lack thereof. The program simply posts the most recent news on the top of the index without prejudice.
How many people work on posting news on the website?
Zero. This is exactly what makes EthioIndex different. We are programmers who developed a program which searches and posts news articles automatically. In fact, we also use EthioIndex to catch up with news on Ethiopia! The only exception is we sometimes use volunteers who post articles manually which the wordmatch based program did not catch and we see the news article is highly relevant. These volunteers also work on maintaining the program and interface with the public. However, short of this, we do not have persons manually screening, sorting and posting on the index on a daily basis.
Why is EthioIndex not covering this XYZ story?
EthioIndex is simply a search engine that picks up news it finds from established news sources. We try to index as many news sources as possible but at the end if a news organization does not write a news article on this particular story and post it on their website, it does not mean EthioIndex is not covering the story. Unfortunately, if news organizations don't find whatever the news might be important enough in their own eyes and don't cover the news, there is no way to publicizes the story. One stark example is most news organizations and wire services are more likely to cover the Border Conflict than they would the ongoing political crisis in the country no matter how important it might seem to a great majority of readers. And it is to fill this gap outstanding and well-managed websites by dedicated Ethiopians have been created in which they can post and disseminate news on their own. However, EthioIndex will continue to focus on its objective and mission to provide its news search engine service complementing these services.
Why did you post a given story? (You should not have posted this news)
Again, please remember that this is based on a computer script. We don't have any say in which story gets posted or which one doesn't. And neither do we censor stories. In addition, not only we don't we have the time but we don't even have the intention to editorialize, censor or filter stories. If one sees a story on Ethioindex, it simply means that the text of the story-contained keywords that are related to Ethiopia.
Why didn't you not post a particular story?
Chances are we have already posted the story. It is just that one no longer sees it on the index because the program displays only the last 100 news items. For archives, one can always try the search function to query. While we offer this service, we have, unfortunately, found many people don't use the search feature.
But in the event that one doesn't see a particular news item posted, it is important remember that EthioIndex is a computer program and stories are not posted manually. As much as we try to update our programs, and we do our best, the search engine does not always catch every story. And at times it could be a bug in our program or it could be on how the story is displayed at the news source or another reason that caused it to be undetected by our script.
For this reason please understand that if a given story published eleswhere does not appear or listed on our website, it does not mean it has been intentionally excluded by us. It simply means the computer program, as is the case with all search engines, was unable to catch it for one reason or another.
Why don't you cover this particular source?
Typically, we get requests to link stories posted by "non-news" websites owned by various organizations. We have a general rule to index only established, consistent and reputable news sources. With few minor exceptions, depending on the particular story, this has worked well. The important point is "news sources". Since our inception in 1999, we have strictly focused on querying and posting only news sources. We feel it is very important to cover these news sources because it is important that public is assured that it is seeing news articles which are written under the general principles, standards and conduct of the news services agency as governed by their respective jurisdictions.
Don't you read before you link the story you find on the web? I am so angered by the article. Now you have to contact those who wrote the story and ask them remove it!
This is a question that is directed at us because the user did not understand EthioIndex is a computer program that queries news dynamically. No one at Ethioindex reads the news before it gets linked on the website as it happens automatically. The second point is that we are simply providing a link to the news source. We are not the owners of the news or have any influence on the article. As a result, we are not in the position to tell the news agency to remove the story anymore than any other person.
I just saw a link on your website by a news source (e.g. Reuters, CNN) which I believe is offensive. It is your editorial responsibility not to post such kind of articles.
We do not censor news articles based on content and have a policy to not filter particular news articles from news agencies. Our policy allows us to either index a given news source if it is an established news agency or to not index it at all. Once we start indexing a news agency (e.g. CNN, StarTribune, or the Jerusalem Post), we don't then try to hide or index selected individual stores based on our preference. It is the user who will decide what to do or interpret the story. Therefore, we don't believe we should be in a position to decide which news ought to be removed from our index and which stays.
Do you publish Press Releases?
We will publish press release if it is related to current news items. However, this does not mean we will post everything that is sent to us. The other requirement is you send us a link and not the press release itself in a form of an attachment. We can't be a source; thus why we require you to send us a link.
If you have any more questions: email us at here
