google for gov’ment

This here:

http://www.usaspending.gov/

is a good thing.  Obama and Coburn did good work with that, doubt not.

But calling it “google for government” is at least confusing, if not worse.  Why confusing?  Because USAspending.gov is a site “where Americans can see where their money goes,” not for general .gov searching.  It’s a fiscal/budgetary tracking database/interface that lets you see how the government spends for contracts, loans, grants… It’s not really a government search engine.  So one can easily confuse the phrase “google for government” for the Obama-Coburn fiscal tracking site, or for any of these:

http://www.google.com/unclesam

http://www.usa.gov/

http://www.google.com/search?&q=*+site:.gov

http://www.google.com/search?&q=*+site:.mil

or even un-official CSE attempts, like “Spook Country Research” here:

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=009941892632664145530:foaeoumzapi

Sigh.

I’m reminded of Stephen Jay Gould’s essay, “Bully for Brontosaurus”.  Naming conventions are, like, more than a little bit important.  This isn’t just nerdling wonk-work, though it seems like it to the non-professional.  This concern enables the getting to the information that folks who don’t care much about naming conventions actually need.  So folks who care enough about the information to help folks get to it ought to be more careful about naming conventions, ambiguity, user confusion, etc.

Heh.

I reckon this is my first criticism of the new administration.  If this is the kind of stuff I find fault with them for, this is going to be a very excellent four years.

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To follow:

http://gigaom.com/2008/11/12/mygov-how-obama-can-use-the-net-to-improve-government/

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-steps-to-protect-free-expression.html

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119599&source=rss_news

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/finding-government-info.html

http://lisnews.org/taxonomy/term/64