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Comment by forthefuture | Hacker News Reader

Much of the time I don't see a link to Wikipedia.

If I Google "Malta" there is a paragraph on the right and no link to Wikipedia. This also happens in Google Maps, when you click on a city and they have the blurb, much of the time there is no link, so you have to leave the page to Wikipedia the name of the city.

Actually having just tried a few different queries, it seems to be inconsistent. I'm not sure why they'd show the link sometimes and not every time, but definitely Malta doesn't show a link for me.

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I don't know for geography, but for other things e.g. movies, the short plot description they put out now is Not from wikipedia. Hence no link. I've wondered what the source is for a while now, but if you go on the wikipedia page, that sentence is not from there

I've assumed since there is no link that the content is something that Google has been adding.

Those Maps blurbs, like for Malta, do not come from Wikipedia.

But they all used to, which means functionally the only difference is now there isn't a link so I have to make an additional request, in a new tab, directly to Wikipedia for more information (Demographics, Economics, Government, etc).

Except the top result for "malta" on google is the wikipedia page. I know you're trying to make it sound it's very taxing ("I have to make an additional request, in a new tab...") but it really isn't.

So, just to be clear:

1. Google Maps used to include a blurb about Malta from Wikipedia, and a link to the Wikipedia page about Malta. 2. They now include a blurb about Malta which is not from Wikipedia, and do not link to the Wikipedia page about Malta. 3. You are upset that they no longer include a link to the Wikipedia page about Malta.

Is this correct? If so, it seems like your frustration is about Google choosing not to include & link to information from Wikipedia, rather than them displaying content from Wikipedia.

The text, which starts with "Malta is an archipelago in the central Mediterranean between Sicily and the North African coast. It's a nation known for historic sites related..."

is on a million web sites. I thought maybe it was from CIA World Fact Book or some other free source, but it's used so often by so many shady sites, it's hard to know where it originated.

In this case, it's a question of who is scraping whom.

It's from Michelin.

* https://travel.michelin.co.uk/malta-national-map-801/

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