5 ms·

Well, I do like this behavior for search though. I don't want to install a new keyboard layout just to be able to search for a Spanish word.

david-gpu 3y ago
Is the convenience of a few foreigners searching for something more important than the convenience of the many native speakers searching for the same? Maybe we should start modifying the search behavior of English words to make them more convenient for non-native speakers as well. We could start by making "bed aidia" match "bad idea", since both sound similar to my foreign ears.
- MrJohz 3y ago
  In fairness, for search, allowing multiple ways of typing the same thing is probably the best choice: you can prioritise true matches, where the user has typed the correct form of the letter, but also allow for more visual based matches. (Correcting common typos is also very convenient even for native speakers of a language — and of course a phonetic search that actually produced good results would be wonderful, albeit I suspect practically very difficult given just how many ways of writing a given pronunciation there might be!)
  - david-gpu 3y ago
    As a counterexample, conflating two different glyphs as if they were the same can lead to the inability to search for a particular term. E.g. in Spanish these two words (cono, coño) have very different meanings. If I'm searching for one I don't want to see results pertaining to the other one. It would be like searching for "sheet" and getting results for "shit".
    - MrJohz 3y ago
      It depends on how the search is implemented exactly and what the context is, but assuming I've searched for "cono", I would expect results that directly match "cono" to come first, then results that also match "coño". Similarly to how I'd expect to still get reasonable results if I type "beleive" instead of "believe". That said, this is obviously pretty context-dependent, in some settings it will make more sense to do an exact-match search, in which case you'd want to differentiate n and ñ (while still handling different possible unicode variants of ñ if those exist).
makeitdouble 3y ago
Search probably needs both modes. A literal and a fuzzy one.
- dmckeon 3y ago
  For similar sounding names, this fuzzy match is pretty effective. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/soundex https://www.archives.gov/research/census/soundex
  - nradov 3y ago
    In terms of phonetic matching algorithms, Soundex is considered badly outdated. Most MDM products use more advanced alternatives.
NeoTar 3y ago
My brother recently asked for help in determining who a footballer (soccer player) was from a photo. Like in many sports, the jerseys have the players name on the rear, and this player’s was in Cyrillic - Шунин (Anton Shunin) - and my brother had tried searching for Wyhnh without success. Anyway, my point is that perhaps ideally (and maybe search engines do this) the results should be determined by the locale of the searcher. So someone in the English speaking world can find Łódź by searching for Lodz, but a Pole may need to type Łódź. My brother could find Shunin by typing Wyhnh, but a Russian could not…
- nradov 3y ago
  Essentially you are asking for search engines to recognize "Volapuk" encoding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_romanizations_of_Cyrillic#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DVolapuk_encoding_%28Russian%3A_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0_%22%2CCyrillic_script_with_Latin_ones.?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_romanizations_of_Cyri...

david-gpu 3y ago

Is the convenience of a few foreigners searching for something more important than the convenience of the many native speakers searching for the same? Maybe we should start modifying the search behavior of English words to make them more convenient for non-native speakers as well. We could start by making "bed aidia" match "bad idea", since both sound similar to my foreign ears.

MrJohz 3y ago
In fairness, for search, allowing multiple ways of typing the same thing is probably the best choice: you can prioritise true matches, where the user has typed the correct form of the letter, but also allow for more visual based matches. (Correcting common typos is also very convenient even for native speakers of a language — and of course a phonetic search that actually produced good results would be wonderful, albeit I suspect practically very difficult given just how many ways of writing a given pronunciation there might be!)
- david-gpu 3y ago
  As a counterexample, conflating two different glyphs as if they were the same can lead to the inability to search for a particular term. E.g. in Spanish these two words (cono, coño) have very different meanings. If I'm searching for one I don't want to see results pertaining to the other one. It would be like searching for "sheet" and getting results for "shit".
  - MrJohz 3y ago
    It depends on how the search is implemented exactly and what the context is, but assuming I've searched for "cono", I would expect results that directly match "cono" to come first, then results that also match "coño". Similarly to how I'd expect to still get reasonable results if I type "beleive" instead of "believe". That said, this is obviously pretty context-dependent, in some settings it will make more sense to do an exact-match search, in which case you'd want to differentiate n and ñ (while still handling different possible unicode variants of ñ if those exist).

makeitdouble 3y ago

Search probably needs both modes. A literal and a fuzzy one.

dmckeon 3y ago
For similar sounding names, this fuzzy match is pretty effective. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/soundex https://www.archives.gov/research/census/soundex
- nradov 3y ago
  In terms of phonetic matching algorithms, Soundex is considered badly outdated. Most MDM products use more advanced alternatives.

NeoTar 3y ago

My brother recently asked for help in determining who a footballer (soccer player) was from a photo. Like in many sports, the jerseys have the players name on the rear, and this player’s was in Cyrillic - Шунин (Anton Shunin) - and my brother had tried searching for Wyhnh without success. Anyway, my point is that perhaps ideally (and maybe search engines do this) the results should be determined by the locale of the searcher. So someone in the English speaking world can find Łódź by searching for Lodz, but a Pole may need to type Łódź. My brother could find Shunin by typing Wyhnh, but a Russian could not…

nradov 3y ago
Essentially you are asking for search engines to recognize "Volapuk" encoding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_romanizations_of_Cyrillic#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DVolapuk_encoding_%28Russian%3A_%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0_%22%2CCyrillic_script_with_Latin_ones.?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_romanizations_of_Cyri...