Hello everybody,
I have a question regarding the search functionality for non-English
Wikipedias -- or more specifically, ones in languages which use
characters with diacriticals (e.g. á, â, ä, etc). When people need to
search for articles which include such characters, it can be pretty
awkward to type the proper diacriticals without the proper keyboard
configuration. Please note I'm not referring to regular contributors --
I expect them to have the keyboard set up properly for the Wikipedia
they're contributing to -- I'm talking about the random Joe who just
drops by.
Consider the article about "Ştefan cel Mare" -- typing "Stefan cel
Mare"
in the search box will find nothing! While this can be addressed with
redirects on the English Wikipedia, on local Wikipedias this is not
feasible, since most of the article titles contain diacriticals.
Is this problem addressed in any way in the current version of the
software? If so, how? If not, are there any proposals regarding this?
Has this been discussed before?
I have an idea on how to fix this, which is becoming a real nuisance on
the "other" Wikipedia I'm involved in (Romanian) -- and I expect the
Polish, Czech and other Central and Eastern European Wikipedias have
encountered it as well. But maybe it's fixed already, and I don't know
how to activate the feature.
Thank you!
Gutza