Characters and accents markings required in search

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

A friend asked me if there was a way to add an additional author field for Frank Schätzing. If he searches without the umlaut, the author doesn't come up. I looked in the author record and couldn't figure out a way, and a scan of these posts didn't reveal it immediately. Thanks for your help!

[Cait]

No, unfortunately, there is currently no way to add alternate spellings for authors.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Cait wrote: "No, unfortunately, there is currently no way to add alternate spellings for authors."

Is there a way this group can make suggestions to the database programmers? Other people have figured out ways to allow for these variances.

[Tamahome]

The problem might be solved by just deleting or merging the 'Frank Schatzing' entry that doesn't have the 2 dots over the last 'a'. I can search for 'China Mieville (China Miéville)' or 'Jo Nesbo (Jo Nesbø)' without a problem.

[Susie]

I've noticed that since yesterday the search has improved (although I haven't seen any notifications on this). If you try searching for names with special characters, like umlauts, they now come up. For example, I just searched for Frank Schätzing and one of his books was top of the list.

[Tamahome]

It's weird how searching for 'Frank Schatzing Unti Schatzing Novel 2' works, but 'Frank Schatzing Limit' doesn't.

I can search for 'China Mieville King Rat' but not 'China Mieville Perdido Street Station'.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Susie wrote: "I've noticed that since yesterday the search has improved (although I haven't seen any notifications on this). If you try searching for names with special characters, like umlauts, they now come up..."

The results aren't the same; it's because there are two author fields. If I change the books that don't have the umlaut to the proper author name, then none of the books will come up in a search without it.

[Fjóla]

I think that if you come from a language zone that uses special characters or accents, you just have to accept not being searchable on Goodreads, except for readers who know and understand those characters and who can produce them on their keyboards. For example, Arnaldur Indriðason will not come up by doing a search on Arnaldur Indridason. Maybe this is a micro problem, in any case I don't have examples handy for authors with more than 100,000 ratings. For instance Molière will come up in a search without accents, as many of his works have misspellings in titles. All the same, this must be a major inconvenience for the authors who are in this situation. Or, maybe people should just know better than to rely on the search algorithm for anything ...

[Fjóla]

Actually, I've seen a workaround used for Danielle-Claude Ngontang Mba. Does one need a special permission to set up this type of dummy profile, or is it okay to apply this for any author whose name would typically be misspelled?

[Cait]

Jenny wrote: "Is there a way this group can make suggestions to the database programmers?"

Not really. Our suggestions for functionality changes go through the feedback group, although for features in progress devs will occasionally come by this group and make a request for use cases directly from librarians if it's a librarian feature.

[Scott]

I merged the two spellings and the author now comes up even if you don't use the umlaut.

[Banjomike]

Fjóla wrote: "Actually, I've seen a workaround used for Danielle-Claude Ngontang Mba. Does one need a special permission to set up this type of dummy profile, or is it okay to apply this for any..."

Sorry for not seeing this question earlier.

The dummy profile was created, by me, because the author Danielle-Claude Ngontang Mba had a very specific issue in that part of her name could be missinterpreted as a qualification and thus removed by mistake when a book was added to the Goodreads database. Usually a misspelled name is an error and we want the faulty profile removing. In this case the potential error is caused by Goodreads rules and the dummy profile is a way to reduce the problems that Danielle-Claude might have. The duff books end up on the dummy profile and Danielle-Claude knows where they are and can have them moved to her proper profile. There is no point in removing the dummy because it would only come back the next time a book is added.

It isn't a technique that should be used more generally.