Page MenuHomePhabricator

Did you mean ...? Return most obvious result on top nontheless.
Closed, DeclinedPublic

Description

Author: old_school_junkie

Description:
The "Did you mean" fetaure (DYM) is quite useful but it could be better.
I assume this enhancement of the following: As is, MW is pretty correct with the assumption of the DYM-term on typos for pages / categories which already exist.
Why not return the most obvious on the very to just like google does :) http://www.google.com/search?q=medaiwiki
maybe a hr below to clear the sections, start the regular results numbering with 1 anyway

It's quite annoying that you need to click the DYM link if you just want to get to a page or category you already know it exists.
Example (assume there would be no redirect for the typo variation): You want to "Go" to the page of the artist "Ellen Allien". But you type "ellen alien". The search results the DYM link for Ellen Allien and some useless article results about aliens. It takes you further 2 clicks to finally get on the correct page which the software already guessed correctly cos the page exists.

How MW could work more smarter on the example that "ellen alien" was typed in:

A) If "Go" was used:
Somehow MW is assuming that "Ellen Allien" could be ment cos it results the correct DYM link, right? Then let MW check if a page or category called "Ellen Allien" exists (if it didn't already):

  • if a page or a category exists, "Go" there! >> Redirects for typo variations would not be needed anymore, yay!
  • if both exist (can't think of a wiki where it does) create result page with both on top
  • if none exists, create the result page as it does now: DYM link and articles about aliens :). It could go a step further and return a page / cat link on top which MW think is still more relevant than the other alien results

B) If "Search" was used:

  • same behaviour as on A), just don't "Go" there.

Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement

Details

Reference
bz17405

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Lowest.Nov 21 2014, 10:29 PM
bzimport set Reference to bz17405.
bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

Qb_Master2003 wrote:

I just want to say I second this. I brought it up in #wikipedia on freenode, here's the chat log:

<Qb_Master> ah hello, I have a suggestion for the wikipedia site...
<Qb_Master> If one makes a typo and clicks on the suggested link ("Did you mean: puppy?), and that page exists, how about making it bring you directly to that page rather than to the list of related ones?
<Prodego> Qb_Master: yes?
<Qb_Master> I make typos all the time typing into the wiki box at the top, and when I do I either have to retype it or click, scroll down and click again
<Prodego> hmm
<Qb_Master> tis quite annoying
<Prodego> it has to do with the way the search feature works
<Qb_Master> right but when I click on the link, I already know that I indeed meant 'puppy' and not 'dog, puppy linux, puppy (album)' etc
<Qb_Master> that's not meant to be a search
<Prodego> Qb_Master: I'll ask, 1 moment
<Qb_Master> alright :)
<Prodego> Qb_Master: that sounds doable
<Prodego> you can file a bug at bugzilla.wikimedia.org
<Qb_Master> alrighty, thanks
<Prodego> Qb_Master: it looks like there already is a bug on it: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17405
<Qb_Master> ah even better, that means I dnt haveta remember my email/pass combo :)
<Qb_Master> definitely one of those little things I think will make everyone's day that much better in the end
<Prodego> I'll see if I can poke someone in to coding it
<Prodego> it should be easy
<Prodego> and then it would take a few weeks before going live
<Qb_Master> alright cool
<Qb_Master> glad I came in then!
<Qb_Master> hm I'm having issues creating a new bugzilla account ftw...it's not doing anything when I type my pass and press send :/ (decided to make one for later in case I need it)
<Qb_Master> ah there it went, just reeeallly slowly
<Qb_Master> :p

rainman wrote:

A variant implemented in r48654. "Did you mean..." will mirror the behavior of the original request. So, if user uses "Go" in his original search, "Did you mean..." will also provide a "Go" link.

If you don' Go there automatically, do it like google at least: http://www.google.com/search?q=medaiwiki

  • DYM link on top
  • Most obvious result 1 with DYM term
  • Most obvious result 2 with DYM term ---------------------------
  • Results with typed word

At this point, the quality of DYM suggestions are perhaps not good enough to prioritize those links, as there are many cases in which this would be a problem, and few where it would be a help (that I could quickly identify). Perhaps there could be some statistics run on the search logs to gauge what percentage of searches would be benefited by this feature compared to those which would not - aka, the relevance of the did you mean in comparison to a human interpretation of the query (naturally this would be a somewhat smaller sample size). In the mean time, it's a good idea, but we're not ready for it / have not planned it well enough yet.

ayg wrote:

Google only does this sometimes, FWIW. Compare the above link to this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=wikimediafoundation

The "did you mean" results aren't provided automatically (although in this case the top result matches anyway, admittedly). They probably have some fancy heuristics to decide how useful it would be.

hashar subscribed.

I am getting the extension archived ( T196430 ) since nothing happened over ten years.