Version
Demo ROR search
Describe the problem you would like to solve
As I understand it, city names in ROR data are whatever the preferred name in GeoNames is. Sometimes, the preferred GeoNames label for a city includes diacritics. Currently, the demo advanced search can only find exact matches, so a user can only find orgs based in Hue, Vietnam, by searching the city name with diacritics as it appears in the GeoNames data, "Huế" (versus 0 results for "Hue"). The opposite is also true; "Montréal" brings up 0 results, but "Montreal" shows everything we would expect.
Describe the solution you'd like
It could be useful if city searches were more forgiving of [lack of] diacritics, such that "Montréal" and "Montreal" would return the same results. Alternatively, when prompted to enter a city, the user could search a typeahead list filled from GeoNames data, such that any city search would actually be searching against a GeoNames ID rather than a city name text string. Or a city search could match the user's text entry to a GeoNames record, identify the preferred city name, and run the user's search against that text string.
Additional information
I hope this is coherent. Thanks!
Version
Demo ROR search
Describe the problem you would like to solve
As I understand it, city names in ROR data are whatever the preferred name in GeoNames is. Sometimes, the preferred GeoNames label for a city includes diacritics. Currently, the demo advanced search can only find exact matches, so a user can only find orgs based in Hue, Vietnam, by searching the city name with diacritics as it appears in the GeoNames data, "Huế" (versus 0 results for "Hue"). The opposite is also true; "Montréal" brings up 0 results, but "Montreal" shows everything we would expect.
Describe the solution you'd like
It could be useful if city searches were more forgiving of [lack of] diacritics, such that "Montréal" and "Montreal" would return the same results. Alternatively, when prompted to enter a city, the user could search a typeahead list filled from GeoNames data, such that any city search would actually be searching against a GeoNames ID rather than a city name text string. Or a city search could match the user's text entry to a GeoNames record, identify the preferred city name, and run the user's search against that text string.
Additional information
I hope this is coherent. Thanks!