Wikipedia People Instant Fuzzy Search

The Wikipedia People Fuzzy Search is a test application from SoftCorporation Lab, which allows finding a person record even if the search query contains multiple misspelled words. It may happen when the user is typing unfamiliar person's name or a foreign name spelled in English. The program searches data extracted in September 2012 from the English language Wikipedia database. Only Wikipedia records with "persondata" meta information are extracted and only full name (page title), "persondata" meta fields, and Categories associated with this person are indexed. Total number of people extracted from the Wikipedia database is 1,008,369.

Programs like this are useful for enterprise employee search, where the approximate employee name and other criteria, for example skills, department, phone, location can be combined in one simple query, which is executed as you type.

Wikipedia People Fuzzy Search

Search Tips:

• When you type a query into the search box, the program conducts an instant search and up to 10 results are displayed on the screen. If you want to see more results, click the next page button.
• When you type multiple words, by default you will get results that include all of the words, or all approximately matching words. If you don't want to restrict search by all words, uncheck the "Match all words" box.
• If you want to restrict search only by words from the person's name (full name including all words in a page title), check the "Search only name / title" box. By default the search will be conducted against all indexed words.
• If you're unsure how to spell a whole word, you can enter as much of the word as you know, immediately followed by an asterisk (*). You don't need to do that for the very last word in a query (which you are still typing), as the program does it for you automatically.
• The program supports mapping of popular names, like Robert and Bob, Bill and William, Elisabeth and Beth. The mapping is configurable and listed in Wikipedia name has a preference.
• If you want to see only records which have the exact match of certain words, prefix such words with a plus (+) sign. The plus sign must be typed immediately before the word you want to include, otherwise this word will be included as a regular word (Example: mike +musician finds records with mike that do have the exact word musician).
  Note: The program will find all records matching via mapping. For example, if you have requested to find an exact match for William, the records with Bill also will be found.
• In you want to see records which do not have certain words, prefix such words with a minus (-) sign. The minus sign must be typed immediately before the word you want to exclude, otherwise nothing will be excluded (Example: mike -musician finds records with mike that do not have the exact word musician).
  Note: The program will remove all records matching via mapping. For example, if you have requested to remove records containing William, the records with Bill also will be removed.
• Uppercase and lowercase characters are treated as the same by the Wikipedia People Fuzzy Search.