old vs. new player lookup function

All Things Chess
1

Question: what does the new player lookup function do that the old one doesn’t?

Whenever I include any part of a middle name, I get a much worse search result with the new function than with the old one.

Since awesome examples are best, I’ll use this one: I search for a player named Doug Awesome Ecks (yes, that’s really his name!) in both the new and old lookup functions. Both locate him if I exclude his unusual (and literally awesome) middle name, e.g. search “Ecks, Doug”. But ONLY the old one locates him if I include his middle name or part of it, e.g. search “Ecks, Doug Awesome” or even “Ecks, Doug Awes”. The new one gives me a list of players with the surname “Becks” – ?! Middle names seem to create problem with the new one that didn’t exist with the old one.

So to rephrase my question: given that the new function is worse in at least this one way, is it better in other ways? (I’m aware that when it was first rolled out, the new function gave city information. But apparently that’s no longer the case.)

Kele Perkins
Local TD who is out to make G/5’ d25" either the most popular regular time control – or to have it banned! :slight_smile:

2

I tried searching my own name. When I type in “Parker, Scott” both the old and new look-up functions find 9 people with that name. When I type in “Parker, Scott R” the old one finds only me. The new one finds 1539 names, basically anyone with “Parker” as any part of his or her name. Clearly this thing is a work in progress.