Rupert,
>Thanks for the brief insight into this. Question from my perspective
>is: Who exactly is doing this MediaWiki search investigation? Who take
>a decision if it's actually needed or not (btw, from my perspective it
>is) and who finally drives the Novell internal requesting processes to
>get it done. From my experience we won't get too far without a
>respective assignee for that particular task.
>That said, would you (your specific knowledge considered) be willing
>to allocate the needed resources and put it on your very own agenda to
>get it done? Assumed you're fine with it: What about taking Google
>custom search into account to achieve better search results?
I would love to take this on. I think the number of emails and requests is more than sufficient to say that this is needed, and I can also personally vouch that the current search is inadequate.
The only thing that I cannot do is be the internal driver for the requesting process, since I am no longer a Novell employee. I will talk to some people and make the argument for a new search, but the approval and prioritization is pretty much out of my hands. It might be good to get whoever is filling in for Zonker to help out on that part.
As for the Google search, that could do the trick. If nothing else, I can check it out and deploy it as a temporary measure while we look at the other options. If it works well enough, it would be quick and would avoid all the mess of getting a lot of work time approved.
-Matt