As you probably know, the search in Wikidata sucks big time.
Until we have created a proper Solr-based search and deployed on that infrastructure, we would like to implement and set up a reasonable stopgap solution.
The simplest and most obvious signal for sorting the items would be to 1) make a prefix search 2) weight all results by the number of Wikipedias it links to
This should usually provide the item you are looking for. Currently, the search order is random. Good luck with finding items like California, Wellington, or Berlin.
Now, what I want to ask is, what would be the appropriate index structure for that table. The data is saved in the wb_terms table, which would need to be extended by a "weight" field. There is already a suggestion (based on discussions between Tim and Daniel K if I understood correctly) to change the wb_terms table index structure (see here < https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45529%3E ), but since we are changing the index structure anyway it would be great to get it right this time.
Anyone who can jump in? (Looking especially at Asher and Tim)
Any help would be appreciated.
Cheers, Denny