Why has ScotlandsPeople changed its name search tools options?

This is quite a surprise, and not necessarily a good one - ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) appears to have removed the options to search using 'fuzzy searches' and 'name-variants'. Users now only have the options to use 'Exact names', 'Wild cards allowed', 'Names that begin with' or 'Phonetic matching'.

In a recent Scottish Indexes hosted talk on researching Jewish ancestry in Scotland, Michael Tobias pointed out that the use of fuzzy searching was something that he sometimes used as a means to identify Jewish names on the database that may have become corrupted in their recording, as it uses the Levenshtein distance formula. Name variants is also a tool I have occasionally used.

The Surname and Forename search guidance has not been updated on the site at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/guides/surnames#Options. This is what the guide states for the two missing options:

Fuzzy Matching
Fuzzy matching compares each word in the name searched for with each word in the names in the index using the Levenshtein distance formula. A score of half the number of letters in the word or greater is considered a match. The Levenshtein distance is a metric for measuring the amount of difference between two sequences (the so-called edit distance).
 
Name variants
If you select 'Name variants' the search is expanded by comparing a list of variants for each name on the ScotlandsPeople site. This has been compiled over many years by staff in the National Records of Scotland and ScotlandsPeople Centre, often based on suggestions from customers. The name variants list does not differentiate between a surname and a forename (because many names can be either), so a search for CLARE (depending on other search filters) might return CLAIR, CLAIRE and SINCLAIR. The list is a work in progress and new variants are proposed frequently. We realise that name variants can be a controversial topic and, like the other search options, the 'Name Variants' search option will help with some searches and not with others.

I have no idea if the Phonetic matching tool has somehow become re-purposed in some way to compensate, but it does seem an odd thing to remove these two options, as it is not as if they were getting in the way of the use of the other four options. 

It would be good if the service could provide an explanation!

(With thanks to Jenny Blain for flagging it via the Scottish Indexes Group on Facebook)

UPDATE (23 FEB): ScotlandsPeople is emailing the following response to enquirers:

Thank you for contacting ScotlandsPeople.

At present the Fuzzy Matching/Name Variant facility is not in operation. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and will keep you updated as to its reintroduction.

Kind regards, etc

The word 'reintroduction' sounds promising...

Chris

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.