I’ve noticed that the names of canal locks and moorings don’t seem to appear in Nominatim and are therefore not searchable. Could they be added, please? Here are three examples:
376272097: mooring=yes, name= Greenford Visitor Moorings
44048315: lock=yes, name=Hanwell Locks 91-97 53,2"
44065992: lock=yes, lock_name=Hanwell Lock
On the general question of Nominatim support, I’m not sure if the Nominatim maintainers monitor the Q&A section here, so it might be worth asking elsewhere. One possibility is adding an “issue” at https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues (if something like this isn’t already listed).
However, perhaps before doing that it might be worth asking on IRC at #osm-dev (see http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/IRC for details about OSM IRC channels). It might be that someone there will know why these names don’t get searched for.
Interestingly some locks can be found by Nominatim - “Top Lock” finds http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/28908595 , probably because it’s a “name” rather than a “lock_name”, as Hanwell Lock is: http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/44048315 (I’d argue that “lock_name” is more correct here FWIW).