Useful, but flawed by intercepting keyboard navigation
I've always thought that not giving the search box focus was a strange decision at Wikipedia. Now, I may understand why that decision was made. While the input box is receiving keystrokes, the keyboard navigation keys PgUp, PgDn, and up/down arrow don't cause the page to scroll. I've edited my local copy to work only on the front page of Wikipedia. A better solution would be to pass on the above-mentioned keystrokes, since the input box can't make use of them anyway.
In short: Removes a long-standing annoyance, but creates a new one.
Useful, but flawed by intercepting keyboard navigation
I've always thought that not giving the search box focus was a strange decision at Wikipedia. Now, I may understand why that decision was made. While the input box is receiving keystrokes, the keyboard navigation keys PgUp, PgDn, and up/down arrow don't cause the page to scroll. I've edited my local copy to work only on the front page of Wikipedia. A better solution would be to pass on the above-mentioned keystrokes, since the input box can't make use of them anyway.
In short: Removes a long-standing annoyance, but creates a new one.