I've run across a few characters that in Taiwan are commonly used yet Skitter can't recognize.

香菸 is the proper form(used by cigarette companies)of 香煙 though both are acceptable. Also, 駡 is commonly used instead of the skitter 罵。 Or 著 instead of 着 which I have mentioned before. There are a few more than this that I have come across though.

Is there a good way to suggest these characters be added to the database when they come up? Interestingly enough, these characters are recognized as the other character in my Skitter search. When there is a character double up like these, perhaps it can listed as a different character that has the same definition.

AFAIK, the mainland standard is used, and there could be issues adding another standard...

菸 and 煙 are weird. I forget exactly what the problem is with them, but we can't fully support all the variants, I think. Chris may be able to answer better.

I just wrote a FAQ entry for 著/着, by the way:
http://www.skritter.com/faq#char_zhe

For words containing 駡/罵, we can only support one choice per word. When I originally made the mapping, I had understood that 罵 was more common, so I made it the default. Is that not right?

The traditional variant mapping system is about as flexible as we can reasonably make it, but the mappings themselves, and which traditional variants are used in which words, are open for suggestions.

@nick I can't seem to find that FAQ entry.

That's because you clicked too fast and my site update hadn't finished yet!

I've been told that 駡 is more common. But when I just checked my text book it was written as 罵。 I am told in hand writing 駡 is more common though, and in print 罵 is more common. I noticed this issue because I was reading a comic book and thought I didn't know the character, and was more shocked to find it written differently than I had learned. I suppose it doesn't matter once I figure these variations out.

Another one I just came across today is 猜。 The alternative replaces the component 月 with 円。 I think this one is more rare as I am having trouble getting it to work on this computer. I wonder how many of these there are!? Thanks Nick for all your help!

You can always add individual characters such as 罵 and 駡, 菸 and 煙. Right now it's only the words that are tricky.

Having mulled over this problem, I think the best solution is use http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/ as our standard, which is an online dictionary from the ROC Ministry of Education - it's from the government and it's free, so that should work.

As a start, here are some entries to give you a flavor (and which entail work for me!).
Agree with current skritter db:
休閒
罵人

Disagree:
吸菸
辭典
辭彙

But as Nick's FAQ entry says, we haven't found a solution to the 著/着 problem.

Thanks Chris.

dfoxworthy:

Another one I just came across today is 猜。 The alternative replaces the component 月 with 円。 I think this one is more rare as I am having trouble getting it to work on this computer. I wonder how many of these there are!? Thanks Nick for all your help!

wispfrog:

That one seems to differ amongst different fonts. Indeed, I've had it showing up both ways at the same time in skritter on some computers I use.

Similarly hui1 se4 grey colour seems to vary as to whether the top left just meets or crosses. (Sorry, no input on this machine)

On a tangent, I just read the FAQ about 火 and the direction of the first stroke. There are at least a few characters in Skritter where the "wrong" dash direction appears. Do you want these reported?

eg 碳 and 恢, but as it happens not 灰 or 炭. There might be others too, but these are the only ones I can think of right now.

The Chinese character for grey is 灰 (top left crosses). The one with the top left just meet is the Japanese version.

By the way, 炭 is not composed of 山 + 灰 but instead 火 + 屵. 说文解字 says “燒木餘也。从火，岸省聲。他案切”. So, the Taiwan version of 炭 does not cross.

Byzanti, sure. Use the "Stroke order correction" feedback tag when you see them, and they'll go straight to George for fixing up. Thanks!