this patch may backport to 1.5.3 ok.

the -I and -X options give lists of directories to include/exclude from a
recursive suck. there's an inconsistency in the way they are handled in
case the path has funky characters.

e.g., the dir /wow/neat%20stuff will be created with a literal %20 in the
name (not a space).  however, in the -I or -X list, to include or exclude
that dir, you would have to say: /wow/net\ stuff (with an escaped space, or
quoted, or whatever gets it through the shell for you) in order for that
directory to be recognized. this is, well, kinda stupid.

attachment follows which patches the fnmatch function to unescape both
strings before comparing, thus giving consistent behavior. since fnmatch is
used pervasively, this probably fixes a number of other inconsistencies as
well.

patch sent to wget maintainers as well.