Ignore articles (A, An, The) in show title sorting

Scott wrote 2 years ago: 7

Currently, when "A to Z" sorting is used on pages such as "Followed Items", articles ("A", "An", and "The") are treated the same as other words. For example, this is how "A to Z" sorting would currently work in a listing of the three hypothetical shows below:

Boring Show
Grapefruits Taste Bad
The Apple

Please at least make it optional to ignore articles such as "The" in sorting. This is a very common behavior and/or option used across applications, platforms, etc.

If "The" was ignored per the example above, the sorting would be:

The Apple
Boring Show
Grapefruits Taste Bad

Cecile wrote 2 years ago: 6

Very common in search, and very useful for sure; +1

JuanArango wrote 2 years ago: 3

@Cecile wrote:
Very common in search, and very useful for sure; +1

LouisWu wrote 2 years ago: 2

Also discussed 6 years ago (and 2).

deleted wrote 2 years ago: 1

I'm not a massive fan of ignoring these words to be honest :)

LouisWu wrote 2 years ago: 4

It's not like we want anyone to make a choice, just that it would be beneficial for many to have the option. With a setting in site preferences for instance, defaulting to the current behavior. I suspect the database you're using should already be able to support this natively; like @Cecile said, this is quite a common tool for handling large lists.

Scott wrote 2 years ago: 3

Right; preferably, it should be an option. It might not seem like a good idea, but if you follow a large number of shows that begin with articles, you begin to see the point:

Absolutely Awful Show
Boring Show
Raspberries Are Healthy
Spinach is King
The Apples
The Examples Go On and On
The Grapefruits Still Taste Bad
The Oranges
The Watermelons
The Zucchini
Tomatoes Are Fruit

To me, it's preferable to change the display titles so that the articles are on the end (e.g. "Apples, The") but I'm not even asking for that.

david wrote 2 years ago: -1

I'm personally not a fan of ignoring articles for the sort order. We're also not a fan of offering too much options/preferences though, because that makes the site harder to debug and maintain. I also see your post got a lot of upvotes in a short time. I'm not sure yet where that leaves me :-)

Cecile wrote 2 years ago: 3

If you are looking for other arguments, it's rather easy to put in place in the code 😁

CainCrow wrote 2 years ago: 2

@david wrote:
I'm personally not a fan of ignoring articles for the sort order. We're also not a fan of offering too much options/preferences though, because that makes the site harder to debug and maintain. I also see your post got a lot of upvotes in a short time. I'm not sure yet where that leaves me :-)

Indeed I was one of them some 6 years ago. It truly is a more effective and all around better method to ignore "a, an & the". Please strongly consider that update. Aside from that, thank you so very much for a great site.