Hi, folks, I've got a proposal for standardizing our default sort. If you'll look at, you'll see that models with a year in their name are listed in several different places: under #, ', 1, 2, and then alphabetically by model name. If I want to find the 2012 Cadillac CTS Wagon I have to check five places, before finally finding it under V (Vehicle Name Here). I propose standardizing our default sort so to avoid this, and I see a few ways to do this:
1. Place the vehicle's (alphabetic) name first, followed by the four-digit year
- Pros: Most or all vehicles appear alphabetically by name: all Cadillacs appear under C.
- Cons: Users looking by model year will have to move to the letter.
2. Place the vehicle name first, followed by the two-digit year
- Pros: Most or all vehicles appear alphabetically by name: all Cadillacs appear under C.
- Cons: Users looking by model year will have to move to the letter. Further, a 2008 model (abbreviated as 08) will appear before a 1957 model (abbreviated 57).
3. Place the vehicle's four-digit year first, followed by the name
- Pros: Accurate for those models whose name begins with a four-digit year
- Cons: Inaccurate for all other models, and the number number sections will get very crowded.
4. Place the vehicle's two-digit year first, followed by the name
- Pros: Accurate for those models whose name begins with a two-digit year
- Cons: Inaccurate for all other models, the number number sections will get very crowded, and a 2008 model (abbreviated as 08) will appear before a 1957 model (abbreviated 57)
5. Place a character first (e.g. # or ') followed by the rest of the name
- Pros: For the ', some vehicle names do start with that character.
- Cons: Readers have to go to a character to find the vehicle names, rather than the year or model name. Also, the # or ' sections will get very crowded.
--Badger16 (talk) 18:56, June 24, 2012 (UTC)
Support Proposal 1 - I think it readers will quickly figure out any of the first four methods, and that proposal 1 will better distribute the pages on the category page. Also, I think that the four-digit year sorts better, since 2008 will fall after 1957. --Badger16 (talk) 18:56, June 24, 2012 (UTC)
- In my opinion, you left out the most important option. Which would be to use the actual name the vehicle was first released with. That's the option I use because when a vehicle is first released, it has one name. It is the name that everybody first recognizes the vehicle by. The fact that Mattel then keeps changing the name makes it extremely difficult to keep track of a casting. But, by sticking with the first name, we can all clearly know which vehicle is being talked about. Sometimes, Mattel releases a vehicle with a name like "'63 Chevy." Sometimes they'll release one with the name "1963 Pontiac." You see the difference? We need to stick with the original name because that's the original first one and the one that started the casting. It just makes more sense to always use a vehicle's original name and not variations of the name that follow or even making up new variations for the sole purpose of having something for the default sort. When I'm searching for a vehicle, I generally know it's name, so I'll use the handy search box that's on the left side of every page. There doesn't seem to be much need to search using the default sort method. Because if a person doesn't know the actual name of the vehicle, but they know part of it, several results will come up with the search box method. If a person can't read through the results and find the one they want, I don't know what to tell a person. If they can't find it this way, it's only because they don't know the real name or enough of the real name to find it and therefore, they won't be able to find it in the default sort method, either. I don't have any problems finding vehicles on here, so I don't understand what the real issue is? HaarFager 22:49, June 24, 2012 (UTC)
- Note to add - I don't understand something you said in the intial paragraph about the 2012 Cadillac CTS Wagon. If you're looking for this exact vehicle, why would you go to the default sort pages to find it. Just type in it's name of "2012 Cadillac CTS Wagon" in the search box and it will bring up it's page. Then, simply go to the page. How hard is that? Oh, and apparently, it's a 2010, not a 2012, but I still found it using the search box. Why do we want to complicate matters when it's already easy? HaarFager 22:57, June 24, 2012 (UTC)