What sort of sorting?

[Caramba]

I notice that most of the clickable quizzes which include full names among the answers and  which sort the answers alphabetically, will use the person's first name for the sorting. e.g. Lily Allen would appear after Lil Wayne and before Linkin Park. Personally, I always sort by Last Name first because back in the day, if you were in a music store or a library, names would be sorted by surname, first name. e.g. Lily Allen between All-American Rejects and Gregg Allman.

Do people use first names for sorting because it's easier for the user or do they do it because it's easier for the quizmaker because you can let Sporcle do the sorting for you? As quiz-takers, which do you prefer?

Dave

[Bazmerelda]

I think first name sorting probably became common because it is easier for the quiz maker to have the data auto-sorted, but to be honest I like it as a quiz taker. I find myself automatically assuming the data is sorted alphabetically by first name, then becoming briefly confused if I discover that it isn't. Perhaps that is just because most clickable quizzes I have played have been sorted by first name, but I genuinely find it to be an intuitive system.

[Brimtown]

When sorting, Sporcle goes by exactly how the quiz-maker puts in the answers. There is no option to sort by last name.

[JoeBeta]

Since almost all created quizzes are sorted automatically by first names or first words, I always sort my quizzes that way, and I prefer it when other's quizzes are sorted that way. If you create a matching column quiz, the only way to sort both columns by last name and have alphabetical order in both (or multiple) columns would be to put the last names first, as in Jackson, Michael. You also have situations, like Lady Gaga and Huey Lewis & the News. My mind is going to go for Lady and Huey automatically, not Lewis and certainly not Gaga, which isn't even a last name.

[iglew]

I prefer alphabetization by last name, both as a quizmaker and a quiztaker.  If personal names are mixed with group names, I still prefer last names though not as strongly.  Basically I want everything alphabetized as it would be in a card catalog or encyclopedia. You would never look up George Washington under G.

In my own quizzes, I don't rely on Sporcle to alphabetize for me.  I'll use it as a tool to get the results I want, but ultimately I want to decide the alphabetization, because Sporcle's algorithm doesn't work for every situation.

[SproutCM]

Yeah, I alphabetize by hand in excel before I import things into Sporcle, so I can sort by last name, when I have people.

For my literature series, I wanted things sorted by title, but that doesn't work if the titles begin with A or An, only The, so I just do everything manually.

For one-word answers, I'll let the Sporcle feature alphabetize answers for me.  You don't have a choice in column quizzes, sadly; just not possibly based on how the data works.

[iglew]

In column quizzes you can kludge the alphabetization by adding invisible characters.

I'm not even sure what the exact character is, but someone on this forum once sent me an Excel file containing one and I've copied it from there.  You can alphabetize your data in Excel, then make a column where the top cell is the invisible character and every cell below that concatenates it with the one above, then make a column that concatenates the invisible characters to your answer.  That will force Sporcle to observe your alphabetization.