Talk:Nixon (surname)

Alphabetical

When I first had occasion to edit this list on 9 January 2013, I had to remove a duplicate entry; I then remarked in the edit summary that this list ought to be organised strictly alphabetically. The same happened on my second edit on 29 August. Similar confusion reigned on 24 September, so I finally made good on my promise and reorganised the list because strict alphabetical order will avoid these problems. The next day, User:Mike Rosoft reverted my edit wholesale with the edit summary "Reverted confusing order - longer lists should be split into sections". Note that in my edit I also removed a pointless infobox, linked the name Nicholas in the introduction, and added half a dozen entries; these changes were also reverted.

There is nothing at Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy/Standards (MOS:APO) which supports "longer lists should be split into sections". Quite the opposite: that MOS of the WikiProject Anthroponymy points several times to List of people with surname Spencer which is also organised alphabetically, just like I proposed here. The reason that such organisation is simpler than a division by field of activity is clear: the latter demands that the searching reader already has an idea about a person's field and that the list of fields shown here provides help in locating the field in the reader's mind. And: if a person is known in more than one field, should she/he be listed more than once? I suggest to restore the alphabetical version. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:46, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, this is interesting. I was making use of MOS:DISAMBIG, which seems to support my position; but MOS:APO says that such lists are not disambiguation pages. (Is there consensus on how to handle such pages?)
In any case, I am not going to interfere with you restoring your version of the list. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 17:44, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. I can see how subject sections are useful in long disambiguation pages of things, as MOS:DABORDER suggests. However, for reasons I explained above, I find it unhelpful for lists of people sharing a surname, like this one. All the best, Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:28, 28 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]