User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Time Lord Academy/@comment-188432-20130501210751/@comment-188432-20130507161943
As its instructions say, {{TitleSort}}'s only, sole, singular function is to suppress a, an or the as found at the beginning of the name. That's it. That's all it does. If the name doesn't contain a prepending article, {{TitleSort}} does nothing. At all. In any way.
The name Sarah Jane Smith contains no articles. Thus, {{TitleSort}} will have no effect. Only {{NameSort}} will do anything.
In other words, {{NameSort}} is 100% preferable to {{TitleSort}} in the case of ordinary names.
The issue in the DWU that this thread was partially highlighting is that some characters aren't known by names, but rather titles — the Doctor being the most obvious example. In this case, where a person is known by a title, {{NameSort}} and {{TitleSort}} have the same apparent result, though they arrive at that destination via different routes.
- {{TitleSort}} says, "Oh look! The word the. I better put that behind the word Doctor."
- {{NameSort}} says, "Oh look! Two words separated by a space. I better put the second word in front of the first one."
I think from re-reading this discussion that the problem you're having is that you fundamentally misread the original post.
Your initial contribution to this thread said:
- Since namesort and titlesort can be used interchangeably except when titlesort is preferred, what is the purpose to namesort? (emphasis added)
And I think you've kept that stuck in your head. But the thing is, my original post doesn't in any way say that {{NameSort}} and {{TitleSort}} are generally interchangeable. In three of the four sections of my post, I flatly say, "Use {{NameSort}} in almost every naming situation." Indeed, the central point of my post is that you should use {{NameSort}} except for these two edge cases.
