Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-7302713-20130519181606/@comment-7302713-20130520155509

They are equally easy to understand. They are both alphebitised lists of names, one seems to contain more information than the other. And if I knew little about Doctor Who, this template might convince me to click on an article simply because only one name is not that common and I'd want to know if there was a reason or something behind it.

I'm not trying to be insensitive to users who have slower computers or browse this wiki on a phone. And I'm not trying to make this harder for editors or readers, especially readers who are unfamiliar who Who. But this "solution" causes a lot of problems and I don't see it really fixing any problems. Most kids understand the idea of alphebitisation. At worst, someone who doesn't simply thinks that the names are in a random order. That's not that big of a deal. Hiding parts of people's names in order to make the template uniform is a big deal. Hiding parts of some people's names but not everyone is a big confusing deal.

If alphebitising by first name didn't cause problems I'd be fine with doing this. But it does cause problems. Are we going to call Sarah "Sarah Jane" or just "Sarah"? Can we still group the Arwell family? Do we have to drop the title from Madame Vastra's name? Do we have to drop the Brigadier's name altogether? What about K9? Which K9 should the Forth Doctor template link to and why? Does this K9 will only be listed as a television companion? Is the Tenth Doctor template going to have "Donna, Jack, Jackie, Martha"? That's confusing, and it hides the fact that Jackie is Rose's mother. What are we going to call Lady Christina de Souza? Christina? How many people are going to recognise her as "Christina"?