[Data-modeling] should names start with "The" or not?

[Ray Kiddy]

On Aug 18, 2008, at 10:41 AM, Christopher R. Maden wrote:

> Ray Kiddy <ray at ganymede.org> wrote:
>> Why does it make sense for things to start with "The"? Looking at
>> countries, I thought that "Gambia" was missing. But there it is as
>> "The Gambia". So, it is sorted after things starting with "S" and
>> before "U"? Wny does this make sense? Yet there are times when
>> "Gambia, The" would be awkward as well. I am unsure.
>
> Freebase does not currently have a feature for proper lexicographic  
> sorting.  The nation called “The Gambia” should be called “The  
> Gambia” in Freebase.  Proper sorting of insignificant fore-words is  
> left as an exercise to the implementor. (-:
>
> There is a good case to be made for an additional text-valued  
> property called “sort key” or something like that.  This would be  
> useful not only for things with articles, but also for people.   
> However, populating that data is kind of a large project, and no  
> one has yet taken it on.  Might you be the one to do so?
>
> ~Chris
> -- 
> <snip>

Well, should there be a "sort key" in the data, or is sorting an  
operation that should be defined across a set of objects, the  
operation being able to derive a standard collation from the data?

Which would make more sense? I do not yet know enough about how  
freebase is implemented to say.

cheers - ray