Talk:German submarine U-116 (1941)

Defaultsort
This file (and many similar) is sorted by. I wonder if is more suitable. Above all there should be consistency across the fleet. Finavon (talk) 13:54, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The U-boat fleet is consistently sorted using the format (and if any are not, they should be). This is because when dealing with the U-boats with four digit numbers (German submarine U-1227, German submarine U-1234, et al), the full number can be inserted (e.g.  . This means that U-1227 will sort after all the U-boat with three digit names. If we were to remove the preceding 0 and assign defaultsorts using only the numbers in the lower ordered U-boats' names, U-122 would sort after U-1219 and before U-1220. Using the defaultsort code as shown means we can overcome this caprice of the system. The system currently correctly sorts all articles in numerical order this way, changing them to use a different system (such as by inserting a hyphen) would require completely restructuring it over all our U-boat articles, and would not work anyway, as the defaultsort key would read the 'U' and the '-' as common features, and would still only sort by the numbers. When you say 'consistency across the fleet', do you mean the fleet of U-boat articles at wikipedia (by which I assume you mean there are some that don't use this format?) or do you mean the fleet of ship articles in general? Benea (talk) 15:24, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That was the sort of explanation I expected. Yes I mean the U-boat fleet. Apologies for the follow-up question on talk page - all clear! Finavon (talk) 18:01, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The World War I U-boats all use the same also. (The WWI UB and UC series boats just use a three digit sort). — Bellhalla (talk) 18:14, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I expanded my reply at my talkpage before I saw you'd spotted this. Hope that gives any further clarification (and also that I've got my explanation right! Maths was never my strong point). Benea (talk) 18:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You nailed the explanation, so it's all good! — Bellhalla (talk) 20:04, 13 April 2009 (UTC)