I ask because I note that as a result of adding facebook chat into Jabber (not the Facebook plugin) my contacts has become populated with a lot of people.. But they don't sort next to each other

I see:

James ABC <-- a phone number contact
James XYZ <- not the same as above
James ABC <- the facebook chat contact


While merging these contacts it's hard because they arent next to each other.. Why is the sorting occurring like this?


The other thing I note:
Suppose there are 2 contacts:

James John Smith
James Smith

No matter which one I open, to merge with the other, I'm never asked to resolve a naming conflict that lets me keep the longer name.. How come?

I think "true" contacts (i.e. with names and other details) come before contacts that are created by IM apps such as facebook, jabber etc.

I had that too, I think it takes case into account, as well as spaces and such. Maybe one is James "xyz" and the other is "ABC". I'm pretty sure I fixed that by removing a space or case.