Nautilus supports auto-arrange or manual arrange.
Auto-arrange automatically sorts files and layout
them. When I drag a file to another position in
the same window, Nautilus asks me wether I want to
switch to Manual Layout.

Windows Explorer has a feature called
"Automatically Arrange". When it is turned on,
icons automatically snaps to a layout grid.
A similar feature in Nautilus is useful. I can
sort my files the way I want, but still have the
icons in a nice layout.