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Ost316 is making many editslike this one, claiming that bold headers are a MOS-related improvement over semicolon and asterisk markup. The semicolon markup appears to me to conform withMOS:DEFLIST's description of name-value or topic-value pairs, but I will defer to the experts here. The editor appears to have made hundreds of these edits. –Jonesey95 (talk)00:04, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A definition list (MOS:DEFLIST) is a ; line followed by one or more : lines,not by * list items. SoOst316 is certainly right that the old syntax they are fixing is not proper deflist syntax and likely produces invalid HTML.Gawaon (talk)06:17, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are nonzero infobox situations where I'd just like to separate a bulleted list with headers thusly, even after slimming it down as appropriate. Unno.Remsense ‥ 论07:41, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So I've just done a rudimentary bit of brainstorming, and I quickly realized this is a really easy—seemingly not previously addressed—itch to scratch. Behold,{{Bulleted dl}}:
Due toConversations about Important Things entering its third year, I am exploring the idea of converting the list of topics from a table to a list, because most of the entries do not have a description. I wish to ask what format could I employ, taking into account the use of colons, dashes, and parentheses in the topic names? --Minoa(talk)17:33, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. This is clearly something that should be decided on a per-case basis based on what the editors decide is best for the given topic and situation. That's how our Manual of Style works in general. The point is to alleviate confusion and reduce friction, not impose uniformity for its own sake.Remsense ‥ 论05:00, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is on a per-case basis(Understandable because Wikipedia is a big project and it would be impossible to manage all of that easily).
Therefore , the goal of the manual is not to impose uniformity but to alleviate confusion and reduce friction and live with disparities in absence of uniformity.
This simpler alternative might be worth mentioning, especially for editors that want to convert an existing bullet list (has *) or a numbered list (has #) into a lettered list ... this page should tell them that they merely need to replace "*" with <li> . Adding the </li> terminators is onerous and error-prone.Noleander (talk)17:47, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The latter is more error prone. An li element's end tag may be omitted if and only if the li element is immediately followed by another li element or if there is no more content in the parent element.Hawkeye7(discuss)19:47, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the recommendation for including</li> tags is that in earlier versions of theMediaWiki software,XHTML was served, which has no optional tags - for every opening tag, there must be a matching closing tag. Similarly, in XHTML, an unpaired<br> was illegal - you either needed to write<br></br> (which has its own problems) or the preferred form<br />. Since late 2014, MediaWiki has servedHTML5, where many of the tags that had been optional inHTML 4 are also optional in HTML5, where<br> and the unpaired<li> are both legal. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk)09:12, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Over the years, I have "corrected" quite a large number of higher taxonomy pages containing statements such as: "this family contains X genera", or "Y species" on a genus page. The numbers involved are sometimes badly wrong, but through no fault of the original editor. A common reason is that the family,tribe or genus has been subject to (sometines a series of) scientific revisions and editors commonly want to add or take away frome.g. a species list in a genus page. Whereas this might not be an issue with European birds, it can be very useful to maintain checks on numbers, with specialist databases on (say) African invertebrates. Although not all editors agree, it seems to me that the WP numbered list system using '#' rather than '*' provides a very helpful mechanism for managing this problem and have suggested this is another example of "independent meaning".Roy Bateman (talk)13:05, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that's a good use of a numbered list. The species aren't being put in numeric order (species number one, species number two, etc.).WhatamIdoing (talk)02:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, since there's no natural "ordering" of species, putting them into an ordered list just to get a count of the total doesn't make much sense.Gawaon (talk)06:55, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The ordering of species lists is indeed usually alphabetical: other editors and I have indeed used this as a device for counting. All we are saying is that this is another example of "independent meaning". Can't you see that there is a real problem here, for which '#' provides an elegant remedy or do you have an alternative solution?Roy Bateman (talk)08:50, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Roy Bateman: I see you have reverted my revert, however, I would suggest to only change the page (if it's changed at all) once this discussion has reached consensus, not while it's ongoing. And I'd further say that even if the numbered species listings are useful (I remain unconvinced), this use case is too specialized to be particularly mentioned in the MOS.
Moreover, you give this as an example for "The numbering has some independent meaning" but it is very clear that this isnot the case here. You suggest an alphabetic ordering, which thus depends on the accidents of species naming and the historical development of the alphabet and doesn't carry any meaning of its own. (Any numbered list sorted according to some criterion, say the tracks on an album or someone's children, ordered by birthdate, could be reordered alphabetically, but that new order would be essentially arbitrary and meaningless.)
Your use case is to count thetotal, but first that's basically OR which we are not supposed to do here (how do you know there isn't another species you just forgot to list?), and secondly numbered lists are useful when theorder of elements matters, not just their total count.Gawaon (talk)10:46, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have suggested a form of words: another example of where numbering can be useful - perhaps the words "independent meaning" could be changed to something like "other purposes". In this case, '#' provides the only solution (to my knowledge) for a real problem that I have tried to outline above and learned from other editors. You have actually helped to identify an issue: it's not just about species forgotten on a list (it happens!), but many taxonomic groups are known to be subject to revision and this mechanism helps to keep Wikipedia up-to-date. Please retain - or suggest another mechanism where WP can do the counting.Roy Bateman (talk)13:46, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The hash markup produces an enumerated list, also called an ordered list. In HTML 5.2, theordered listrepresents a list of items, where the items have been intentionally ordered, such that changing the order would change the meaning of the document. If you have a list of species, would the meaning of the list change if one item was moved to a different position? I would say not; thus, it's unsuitable for an enumerated list. Compare this list of films in a themed series:
If the films are watched out of order, sayThe Battle of the Five Armies first andAn Unexpected Journey last, you'll be puzzled and confused, not to mention let down by accidental spoilers. The order is significant; an enumerated list is appropriate. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk)21:55, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is obviously a main function, but I am referring here to existing practice for independent meaning/other purposes. As such, it is an imperfect solution to a real problem: it is disapointing that noone here is suggesting an alternative solution.Roy Bateman (talk)02:59, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, like several people have pointed out by now, ordered lists are for stuff that has some kind ofinherent ordering, which is not the case for alphabetically sorted lists. So, though your problem is real, you're abusing OL for something there are not indented for. An alternative, pragmatic solution: copy the list in a word processor and change the list type to "ordered" (there's usually a button to so so). That'll give you a count of the total without changing the appearance of the list in Wikipedia. Or you can edit the list in the visual editor, changing its type, but not saving, that should give the count too. And I suppose there are browser extensions that can do the counting, making it even more convenient.Gawaon (talk)07:58, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So now you tell me that we are "abusing" the system, but WP has no other facility for counting elements in an array - disappointing indeed!Roy Bateman (talk)10:09, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Roy Bateman, I have reverted your change again since there is clearly no consensus for it – you were the only person in this section speaking in favour of it, while everybody else was unconvinced.Gawaon (talk)15:07, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are invited to join the discussion atList of genocides § List ordering: Reverse or regular chronology. —Alalch E.00:50, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]