|From: Brion Vibber brion@pobox.com |Date: 05 Nov 2002 10:15:13 -0800 | |On Tue, 2002-11-05 at 09:33, Toby Bartels wrote: |> Actually, our headers *do* already impose a heirarchical structure. |> Turn on numbered headers in your user preferences to see it. |> This is a very desirable option IMO. No arguing is permitted |> unless it comes from people with that preference set ^_^. | |Our headers impose no such thing. A misconceived "number headers" |feature, which users were so annoyed with that it was banished to |off-by-default and forgotten about by developers long long ago, attempts |futilely to impose such a thing. | |Its continued existence is a dark blot upon the soul of the wiki. | |-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) |
The auto-number preference is still there, but doesn't work, it seems. As an old tech writer I can easily imagine situations where it might be useful, or at least I can imagine readers who would prefer it. But I don't think it's all that important.
However, I believe that ordered use of =, ==, ===, ==== and so on does serve important, encyclopedic purposes:
--- Encouraging writers who use headers to use them logically.
--- Regularizing optional standard features like ==External Links==
-- Making articles look alike.
-- Allowing incoming 'bots and spiders to infer the structure of an article and make use of that information.
-- Laying the groundwork for future hypertext applications that we know nothing of except that properly ordered text will be more useful than random disorder.
-- Keeping out the *ML markup languages
20 years at this generic markup game and still fighting, Tom Parmenter Ortolan88