[WikiEN-l] "Consistent" Section naming & order rules?

[Bryan Derksen]

Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 11/23/07, Doug Henkle <henkle at pobox.com> wrote:
>> doesn't make sense, but I would accept that, IF it was consistent
>> throughout all WP pages, but it is not.  The Section naming inconsistency
>> displayed at,
>>     http://www.folklib.net/opera/wikipedia_sections.shtml
>> is unacceptable, at least to me.  "usual practice at Wikipedia" ... where
>> exactly is the documentation for the proper naming and order of ALL
>> Sections for Musicians?  I will continue to look for the consistent rules
> 
> I agree. Consistent rules should be laid out in the Manual of Style.
> Unfortunately, frequently the MoS gives up and says "you can do it
> this way or this way, there's no consensus".

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_to_layout#Standard_appendices_and_descriptions>
says that the sections can be in any order, true, but it lists them in
the same order that I almost universally see them placed in the article
and in the past when I've reorganized articles to match that pattern I
can't recall ever sparking any controversy or resistance (I had always
thought that the guidelines were actually explicit). So I think we can
say there's ''de facto'' consensus that references go before external
links even if it isn't stated explicitly.

The way I've always conceived it, these sections are sorted in order of
decreasing connection to Wikipedia. "See also" contains links to pages
within Wikipedia itself, "references" contains links to pages that
aren't in Wikipedia but whose _contents_ are used in Wikipedia, and
"external links" contains links to pages that aren't in Wikipedia and
that cover areas not covered by Wikipedia articles.

>> However, as my WP editing is wrong by following consistent paper publishing 
>> rules, and there are no consistent Wikipedia rules to match, there is no 
>> point in my continuing.

Leaving Wikipedia over the ordering of reference and external link
sections seems like a bit of an overreaction to me. I suppose we could
take a crack at making the guidelines explicit to see whether there
really is a consensus on the matter?

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