Last modified: 2013-06-18 13:14:44 UTC
There is no clear separator between the table of content number and the first word of the heading. For example [[:en:2011 England riots]] includes the following headings: 6 August 7 August 8 August etc... Combined with the TOC number, it produces the following strings of characters : 3.1 6 August 3.2 7 August 3.3 8 August Depending on various parameters such as the font used on your computer, the space between "3.1" and "6 August" can be quite narrow, or seem so even if it might be an illusion related to how the human eyes and brains appreciate distances. As a result, I am afraid a number of people, not only me, might read: Three dot sixteen: August Three dot twenty-seven: August Three dot thirty-eight: August instead of the intended: Three dot one: Sixth of August Three dot two: Seventh of August Three dot three: Eighth of August What I suggest is to add a more visible separator, either by default or on a case by case basis enabling editors to activate an option on some specific pages where this problem is acute, or automatically as soon as an arabic numeral fist word is detected in a heading. It could also be activated or deactivated via user preferences. Among the more visible separators I can think of, the best one seems to be the period. Adding a period after heading numbers is a widely used convention. For example see the "example with authors" at [[:en:Table of contents]] or the "preceded by an arabic numeral and a period" guideline in the "Physical Review Style and Notation Guide" page 4 ( http://www.fysik-nano.fotonik.dtu.dk/upload/subsites/fysiknano/pr-styleguide.pdf p. 6/28 ). Another possibility would be to add more space or use tab stops left of the first word so that the distance between "3.1" and "6 August" becomes comfortably longer than the distance between "6" and "August".
