Requests for comment/Heading formatting

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The following request for comments is closed. Proposal not implemented; no consensus after a considerable period of time. – Ajraddatz (talk) 02:07, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Problem description[edit]

I'm a bit unhappy with the current appearance of section headings on Wikipedia: headings of level 4, 5 and 6 (i.e. ==== Heading 4 ====, ===== Heading 5 ===== and ====== Heading 6 ======) all have the same formatting, even though heading 6 is a subheading of heading 5, which itself is a subheading of heading 4. This makes it hard to get an overview of an article with many headings and subheadings.

For example, in w:Japanese grammar #Ancillary words, it looks like section Thematic wa were a (level 4) subsection of Particles. However, it is a (level 5) subsection of Topic, theme, and subject: は wa and が ga. Another example is w:Dash #En dash.

Suggested solution[edit]

I've made a suggestion with better distinguishable headings, increasing all font sizes a little bit (2 em instead of 1.8 em for title), removing boldface and introducing shades of grey for headings 4 to 6.

Actual situation Suggestion Suggestion 2 Suggestion 3

Title

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

Text

Title

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

Text

Title

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

Text

Title

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

Heading 6

Text

--SelfishSeahorse (talk) 16:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I've added a 2nd suggestion without grey. What do you think about it? --SelfishSeahorse (talk) 15:45, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

The second suggestion is much better. Pokéfan95 (talk) 00:46, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support Seems reasonable. Although it seems a bit weird that level 6 headings are smaller than text. But in general, agreed.--TuCove (talk) 01:56, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, heading 6 is of the same size than text. I've defined level 6 heading with font-size: 100% and didn't change font-family. However, it may appear smaller because of the grey colour. --SelfishSeahorse (talk) 17:27, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support Look more clean and modern. And more readable. Archi38 (talk) 19:39, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support much better. Louis GP gouter (talk) 21:14, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support much more convenient and readable NotLicenced (talk) 20:13, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose no shades of grey, think of accessibility to those with bad eyesight who need a high contrast. Oliv0 (talk) 19:09, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose The grey is too difficult to read for peoples wicht have bad vision. High level of contrast is better. But I'm agree for reduce the size gradually. --Gratus (talk) 20:01, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support The second suggestion improves readability. Nocowardsoulismine (talk) 13:25, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose This has been discussed in depth at phabricator:T72004. In real life, headings rarely appear immediately next to each other, so humans can only distinguish the sizes if they are significantly different. Since h2, h3, and h4 are by far the most common headers, we should optimize for differentiating these 3. h5 and h6 are quite rare and less important to differentiate. (Only 438 articles on English Wikipedia have an h6 header.) Creating a slight graduation between all the headers actually makes it harder to figure out the hierarchy in most cases, not easier. Having shades of grey might address that problem, but it introduces a new problem of making the headers harder for some people to read. Bumping up the size of h3 and h4 might be doable (to differentiate h4 from h5), but I really think differentiating h6 is counter-productive. Kaldari (talk) 00:49, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose Strongly - RFC talks about changing H4-5-6 but changes font size for H1 H2 and even H3. This is a serious change. The problem with creating a hierarchy between 6 headings (and making sure H6 is bigger than body) is you need more range between 14px and the biggest font size. there is an existing conversation about this issue phabricator:T72004 The reason to oppose this particular RFC is it's changing article title, h2 and h3 font sizes too which is not scoped or discussed. this has implications for different scripts and typefaces. --Nirzardp (talk) 19:01, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Comment I've created a new, less radical proposal (Suggestion 3). Kaldari (talk) 19:37, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]