Template talk:Namespace Greek

Discrepancies
There are several discrepancies between the Greek letters returned by this template, and those listed at WP:SORTKEY. It is, in fact, difficult to find any correspondance other than in the choices for portals and templates; but even there, the capitalisation differs. Since February 2011, there is no longer any distinction between lower and upper case: they sort together; so assigning lowercase letters to the talk namespaces will mix talk pages among the corresponding subject pages. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:41, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As for the actual letters chosen I am not wedded to any specific choice, the letters used are a sensible choice based on then prevailing usage, if you wish to change them, please go ahead. The question  of talk pages is slightly more vexed: One option would be to leave it, a useful purpose is still served.  A second would be to sort  A0 Α1 Β0 Β1.  A third would be to simply use the Greek letters in order.   A fourth to invoke an additional alphabet, a fifth to use diacritics.  I think I favour the second option. What do you think? Rich Farmbrough, 23:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC).


 * OK I have implemented the second option, note that this template is specifically for namespaces, targeted at maintenance categories, whereas the text written in WP:SORTKEY is a hotchpotch of different things targeted at "content" categories - I use quotes because a lot of the time the uses are actually abuses of the category in question. Rich Farmbrough, 12:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC).

Things may have changed since 2012, but it seems the template is still in use. Is the Discrepancies still there? The WP:SORTKEY uses lower case and that does make it look less like latin, but when hidden in a template I guess that isn't relevant (though I think you could have chosen lower-case too). Setting 0 and 1 instead seems like it was working, so that was a good decision.

What I really wanted to ask was if you still think the WP:SORTKEY is for content categories only. I don't read it that way and I think both uses could be merged in the same standard. If so I would be fine with moving the bulk of bullet 11 into the template documentation and let SORTKEY say "use template or the greek letters proposed there". What would be your opinion on that? Would it disrupt consensus on already existing pages? JAGulin (talk) 05:09, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I can't answer for anyone else, but I would be happy with that - I'm not sure this is one of those cases where consistency matters much, but it is very hard to predict when inconsistency will causes someone a problem. The main exception to end-sorting, by the way, is stub categories where templates are top-sorted, something I understand but am not altogether happy about - but these are in a grey area between content and maintenance in my opinion.
 * I said that SORTKEY is "targeted" at content pages, not that it only applies to them, clearly it is mostly sound advice. This template has tended to be behind the scenes, i.e. used via other templates.  Generally we insist that content categories are explicit.  Nothing to stop this being used directly in on a page though.
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:44, 1 October 2019 (UTC).