Wikipedia talk:8

Why 8
OK, I'm curious. This probably was on a widely used Welcome template, as it is part of many user pages. The Transhumanist, why 8? ;-) John Vandenberg (chat) 13:54, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm glad you asked. Because that is the position it holds on the shortcut directory, in the list of browsing shortcuts.  See WP:WP.


 * Those numbers were originally set based roughly on the position of the links on the Template:Contents pages (header bar) at the time they were made into shortcuts 7 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Contents_pages_%28header_bar%29&oldid=96121346


 * That navigation menu bar now looks like this:


 * The reason the digits were chosen for the top navigation pages was that they appear before letters in an alphanumerical sort, naturally making them rise to the top of the List of shortcuts, where a browsing section was created for them.


 * Unfortunately, the shortcuts for 1, 3, and 5 were already taken.


 * I looked into getting those digits repurposed, but they were used by far too many people and were included in far too many pages to make a search/replace feasible.


 * The links also found their way into nav menus like this, which in turn showed up in welcome messages:

''' A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10... 100... 200 '''


 * Rather convenient once you have them memorized.


 * I hope I've satisfied your curiosity. The Transhumanist 16:33, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you for the explanation. John Vandenberg (chat) 16:41, 27 December 2013 (UTC)