A simple article should have at least a lead section and references. As editors add complexity where required, the elements (such as sections and templates) that are used typically appear in the following order, although they would not all appear in the same article at the same time:
- Before the lead section
- Hatnotes
- Deletion/Protection tags (CSD, PROD, AFD, PP notices)
- Maintenance / dispute tags
- Infoboxes
- Foreign character warning boxes
- Images
- Navigational boxes (header navboxes)
- Body
- Lead section (also called the introduction)
- Table of contents
- Content
- Appendices[1]
- Works or publications (for biographies only)
- See also
- Notes and references (this can be two sections in some citation systems)
- Further reading
- External links[2]
- Bottom matter
- Succession boxes and geography boxes
- Other navigation templates (footer navboxes)[3] (navbars above {{Portal bar}})
- Geographical coordinates (if not in Infobox) or {{coord missing}}
- Authority control templates (taxonbar above Authority control)
- {{Featured list}}, {{Featured article}} and {{Good article}} (where appropriate for article status)
- Defaultsort
- Categories[4]
- Stub template
References
- ^ This sequence has been in place since at least December 2003 (when "See also" was called "Related topics"). See, for example, Wikipedia:Perennial proposals § Changes to standard appendices. The original rationale for this ordering is that, with the exception of "Works", sections which contain material outside Wikipedia (including "Further reading" and "External links") should come after sections that contain Wikipedia material (including "See also") to help keep the distinction clear. The sections containing notes and references often contain both kinds of material and, consequently, appear after the "See also" section (if any) and before the "Further reading" section (if any). Whatever the validity of the original rationale, there is now the additional factor that readers have come to expect the appendices to appear in this order.
- ^ There are several reasons why this section should appear as the last appendix section. So many articles have the "External links" section at the end that many people expect that. Some "External links" and "References" (or "Footnotes", etc.) sections are quite long, and when the name of the section is not visible on the screen, it could cause problems if someone meant to delete an external link, and deleted a reference citation instead. Keeping the "External links" last is also helpful to editors who patrol external links.
- ^ Rationale for placing navboxes at the end of the article.
- ^ While categories are entered on the editing page ahead of stub templates, they appear on the visual page in a separate box after the stub templates. One of the reasons this happens is that every stub template generates a stub category, and those stub categories appear after the "main" categories. Another is that certain bots and scripts are set up to expect the categories, stubs and interlanguage links to appear in that order, and will reposition them if they don't. Therefore, any manual attempt to change the order is futile unless the bots and scripts are also altered.
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