Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)

Use the == style markup for headlines, not '''. Start with "==" (that's two equal signs). If the resulting font looks too big (as many people feel), that's an issue for the Wikipedia-wide stylesheet, not individual articles. Note that with the == brackets used, no space under the headline is needed. The space should be removed.

Major benefits of marking headers this way:

• sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set,
• words within properly marked headers are given greater weight in searches.
• Headlines also help readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article.
• visually-impaired users maybe be using software which begins by giving a summary of the article, built from the heading tags. [1] (http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/gls/g2)

Capitalize the first word and any proper nouns in headlines, but leave the rest lower case.

Avoid links within headers. Depending on settings, some users may not see them clearly. Much better to put the appropriate link in the first sentence under the header.

Nesting Nest headings correctly, for the same reasons as above. The top-level heading of any page is a H1 which gives the article title. The headings within the article must therefore be H2, ie "==".

Below that, the "child" heading of "==" is "===", the child of that is "====" and so on.

Style Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump

What is the policy on headers? The headers that exist on such webpages as Analytical Society seem far too large for the article. Arno 07:33 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

What headers are those, then? There aren't any headers in Analytical Society - although the bit at the bottom that says <b>External links</b> should be a header.

(looks at edit history)

No, it was exactly right before you changed it: ==External links== is the standard header for an external links section of an article.

-- Paul A 07:47 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

A major list of links deserves such a heading, but I agree with Arno that it is a bit excessive for one or a few links, and that with just bolding it looks better (but use ' ' ' instead of < b >). - Patrick 09:26 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

Paul is right. "External links" is a header, specifically an H2 header. Therefore that is the correct markup. --mav

Wikipedia:Manual_of_style states that ==External Links== is the perferred header. (As a matter of taste and consistency, I perfer using this header even for a single link)Tenbaset 04:56 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

==External links==, with a lower case ell, please. Egil

I stand corrected - thanks.Tenbaset

Ok, then try United Airlines flight 93 as another example where excessively large headlines exist. Also none of the above answers answer my original question. What policy states that all the headers have to be excessively large - ie H2 size? Arno 07:59 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

I do not feel that these are excessive. The headlines would look much better it they followed the style guide though, avoiding capitalization. -- Egil 08:30 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Arno, the policy for Wikipedia section headings is laid out in the Headline style section of Wikipedia:Manual of style - including a point specifically to the effect that == is the correct markup even if the result happens to look too large on your computer, followed by an explanation of why.

-- Paul A 08:52 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, an answer. Thanks, Paul. Methinks that the end result is still too big and excessive, though. Arno 09:10 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

An afterthought to all this, I'm sure how I managed to miss 10baset's aswer before. But the headers are still too large, in my firm opinion. Arno 09:17 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)