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Change ordered list order, lower-alpha before lower-roman #3088
Description
I perhaps moved too quickly but also opened #3087.
Describe the bug
Change ordered list styles used in markdown in at least issues and wikis to use what seems like the more common and intuitive order: decimal, lower-alpha, lower-roman. This alternates numbers and letters and seems to follow more common convention, at least among U.lS. english styles. I looked at least briefly and couldn't find style guidance or use of the current order over the proposed new order.
I read and tried various ways to override the order just for my content, but this seems to be difficult if not impossible since GitHub blocks various style/CSS modifications (probably for legitimate security reasons).
Here are a semi-related issue and discussion.
To Reproduce
1. Dog (1.)
1. German Shepherd (should be a.)
1. Belgian Shepherd (b.)
1. Malinois (i.)
1. Groenendael (ii.)
1. Tervuren (iii.)
1. Cat (2.)
1. Siberian (a.)
1. Siamese (b.)
- Dog (1.)
- German Shepherd (should be a.)
- Belgian Shepherd (b.)
- Malinois (i.)
- Groenendael (ii.)
- Tervuren (iii.)
- Cat (2.)
- Siberian (a.)
- Siamese (b.)
Expected behavior
Order should be decimal, lower-alpha, lower-roman.
Desktop (please complete the following information):
macOS, 148.0.7778.216 (arm64), 151.0.2 (aarch64)
Activity
liuliu-dev commentedon Jun 22, 2026
Thanks for the PR, we need to run this with our design team.
liuliu-dev commentedon Jun 22, 2026
The priority of this is P-5.
lesliecdubs commentedon Jun 24, 2026
cc @alliethu, this is a new one that could use some Design eyes to confirm this change is desired, particularly as the impact would be highly visible and extremely far-reachng across GitHub.com if changed
kailane1231ho-code commentedon Jul 1, 2026
mcypb24w9k-crypto commentedon Jul 3, 2026
Update suggestion
sam-smolenski commentedon Oct 2, 2026
I couldn't actually determine if there is a solid standard for this. My biggest concerns aren't really design ones; how many lists will be potentially break by changing this?
Personally, I don't have strong feelings about how we display lists, other than I want expected, consistent behavior. What i'm wondering is if we could actually just give the user control over list styles somehow instead (perhaps a few options within ordered lists)? I know Figma has a default that is different from ours, and supports 5 levels of nesting, but wouldn't say they're exactly the precedent to follow (https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040449773-Create-bulleted-and-numbered-lists). ms word has a "multilevel list" that follows a similar pattern as well but allows for customization.
zmanion commentedon Oct 2, 2026
I could also not find a standard anywhere beyond my individual experience, which seems to be shared by at least some other people. Alternating number-letter-number also seems more intuitive to me. Allowing some degree of choice or customization seems reasonable, but adds complexity. And I acknowledge that making this change would modify existing lists. My story is simply that I was surprised how GitHub markdown created lists, tried to change it for myself, then found that was impractical, so opened the discussion here.