Re: Is a list of one item still a list?

Alemnew & Martin,

Thank you both for the input.  I agree a list of one item generally doesn't
make sense, it occurs to me now that this would be an author's intent when
being sarcastic, for example:

Exhaustive List of Candidates for President:
  * AA AA


A "Sarcastic List" would be a special case -one my primary school teacher
would not have appreciated, I'm sure.


However, I'd like to mention two points:
>
> First, it seems to me that the rule that lists should have more than one
> item is something that is somewhat above the layer of typography and
> text layout that this and other task forces are working on.
>


Point taken.  I do think this group is a useful place to discuss and
capture typography and layout rules for Ethiopic that may occur in a
slightly higher layer.  In this case at the level that composition happens.
A word processor or editor application could apply a list length rule to
warn the user that they may be making an error. A document auditor /
validator application that checked structure could likewise utilize such a
rule. Perhaps this leads to a companion specification or a special appendix
for validation recommendations.

Once composed, a layout engine should not throw an error or change layout
when a single item list is found.



>
> Second, I think there is occasionally a use for a list with only one
> item, to keep the layout of parallel structures aligned. As an example,
> assume a lists of officials to be elected, where most offices have more
> than one candidate, but some office may have only one candidate. Then
> you might get something like
>
> * Candidates for President
>    - AA AA
>    - BB BB
> * Candidates for Secretary
>    - CC CC
> * Candidates for Treasurer
>    - DD DD
>    - EE EE
>    - FF FF
>
> There's only one candidate for secretary, so we end up with a list with
> only one item, but we don't want to change that to inline text because
> that would ruin the structure of the layout.
>


Here we have a list of lists, or at least a sequence of lists which might
be a special rule that a validator could apply.


BTW, Alemnew and others.  Questions for discussion posted here have a
correspondence in the ELReq Github Issues section, for this question see
the issue:

https://github.com/w3c/elreq/issues/113

Feel free to share thoughts and examples there as well.  We can add summary
and conclusion of the email discussion there to close out the issue.

thanks,

-Daniel



>
> Regards,   Martin.
>
> On 2018/05/22 18:23, Alemnew Sheferaw Asrese wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I haven't seen any listing that has only one item. I believe Amharic has
> > the same rule as English for lists.
> >
> > And it doesn't make sense to have a list for just an item. Right?
> >
> > --Alemnew
> >
> > On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 12:42 AM, Daniel Yacob <yacob@geez.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Greetings All,
> >>
> >> I was recently reviewing a document and was reminded of a rule I learned
> >> in English class when creating a list or sublist.  That is, an ordered
> list
> >> (alphabetic, or numeric) must have more than one item.  We were not
> allowed
> >> to create a list with an item "A." without there also being (at least) a
> >> "B." , or a sublist with roman numeral "i" unless there was also an
> "ii".
> >>
> >> If we had only one item to discuss, we would have to make it part of the
> >> preceding sentence.  I assume the same rule applied for bullet lists as
> >> well.
> >>
> >> Does this rule apply for Amharic writing and in other Ethiopic writing
> >> practices?  That is, can a list in Amharic contain only one item?
> >>
> >> thanks,
> >>
> >> -Daniel
>
>