Source: http://neurocommons.org/page/Help:List 

MediaWiki offers three types of lists. Ordered lists, unordered lists, and definition lists. In the following sections, ordered lists are used for examples. Unordered lists would give corresponding results. 

wikitext    rendering 
* Lists are easy to do: 
** start every line 
* with a star 
** more stars mean 
*** deeper levels 
Lists are easy to do: 
start every line 
with a star 
more stars mean 
deeper levels 
*A newline 
*in a list  
marks the end of the list. 
Of course 
*you can 
*start again. 
A newline 
in a list 
marks the end of the list. Of course 

you can 
start again. 
# Numbered lists are good 
## very organized 
## easy to follow 
Numbered lists are good 
very organized 
easy to follow 
* You can also 
**break lines 
**like this 
You can also 
break lines 
like this 
; Definition lists 
; item : definition 
; semicolon plus term 
: colon plus definition 
Definition lists 
item 
definition 
semicolon plus term 
colon plus definition 
* Or create mixed lists 
*# and nest them 
*#* like this 
*#*; definitions 
*#*: work: 
*#*; apple 
*#*; banana 
*#*: fruits 
Or create mixed lists 
and nest them 
like this 
definitions 
work: 
apple 
banana 
fruits 

Paragraphs in lists 

For simplicity, list items in wiki markup cannot be longer than a paragraph. A following blank line will end the list and reset the counter on ordered lists. Separating unordered list items usually has no noticable effects. 

Paragraphs can be forced in lists by using HTML tags. Two line break symbols, <br><br>, will create the desired effect. So will enclosing all but the first paragraph with <p>...</p> 

For a list with items of more than one paragraph long, adding a blank line between items may be necessary to avoid confusion. 

Continuing a list item after a sub-item 

In HTML, a list item may contain several sublists, not necessarily adjacent; thus there may be parts of the list item not only before the first sublist, but also between sublists, and after the last one; however, in wiki-syntax, sublists follow the same rules as sections of a page: the only possible part of the list item not in sublists is before the first sublist. 

In the case of an unnumbered first-level list in wikitext code this limitation can be overcome by splitting the list into multiple lists; indented text between the partial lists may visually serve as part of a list item after a sublist; however, this may give, depending on CSS, a blank line before and after each list, in which case, for uniformity, every first-level list item could be made a separate list. 

Numbered lists illustrate that what should look like one list may, for the software, consist of multiple lists; unnumbered lists give a corresponding result, except that the problem of restarting with 1 is not applicable. 

<ol> 
  <li>list item A1 
    <ol> 
      <li>list item B1</li> 
      <li>list item B2</li> 
    </ol>continuing list item A1 
  </li> 
  <li>list item A2</li> 
</ol> 
list item A1 
list item B1 
list item B2 
continuing list item A1 
list item A2 
vs. 
#list item A1 
##list item B1 
##list item B2 
#:continuing list item A1 
#list item A2 
list item A1 
list item B1 
list item B2 
continuing list item A1 
list item A2 
One level deeper, with a sublist item continuing after a sub-sublist, one gets even more blank lines; however, the continuation of the first-level list is not affected: 

#list item A1 
##list item B1 
###list item C1 
##:continuing list item B1 
##list item B2 
#list item A2 
gives 

list item A1 
list item B1 
list item C1 
continuing list item B1 
list item B2 
list item A2 
See also template:List demo ( talk edit history links ) and subdivisions. 

Changing the list type 

The list type (which type of marker appears before the list item) can be changed in CSS by setting the list-style-type property: 

wikitext    rendering 
<ol style="list-style-type:lower-roman"> 
  <li>About the author</li> 
  <li>Foreword to the first edition</li> 
  <li>Foreword to the second edition</li> 
</ol> 
About the author 
Foreword to the first edition 
Foreword to the second edition 
Extra indentation of lists 

In a numbered list in a large font, some browsers do not show more than two digits, unless extra indentation is applied (if there are multiple columns: for each column). This can be done with CSS: 

ol { margin-left: 2cm} 
or alternatively, like below. 

wikitext    rendering     comments 
:#abc 
:#def 
:#ghi 

abc 
def 
ghi 
A list of one or more lines starting with a colon creates a definition list without definition terms, and with the items as definition descriptions, hence indented. However, if the colons are in front of the codes "*" or "#" of an unordered or ordered list, the list is treated as one definition description, so the whole list is indented. 
<ul> 
  <ol> 
    <li>abc</li> 
    <li>def</li> 
    <li>ghi</li> 
  </ol> 
</ul> 

abc 
def 
ghi 
MediaWiki translates an unordered list (ul) without any list items (li) into a div with a style="margin-left: 2em", causing indentation of the contents. This is the most versatile method, as it allows starting with a number other than 1, see below. 
<ul> 
#abc 
#def 
#ghi 
</ul> 

abc 
def 
ghi 
Like above, with the content of the "unordered list without any list items", which itself is an ordered list, expressed with # codes. The HTML produced, and hence the rendering, is the same. This is the recommended method when not starting with a number other than 1. 
To demonstrate that all three methods show all digits of 3-digit numbers, see List demo. 

Specifying a starting value 

Specifying a starting value is only possible with HTML syntax. (W3C has deprecated the start and value attributes as used below in HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0. But as of 2007, no popular web browsers implement CSS counters, which were to replace these attributes. Wikimedia projects use XHTML Transitional, which contains the deprecated attributes.) 

<ol start="9"> 
<li>Amsterdam</li> 
<li>Rotterdam</li> 
<li>The Hague</li> 
</ol> 
gives 

Amsterdam 
Rotterdam 
The Hague 
Or: 

<ol> 
<li value="9">Amsterdam</li> 
<li value="8">Rotterdam</li> 
<li value="7">The Hague</li> 
</ol> 
gives 

Amsterdam 
Rotterdam 
The Hague 
Comparison with a table 

Apart from providing automatic numbering, the numbered list also aligns the contents of the items, comparable with using table syntax: 

{| 
|- 
| align=right |  9.||Amsterdam 
|- 
| align=right | 10.||Rotterdam 
|- 
| align=right | 11.||The Hague 
|} 
gives 

9.    Amsterdam 
10.    Rotterdam 
11.    The Hague 
This non-automatic numbering has the advantage that if a text refers to the numbers, insertion or deletion of an item does not disturb the correspondence. 

Multi-column bulleted list 

<div style="column-count:3;-moz-column-count:3;-webkit-column-count:3"> 
*apple 
*carpet 
*geography 
*mountain 
*nowhere 
*postage 
*ragged 
*toast 
</div> 
gives: 

apple 
carpet 
geography 
mountain 
nowhere 
postage 
ragged 
toast 
Multi-column numbered list 

<div style="column-count:3;-moz-column-count:3;-webkit-column-count:3"> 
#apple 
#carpet 
#geography 
#mountain 
#nowhere 
#postage 
#ragged 
#toast 
</div> 
gives: 

apple 
carpet 
geography 
mountain 
nowhere 
postage 
ragged 
toast 
Below a starting value is specified, with HTML-syntax (for the first column either wiki-syntax or HTML-syntax can be used). 

In combination with the extra indentation explained in the previous section: 

{| valign="top" 
|- 
|<ul><ol start="125"><li>a<li>bb<li>ccc</ol></ul> 
|<ul><ol start="128"><li>ddd<li>ee<li>f</ol></ul> 
|} 
gives 

a 
bb 
ccc 
ddd 
ee 
f 
Using template:multi-column numbered list ( talk edit history links ) the computation of the starting values can be automated, and only the first starting value and the number of items in each column except the last has to be specified. Adding an item to, or removing an item from a column requires adjusting only one number, the number of items in that column, instead of changing the starting numbers for all subsequent columns. 

{{Multi-column numbered list|125|a<li>bb<li>ccc|3|<li>ddd<li>ee<li>f}} 
gives 

a 
bb 
ccc 
ddd 
ee 
f 
{{Multi-column numbered list|lst=lower-alpha|125|a<li>bb<li>ccc|3|<li>ddd<li>ee|2|<li>f}} 
gives 

a 
bb 
ccc 
ddd 
ee 
f 
{{Multi-column numbered list|lst=lower-roman|125|a<li>bb<li>ccc|3|<li>ddd<li>ee|2|<li>f}} 
gives 

a 
bb 
ccc 
ddd 
ee 
f 
{{Multi-column numbered list|lst=disc||a<li>bb<li>ccc||<li>ddd<li>ee||<li>f}} 
gives 

a 
bb 
ccc 
ddd 
ee 
f 
Streamlined style or horizontal style 

It is also possible to present short lists using very basic formatting, such as: 

''Title of list:'' example 1, example 2, example 3 
Title of list: example 1, example 2, example 3 

This style requires less space on the page, and is preferred if there are only a few entries in the list, it can be read easily, and a direct edit point is not required. The list items should start with a lowercase letter unless they are proper nouns. 

Tables 

A one-column table is very similar to a list, but it allows sorting. If the wikitext itself is already sorted with the same sortkey, this advantage does not apply. A multiple-column table allows sorting on any column. 

See also en:Wikipedia:When to use tables. 

Changing unordered lists to ordered ones 

With the CSS 

ul { list-style: decimal } 
unordered lists are changed to ordered ones. This applies (as far as the CSS selector does not restrict this) to all ul-lists in the HTML source code: 

those produced with * 
those with <ul> in the wikitext 
those produced by the system 
Since each special page, like other pages, has a class based on the pagename, one can separately specify for each type whether the lists should be ordered, see Help:User contributions#User styles and Help:What links here#User styles. 

However, it does not seem possible to make all page history lists ordered (unless one makes all lists ordered), because the class name is based on the page for which the history is viewed. 

See also 

mw:Extension:Sort2: creates a list with list code only at the start and end, not per item; allows easy change of list type; sorts list