Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: [jats-list] Lists with a single item are valid, will they always be?

["Randall, Laura (NIH/NLM/NCBI) [E] laura.randall@xxxxxxx" <jats-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Chiara.

In the 20+ years of the NLM DTDs-turned JATS, I think every conversation about
this topic has boiled down to this:

Philosopher: A single item is not a list!
Practitioner: I have (dozens|hundreds|thousands) of examples!

I think this is one of the things where the lines between formatting and
structure, theory and practice, are permanently perforated.

It's right up there with title-less sections. :)

IF it was to ever happen, it would have to be (as Pieter said) in a
non-backward-compatible release. I personally think that would be a major
deterrent against adoption, so while we can't say it will *never* happen, I
think it's very unlikely.

Best,
Laura

___________________________________
Laura Randall
Technical Information Specialist
National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
NIHBC-45 Natcher 5AN38D12
Phone: 301-435-0467
Email: laura.randall@xxxxxxx

From: Pieter Lamers pieter.lamers@xxxxxxxxxxxx
<jats-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2025 7:51 AM
To: jats-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [jats-list] Lists with a single item are valid, will
they always be?

Hi Chiara,

Nice catch. We are using list also to display linguistic examples which are
interspersed in the text, and therefore are often just a single list-item in a
list. Another case would be a bullet point, then a few paragraphs, then
another bullet point.\xA0

I don't think anyone is going to forbid this, as it would be a major breaking
change. I guess the standard case of a list is to contain multiple items.

Best,
Pieter
On 17/12/2025 13:36, Chiara Del Vescovo
chiara.delvescovo@xxxxxxx<mailto:chiara.delvescovo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi all,
The definition of lists in
https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/tag-library/1.4/element/list.html\xA0stat
es that they are sequences "of two or more items, which may or may not be
ordered". However, lists with a single item are valid against the DTD, and
indeed we do have plenty of examples in our catalogue of such lists.
Will this always be the case, or do you think it's possible that sooner or
later the DTD may get changed to align with the description?
I'm just a tiny bit nervous about the impact that this could have, so looking
for reassurance!
Best wishes,
Chiara
Chiara Del Vescovo

Senior Content Data Model Architect | Operations

Oxford University Press

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