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For example, this webpage about the Eruption of Krakatoa starts with the year written in lower case? Lower case numbers have a different baseline. Should it start with upper case? What's the style guide in this case?.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa

Same with other pages. What's the style guide behind this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980

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    The font used in the heading is Georgia, and that font has "old-style" numerals.
    – Billy Kerr
    Dec 24, 2018 at 15:49
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    Interesting question. I never knew that they were lower case numbers O_o
    – Rafael
    Dec 26, 2018 at 13:39
  • Exactly. They use Georgia but I wonder why they use this font only there, if it's particularly for the "old-style" numbers or not. There is nothing about that in the Manual of Style guide.
    – Carlos Vega
    Jan 2, 2019 at 13:51

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The convention is to either use lining (uppercase) figures:

Lining

or oldstyle (lowercase) figures:

Oldstyle

These two styles are never mixed. Numbers are never "capitalized" like this:

Mix

Wikipedia has simply chosen to use a font (Georgia) for their headings which has oldstyle figures.

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  • Do you have any reference that explains why Wikipedia uses Georgia only for that specific part of the pages? They use Sans fonts for the rest of the content. The Wikipedia Manual of Style doesn't explain why they use Georgia or "old-style" numbers.
    – Carlos Vega
    Jan 2, 2019 at 13:54

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