Template talk:Cite Russian law

Formatting possibilities

The output now displays as Russian / English.
Is that the best choice for English WP? Wouldn't English / Russian be a better default? Legible, then original.
If not, an option to flip the order?
At the moment, the reader is seeing a long stretch of Russian in need of translation. Then, suddenly at the end, English!

The option to output a < br > between the languages might assist the display in some cases. A break might create an alignment -- Russian above English -- which would make understanding clearer. Numbers would align vertically for example.
Varlaam (talk) 16:29, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Russian is first because that's the original language in which the title is given. English translation is supplied only for the readers' convenience (to get them an idea of what the source is about), and since it is basically just someone else's amateur translation, listing it first is just not right, under any circumstances. Note also that the WP:NOENG guideline even goes as far as say that a translation may not even be necessary for citations (I personally don't subscribe to that point of view, but it makes it clear that a translation is secondary, and, when present, shouldn't be listed first).

Regarding the line breaks, I'm not sure that's a good idea either. All citations are a part of a reference section at the bottom of the article, and having breaks in some of them might affect the flow of information in that section (and probably make it visually unappealing). Might be worth testing, though.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 11, 2012; 15:43 (UTC)