Changes

**order: numeric, ignoring these symbols and all ordinary letters and commas, but not spaces; note that scientific notation cannot be used, as e and E are removed

**order: numeric, ignoring these symbols and all ordinary letters and commas, but not spaces; note that scientific notation cannot be used, as e and E are removed

*numeric

*numeric

**criterion: the first non-blank element consists of just digits, points, commas, spaces, "+", "-", possibly followed by "e" or "E" and a string consisting of "+",  "-", digits, possibly followed by "×10" and a string consisting of "+",  "-", digits (the latter is for the purpose of using hidden {{mlw|Scientific_notation|E_notation|e-notation}} followed by visible superscript notation of {{mlw|scientific notation||scientific notation}}); or the element ends with "sm=n" (without the quotes; it stands for "sort mode = numeric"). (In  hidden form this can conveniently be done with {{tim|smn}}.)

**criterion: the first non-blank element consists of just digits, points, commas, spaces, "+", "-", possibly followed by "e" or "E" and a string consisting of "+",  "-", digits, possibly followed by "×10" and a string consisting of "+",  "-", digits (the latter is for the purpose of using hidden {{ml|Scientific_notation|E_notation|e-notation}} followed by visible superscript notation of {{ml|scientific notation||scientific notation}}); or the element ends with "sm=n" (without the quotes; it stands for "sort mode = numeric"). (In  hidden form this can conveniently be done with {{tim|smn}}.)

**order: if the string starts with a number (where spaces and nbsp's at the start are ignored) the order is numeric according to the first number in the string ([http://www.devguru.com/technologies/ecmascript/QuickRef/parsefloat.html parseFloat] is applied) after removing the commas, if any; if it does not (parseFloat returns [[w:NaN|NaN]]), the element is positioned like 0

**order: if the string starts with a number (where spaces and nbsp's at the start are ignored) the order is numeric according to the first number in the string ([http://www.devguru.com/technologies/ecmascript/QuickRef/parsefloat.html parseFloat] is applied) after removing the commas, if any; if it does not (parseFloat returns [[NaN|NaN]]), the element is positioned like 0

:::''proposed internationalisation: in German etc., treat comma as a decimal point''

:::''proposed internationalisation: in German etc., treat comma as a decimal point''

*string

*string