"What dividing term do you prefer in vocab lists?
Lesson
Chapter
Section
Unit
Other"

I find it's useful to have a thread here where we can discuss each poll a little, to help the team better understand our responses or if nothing else to kill a little time - after all, I'm procrastinating from work as I write this...

My take on the poll:

Section's getting a higher selection rate because it's the current standard on the site. However, I personally think that it makes sense to stick with the term "section": Lesson, Chapter, and Unit are all too specific; even among lists based on textbooks, there isn't a proper standard for one of these terms to be applied across the board, and among non-textbook lists, it's highly likely that each list section has nothing to do with a lesson, chapter, or unit in any curriculum.

Terms like Chapter, Unit, and Lesson are useful in list or section titles if they are applicable, but they're too specific to be applied to all lists across the board.

As for selecting "other", I could see how something like "part" would be a serviceable alternative to "section", but it's not broken, so I don't see any reason to try to fix it.

I think section and unit both sound vague enough to be the default for the lists. I agree that chapter and lesson sound too specific to a topic to be used for this purpose.

I was reading the poll and was also thinking that there needed to be a discussion about the answers.

I think it should remain as "section" because, as has been said, it is vague enough. If it was changed to "chapter" or "lesson" it is great if you are working from a book or taking classes, but not so great if you are studying another way - same goes for all of the words really.

As said before "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"!

On an almost unrelated note, I think "lesson" is a stupid term to use in a book. I don't know the exact definition of "lesson," but when I hear lesson, I think of somebody teaching something. You can learn from a book, but the book isn't "teaching you a lesson," you're teaching yourself.

I think a lesson is an event, something that is done, not something that can be written. I know it's a pretty silly thing to put out there, but it always irks me a little when a textbook defines sections/chapters/whatever as "lessons."