Is this really an issue? Normally [1] comes after any other text, and thus doesn't affect the sorting order

Sounds like it's doing things like interpreting "123[1]" as 'string' instead of 'number'; this would indeed affect the sort order if the rest of your column consists of numbers.

This table seems to sort ok though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER/24523

(In reply to comment #2)

This table seems to sort ok though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER/24523

But it would break for sure if it contained more complex "numbers" like dates etc.
Not sure though how to fix it. We could duplicate jQuery text function and include a sup.reference check in it

(In reply to comment #2)

This table seems to sort ok though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER/24523

That table no longer sorts correctly. It is sorting alphabetically. There needs to be a way to force a column to sort numerically. Something in the table header.

In T26523#279147, @bzimport wrote:

diebuche wrote:

Is this really an issue? Normally [1] comes after any other text, and thus doesn't affect the sorting order

Please see this discussion on why the issue also negatively affects text fields.