Who decides "standard" stroke order?

[mewmew]

I'm curious if there is some sort of academic group that comes together few years or so to determine the standard stroke order for written Chinese. Traditional or simplified, Hong Kong, Mainland, Taiwan, whatever. If anybody is knowledgable about this subject, I'd be fascinated to read about it.

[Hofmann]

I'm almost certain that it isn't every few years but more like once long ago (like soon after the establishment of their nation). However, whatever person or group of people standardized them, they didn't know very much about stroke order themselves.

[skylee]

mewmew, in Taiwan, it was/is the National Languages Committe of the Ministry of Education. Here is a relevant website -> 常用國字標準字體筆順學習網. And here is a relevant manual -> 常用國字標準字體筆順手冊.

This standard is useful if you need to input traditional characters to your handset etc using stroke order input method.

More reference -> http://english.education.edu.tw/ct.asp?xItem=9364&ctNode=1873&mp=12

[盤古]

I've always thought the stroke order follows a simple guide line of top to bottom, left to right.

[muyongshi]

I've always thought the stroke order follows a simple guide line of top to bottom, left to right

I'd say that is just a tad bit of an over simplification. Yeah it starts that way but the one that can't be written that way are more than they are few. One example would be 世界的世. Not quite that straightforward.

[Hofmann]

That's not what the OP is talking about. There are at least 4 regional standardized stroke orders that are all different. With the Taiwan standard, some people in the Ministry of Education, including 李鍌, compiled a list of standardized stroke orders in a 常用國字標準字體筆順手冊. In Hong Kong, there is a 香港常用字字形表 from their 教育署 which apparently also lists stroke orders, recorded on this site.