Is it appropriate to list the intertitle language of silent film in the subtitles section of a profile on the theory that it's a kind of burned-in subtitle, which we do normally list?

IMHO such titles should not be listed at all, while the subtitles should.

Only if the intertitles are subtitled.

... if we include forced subtitles, what to do with inserts like: North Korea, two years ago, the intros explaining the story (like the ones the Star Wars imperium got famous for) or the summaries at the end of some films based on real incidents: ... and they lived happily until they died in 2010 after a long severe suffering... 

By definition, intertitles are not subtitles.

Quoting AiAustria:

Quote:
The task is not to define intertitles, but to decide, if we want to handle them like subtitles.

Right. My position is they should be, because they serve the same purpose. I.e. they contain all the dialogue for the movie so viewers can read it. A majority of voters don't want to treat them the same, but no one seems to be saying why not for some reason.

Quoting Ace_of_Sevens:

Quote:
My position is they should be, because they serve the same purpose. I.e. they contain all the dialogue for the movie so viewers can read it. A majority of voters don't want to treat them the same, but no one seems to be saying why not for some reason.

(Bold by me) They certainly don't normally contain "all the dialogue", if we are talking about people shown speaking in a silent movie. In my experience most of such footage is not accompanied with any intertitles and many intertitles contain something completely different, such as explanations of forward cuts or location changes (e.g. "The following evening..." or "Meanwhile on the street..." etc.)

Intertitles are much more varied in content, not at all limited to dialogue, and they typically cover a very limited portion of visible dialogue in a silent movie, and that's why I voted no. I think it would be good information to track in DVDP, but IMHO I don't think they should by handled as subtitles.

Well, often in silent movies we have principal characters in a scene seen speaking, but intertitles are not used to explain what is said. Subtitles, as most understand them, would definitely have been used for such scene in a sound movie.

Subtitles is the textual representation of any audible dialogue (and sometimes other sounds such as "Doorbell rings" or "Soft piano music playing" etc.) heard in a movie. They describe what is said/heard, no more.

Intertitles on the other hand, in silent movies, are not designed to be a representation of what is said/heard (naturally...). They are sometimes used to describe what characters are saying on screen that is similar to subtitles, but very often used for other type of information explaining cuts ("Later..." / "Meanwhile on the street..."), or e.g. introducing characters seen first time on screen ("John, her father") and so on. Subtitles are never used in this way.

To me subtitles and intertitles are too different in their purpose and information they contain, for them to be handled as one and the same thing in DVDP.