Fixing this would involve detecting when the user clicks on a login link, stashing the fragment, detecting when the login has finished and restoring the fragment (all that on the client side since the fragment is never sent to the server). For storing we could use either sessionStorage or change the link and add returntoanchor=... (the latter is slightly simpler as restoring becomes trivial).

I don't think this is universally considered an issue.

Given the layout of our current skins (Vector, MonoBook, Minerva, ..) the login link is at the top of the page. This means the only way you can press it, is if you were at the top of the page. The log in link is returning you to that state, exactly where you were before clicking the link.

While it's certainly possible that a user follows a link to a section, and then immediately wants to log in (as Soluvo describes), it's also quite possible you started at a different section and have actually started reading the page normally and only later decide to log in. At this point, your address bar will still point to the section where you started, not where you are. Returning to user to a section they were three or four cognitive progressions in the past, is not expected or desirable, I think.

We may want to analyse this from a product and user story perspective. What's the larger story / intention?

@Soluvo Is your intention to edit the section you were reading, but want to be logged-in first? If so, perhaps an approach could be to make it easier to log in as part of the edit process. E.g. "edit section" -> editor loads and you're encouraged to login -> continue editing.

As a workaround, one could probably log in in a separate tab and then refresh - that's usually the thing to do if you need to log in without losing where you are (or any unsaved work).

In T200027#5002045, @Krinkle wrote:

@Soluvo Is your intention to edit the section you were reading, but want to be logged-in first? If so, perhaps an approach could be to make it easier to log in as part of the edit process. E.g. "edit section" -> editor loads and you're encouraged to login -> continue editing.

Yes, that's right, my intention is that I want to edit the section that I am reading or was directed to (including the HTML anchor tag), but I want to be logged-in first.

In T200027#5002745, @Tgr wrote:

As a workaround, one could probably log in in a separate tab and then refresh - that's usually the thing to do if you need to log in without losing where you are (or any unsaved work).

Yes, that's a very good workaround. I will use this approach in the future. Thanks!

IP masking introduced the returntoanchor parameter for action=edit. At this point it's probably better to consistently handle it than to sometimes handle it.

I don't think this is necessary.