FWIW it looks the same in the original Parsoid HTML, which is probably the place to fix it: https://he.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/html/%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D

Since this issue comes from Parsoid it appears in mobile-sections, too.

The solution is to apply this CSS rule: unicode-bidi: isolate; to the <sup ... class="mw-ref"> tags.

In T251983#6113846, @Huji wrote:

The solution is to apply this CSS rule: unicode-bidi: isolate; to the <sup ... class="mw-ref"> tags.

This is probably right. That's what is done on the web version. I don't know how to inspect elements in the app :)

In T251983#6115370, @Amire80 wrote:

In T251983#6113846, @Huji wrote:

The solution is to apply this CSS rule: unicode-bidi: isolate; to the <sup ... class="mw-ref"> tags.

This is probably right. That's what is done on the web version. I don't know how to inspect elements in the app :)

I imagine this CSS rule is missing in Parsoid's CSS module.

In T251983#6115370, @Amire80 wrote:

This is probably right. That's what is done on the web version. I don't know how to inspect elements in the app :)

You can look at the mobile-html output (see link in task description) in any browser -- on a desktop browser, too.

In T251983#6116184, @bearND wrote:

In T251983#6115370, @Amire80 wrote:

This is probably right. That's what is done on the web version. I don't know how to inspect elements in the app :)

You can look at the mobile-html output (see link in task description) in any browser -- on a desktop browser, too.

Correct. And in fact, that is how I made sure the CSS solution I proposed actually fixes the issue.

Once the upstream Parsoid fix is in place we'll want to replicate in mobile-actions. @ssastry would you please ping us when the Parsoid fix is done?

Change 596248 had a related patch set uploaded (by Subramanya Sastry; owner: Subramanya Sastry):
[mediawiki/core@master] WIP: Fix RTL directionality issue with refs

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/596248

This turned out to be a bit of a small rabbit hole.

• Arlo pointed out in review of the above patch that Parsoid originally had this property set for span.reference but in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/services/parsoid/+/398616 we replaced span with sup as a fix for T45094.
• As part of T45094 changes, Ed then fixed Cite's CSS in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/Cite/+/401501/1/modules/ext.cite.style.css#11 so that the .mw-ref styles applied broadly, but this one now has unicode-isolate: embed. Since we didn't touch up the stray Cite CSS in core, Parsoid's isolate property no longer applied now.
• So, I go looking for where the unicode-isolate:embed comes from. It turns out that comes from a fix @Amire80 made in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/Cite/+/224247 for T105605. For core Cite as well, there seems to have been attempt to change the isolate property to something else which Ori later reverted in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/Cite/+/233845.

So, anyway, I am going to:
(a) change Cite's CSS (ext.cite.style.css which is Parsoid/VE specific not to be confused with ext.cite.styles.css (note the plural) :-)) isolate and add Amir as a reviewer so he can review it and see that the change from embed to isolate is correct
(b) Get rid of the stray Parsoid CSS styles (for Cite) from mediawiki/core and add anything that is relevant to Cite's ext.cite.style.css
(c) Separately, we'll see if we can rename / merge ext.cite.style.css and ext.cite.styles.css

Re c: or at least rename ext.cite.style.css to parsoid.ext.cite.styles.css (which we can do w/o or before merging the styles) to make this less confusing to review!

Change 598125 had a related patch set uploaded (by Subramanya Sastry; owner: Subramanya Sastry):
[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Sync unicode-bidi property for <sup> tags between Parsoid & core impls

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/598125

Change 596248 abandoned by Subramanya Sastry:
Fix RTL directionality issue with refs

Reason:
In favour of https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/extensions/Cite/ /598125 .. We'll remove the stray Cite styles out of here in a separate patch.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/596248

In T251983#6159603, @cscott wrote:

Re c: or at least rename ext.cite.style.css to parsoid.ext.cite.styles.css (which we can do w/o or before merging the styles) to make this less confusing to review!

There is a (deployment) ordering problem with simply renaming it since Parsoid's Cite implementation is in the Parsoid repo and CSS module declaration (ext.cite.style.css) is in there. Since we are in the process of starting to migrate Parsoid's implementations to the respective extension repos, once that is done, it is simpler to do this change (merge / refactor / rename).

On last piece of the puzzle, "span.reference" changed to "span.mw-ref",
https://github.com/wikimedia/parsoid/commit/361c7e7b722c26a18f2828b4e21041d52a29b9be#diff-145dd2c3c665462c7ad4ff10c6e60b75L408

when we started loading from "ext.cite.style.css",
https://github.com/wikimedia/parsoid/commit/361c7e7b722c26a18f2828b4e21041d52a29b9be#diff-f92dbd08070410e3a1503b08a869afaeR348

Will file a separate phab task for that.

In T251983#6159622, @Arlolra wrote:

On last piece of the puzzle, "span.reference" changed to "span.mw-ref",
https://github.com/wikimedia/parsoid/commit/361c7e7b722c26a18f2828b4e21041d52a29b9be#diff-145dd2c3c665462c7ad4ff10c6e60b75L408

when we started loading from "ext.cite.style.css",
https://github.com/wikimedia/parsoid/commit/361c7e7b722c26a18f2828b4e21041d52a29b9be#diff-f92dbd08070410e3a1503b08a869afaeR348

Ah, ok, so the changes proceeded from: span.reference -> span.mw-ref -> sup.mw-ref .. I missed that transition in between.

We can handle the deployment ordering problem, just make sure they are both merged within the same train window.

Change 598125 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Sync unicode-bidi property for <sup> tags between Parsoid & core impls

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/598125

In T251983#6133884, @dr0ptp4kt wrote:

Once the upstream Parsoid fix is in place we'll want to replicate in mobile-actions. @ssastry would you please ping us when the Parsoid fix is done?

This change went out in MW 1.35.0-wmf.35 the week of June 2.

@bearND please verify it looks fixed on your end and resolve / update task appropriately. Thanks!

Change 607595 had a related patch set uploaded (by BearND; owner: BearND):
[mediawiki/services/mobileapps@master] Fix display of references for RTL

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/607595

Thanks for the ping. It's still broken because in mobileapps we have our own copy of styles. I've copied the changes you made in the Cite ext fix.

Change 607595 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/services/mobileapps@master] Fix display of references for RTL

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/607595

@Traffic Is mwmaint1002 still the host to use when using mwscript purgeList.php?
On that host I've tried echo 'https://meta.wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/data/css/mobile/base' | mwscript purgeList.php and the script was fine with it but I still see old contents when accessing the URL.
OLD/actual:
.mw-ref{[...]unicode-bidi:embed;

$ curl -s "https://meta.wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/data/css/mobile/base" | grep -o '.mw-ref{[^}]*'
.mw-ref{vertical-align:super;line-height:1;font-size:smaller;unicode-bidi:embed;font-weight:400;font-style:normal

NEW/expected:
.mw-ref{[...]unicode-bidi:-moz-isolate;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;unicode-bidi:isolate

$ curl -s "https://meta.wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/data/css/mobile/base?a=1" | grep -o '.mw-ref{[^}]*'         
.mw-ref{vertical-align:super;line-height:1;font-size:smaller;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;unicode-bidi:-moz-isolate;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;unicode-bidi:isolate