Inconsistency in thousands separator between superscripts and reference list
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	Rchard2scout
	May 27 2020, 10:50 AM

Description

If there are more than 1000 references on a page (for example, the current version of the COVID-19 pandemic article, the superscripts will have thousands separators. However, the reference list at the bottom does not have the thousands separator.

In my opinion, the thousands separators don't add to the readability of the superscripts, and they should be removed. This is probably also the easiest solution technically, because there doesn't seem to be an easy way to tell browsers to format a HTML list with thousands separators (and there could be localization issues, where the client-side localization might use another thousands separator than the server-side localization that's currently used).

Details

	Subject	Repo	Branch	Lines +/-
	Replace extremely slow parser test with fast unit tests	mediawiki/extensions/Cite	master	+11 -2 K
	Do not add thousands separators when formatting reference numbers	mediawiki/extensions/Cite	master	+2 K -3

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Event Timeline

Rchard2scout created this task.May 27 2020, 10:50 AM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptMay 27 2020, 10:50 AM

Aklapper renamed this task from Mismatch in thousands separator between superscripts and reference list to Inconsistency in thousands separator between superscripts and reference list.May 27 2020, 11:02 AM

Sdkb subscribed.May 27 2020, 5:55 PM

For context, I brought this up here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Vn53tjmuvuwey29w

The thousands separator is almost certainly unintentional, probably no developer has ever tested using 1000 references on a single page… and the default in MediaWiki is to format numbers with language-specific digits and thousands separators.

Change 599129 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; owner: Bartosz Dziewoński):
[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Do not add thousands separators when formatting reference numbers

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/599129

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.May 27 2020, 10:10 PM

matmarex added a project: covid-19.May 27 2020, 10:19 PM

Of all the ways in which COVID could have impacted us, this was one the most outlandish.
Thanks @matmarex for publishing a fix and including a unit test (perhaps the largest unit test ever).

Change 599129 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Do not add thousands separators when formatting reference numbers

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/599129

ReleaseTaggerBot added a project: MW-1.35-notes (1.35.0-wmf.35; 2020-06-02).May 28 2020, 2:00 AM

Maintenance_bot removed a project: Patch-For-Review.May 28 2020, 2:10 AM

thiemowmde added a project: WMDE-QWERTY-Sprint-2020-05-27.May 28 2020, 7:11 AM

thiemowmde moved this task from Unsorted backlog to Defect backlog on the Cite board.

thiemowmde moved this task from Sprint Backlog to Watching on the WMDE-QWERTY-Sprint-2020-05-27 board.

thiemowmde subscribed.

Thanks @Huji. I'm not sure if the size of the test is something to be proud of, but it seemed difficult to simulate having 1000 references without actually writing them out ;)

@thiemowmde I'm not sure what are your workflows within the team, do you want to review or test this or something, or should we close the task?

Just monitoring. You can close it. :-)

@matmarex here, size matters!

Closing as resolved.

Change 941428 had a related patch set uploaded (by Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE); author: Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE)):

[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Replace extremely slow parser test with fast unit tests

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/941428

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Jul 25 2023, 2:08 PM

Change 941428 merged by jenkins-bot: