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Unwanted non-breaking spaces (nbsp) inserted on undo when using local wikEd gadget
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Description

I recently undid an erroneous revision of mine, using the "Undo" option. I've often done this, but this time a previous paragraph ended up with several ordinary spaces replaced by the non-breaking space code  . [[[ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Text_formatting&diff=prev&oldid=1012838941&diffmode=source | Link ]]]. I didn't ever edit the paragraph so corrupted; I'm quite sure it's not anything that I did. In the last few months I've come across quite a number of articles with weird unwarranted nbsps; I never saw them before-perhaps they got in the same way while undoing, or due to some other issue in the Wikipedia editing/undoing/saving processes? If this error happens it will almost always be invisible to the user; this case came to my attention because someone immediately reverted the nbsps.

I can't indicate how to replicate the error.

Event Timeline

Aklapper changed the task status from Open to Stalled.Mar 18 2021, 8:35 PM
Aklapper removed a project: Editing-team.

Hi @Pol098, thanks for taking the time to report this and welcome to Wikimedia Phabricator! For future reference, please follow https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_report_a_bug . Setting stalled status as the question is if this also happens when disabling WikEd.

I confirm that WikEd was enabled.

I've now found that this was reported years ago (I didn't find it when I searched before reporting this). Report T183647. There's also a discussion on the WikEd Talk page. Essentially: WikEd converts embedded non-breaking spaces into visible ` ` . This is by design; it is considered bad practice to use hard spaces that are invisible to an editor. The real issue is that hard spaces get inserted into articles where soft spaces should have been used, possibly by copying and pasting. This becomes visible when edited with WikEd.

Aklapper renamed this task from Unwanted non-breaking spaces (nbsp) inserted on undo to Unwanted non-breaking spaces (nbsp) inserted on undo when using local wikEd gadget.Mar 19 2021, 10:13 AM
Aklapper closed this task as Invalid.

Glad you found the reason. Closing here as wikEd issues are not tracked in Phabricator.