Support for spaceless headings
Closed, DeclinedPublic
Actions

Assigned To

None

Authored By

	JnpoJuwan
	Aug 27 2025, 11:30 PM

Description

The difference between headings with spaces (== Foobar ==) and those without (==Foobar==) is minor but important. WikiEditor, VisualEditor and CodeMirror currently generate spaced headings using the menus or with keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + 1–6.

This proves an annoyance while editing and a problem while editing English Wiktionary, where the normalization guidelines mandates that mainspace entry headings be unspaced and triggers an abuse filter if not followed.

I request that a setting be added that when checked, makes the headings be created without spaces.

Event Timeline

JnpoJuwan created this task.Aug 27 2025, 11:30 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptAug 27 2025, 11:30 PM

Shouldn't you also file tickets for WikiEditor and VisualEditor? CodeMirror just keeps the implementation consistent with existing shortcuts.

JnpoJuwan renamed this task from Support for spaceless headings in CodeMirror to Support for spaceless headings.Aug 30 2025, 8:12 PM

JnpoJuwan added projects: WikiEditor (2010), VisualEditor.

JnpoJuwan updated the task description. (Show Details)

Given that the policy was decided many many years ago it might be time to reconsider it. It doesn't even appear to be consistent with other Wiktionaries. Adding a bunch of complexity to multiple different products to support a convention only used by one wiki (or maybe a small handful of wikis) seems like the wrong choice to make.

I concur with Esanders. This is not a job for CodeMirror, WikiEditor, or the 2017 editor.

I can provide guidance to create a custom CodeMirror extension for enwiktionary that does this, if you'd like (reach out to me on my talk page); But that would still only solve it for CodeMirror. You'd need the same customizations for WikiEditor and the 2017 editor too, and I'm not sure that's even possible.

With that in mind, I will close this as declined, but do reach out if you want help with the CodeMirror extension!

In T403136#11143710, @Esanders wrote:

Given that the policy was decided many many years ago it might be time to reconsider it. It doesn't even appear to be consistent with other Wiktionaries. Adding a bunch of complexity to multiple different products to support a convention only used by one wiki (or maybe a small handful of wikis) seems like the wrong choice to make.

Yes, Wiktionaries have different conventions. For instance, French Wiktionary puts templates in headings in entries, and we (English Wiktionarians) have plaintext headings in entries. French Wiktionary uses Arabic vowel diacritics in entry names (أَحْمَرٌ) and we don't (أحمر). French Wiktionary uses curly apostrophes (don’t) and we don't (don't). Wiktionaries are sort of their own countries, and monolinguals like me don't know that much about the others (besides getting notifications from Wikidata because other Wiktionaries are porting over English Wiktionary's module and template and category infrastructure).

French Wiktionary appears to use spaced headings. Chinese Wiktionary appears to use some unspaced headings (μαντεῖον). I don't know if any other Wiktionary is as picky about unspaced headings as English Wiktionary is, or to what degree our gadgets, bots, and other code are dependent on headings being unspaced.

Support for spaceless headingsClosed, DeclinedPublicActions

Description

Event Timeline

Support for spaceless headings
Closed, DeclinedPublic
Actions