Change Details

I realize that this is a big topic that was discussed in the past, and that the answer was between inconclusive and negative, but I'd nevertheless like to raise it again. That's why I title it "consider stopping" rather than "stop". For over a year I have been examining appearances of <nowiki> tags in the Hebrew Wikipedia, mostly in VIsualEditor edits. The most common reason for their appearance is typing letters immediately after links (I counted). Adding <nowiki/> does what the user theoretically means: to exclude the letters after the link ("trail") from the link itself, so in a certain technical way it's the right behavior. In practice, however, this is //never// what the user wants. Never, ever. The auto-inserted <nowiki/> was needed exactly zero times out of over at least a thousand edits in which it was inserted between a link and its trail since June 2015. At least in the Hebrew Wikipedia; I didn't check any other language with nearly the same level of care, but I am absolutely certain about Hebrew. It is also the most common reason for the auto-insertion of <nowiki> in VE edits. //Every// single edit that does this in the Hebrew Wikipedia must be fixed by removing the <nowiki/> tag and including the trail in the link, so it would be easier for patrolers if it just wasn't inserted in the first place. I understand that theoretically it may sometimes be needed. In practice "sometimes" is not even "rare", but "never", and if it's "very rare" it would be OK to have this as an extremely rare edge case that can be only done using source editing. I understand that VE is supposed to provide everything that the source editor provides, but it seems reasonable to make this an exception. Again, this is not a demand to make an immediate change, but a sober data-driven proposal for discussion. Also, as I already mentioned, I only have data for Hebrew, and other languages may have different needs, so I welcome comments from people who write in all languages. Thanks.

I realize that this is a big topic that was discussed in the past, and that the answer was between inconclusive and negative, but I'd nevertheless like to raise it again. That's why I title it "consider stopping" rather than "stop". For over a year I have been examining appearances of <nowiki> tags in the Hebrew Wikipedia, mostly in VIsualEditor edits. The most common reason for their appearance is typing letters immediately after links (I counted). Adding <nowiki/> does what the user theoretically means: to exclude the letters after the link ("trail") from the link itself, so in a certain technical way it's the right behavior. In practice, however, this is //never// what the user wants. Never, ever. The auto-inserted <nowiki/> was needed exactly zero times out of over at least a thousand edits in which it was inserted between a link and its trail since June 2015. At least in the Hebrew Wikipedia; I didn't check any other language with nearly the same level of care, but I am absolutely certain about Hebrew. It is also the most common reason for the auto-insertion of <nowiki> in VE edits. //Every// single edit that does this in the Hebrew Wikipedia must be fixed by removing the <nowiki/> tag and including the trail in the link, so it would be easier for patrolers if it just wasn't inserted in the first place. I understand that theoretically it may sometimes be needed. In practice "sometimes" is not even "rare", but "never", and if it's "very rare" it would be OK to have this as an extremely rare edge case that can be only done using source editing. I understand that VE is supposed to provide everything that the source editor provides, but it seems reasonable to make this an exception. Again, this is not a demand to make an immediate change, but a sober data-driven proposal for discussion. Also, as I already mentioned, I only have data for Hebrew, and other languages may have different needs, so I welcome comments from people who write in all languages. Thanks. ---- Special case: {T142927}

I realize that this is a big topic that was discussed in the past, and that the answer was between inconclusive and negative, but I'd nevertheless like to raise it again. That's why I title it "consider stopping" rather than "stop". For over a year I have been examining appearances of <nowiki> tags in the Hebrew Wikipedia, mostly in VIsualEditor edits. The most common reason for their appearance is typing letters immediately after links (I counted). Adding <nowiki/> does what the user theoretically means: to exclude the letters after the link ("trail") from the link itself, so in a certain technical way it's the right behavior. In practice, however, this is //never// what the user wants. Never, ever. The auto-inserted <nowiki/> was needed exactly zero times out of over at least a thousand edits in which it was inserted between a link and its trail since June 2015. At least in the Hebrew Wikipedia; I didn't check any other language with nearly the same level of care, but I am absolutely certain about Hebrew. It is also the most common reason for the auto-insertion of <nowiki> in VE edits. //Every// single edit that does this in the Hebrew Wikipedia must be fixed by removing the <nowiki/> tag and including the trail in the link, so it would be easier for patrolers if it just wasn't inserted in the first place. I understand that theoretically it may sometimes be needed. In practice "sometimes" is not even "rare", but "never", and if it's "very rare" it would be OK to have this as an extremely rare edge case that can be only done using source editing. I understand that VE is supposed to provide everything that the source editor provides, but it seems reasonable to make this an exception. Again, this is not a demand to make an immediate change, but a sober data-driven proposal for discussion. Also, as I already mentioned, I only have data for Hebrew, and other languages may have different needs, so I welcome comments from people who write in all languages. Thanks. ---- Special case: {T142927}