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Where is full documentation?

This page is missing a bunch of tags. For example it does not document <ref> or <source>. Where is either a link to this documentation or the description itself? Thank you. Jrincayc (talk) 13:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid as far as I know this is the page that gives the best index, and yes needs more work ... the link for 'source' is hidden away, (mw:Extension:SyntaxHighlight GeSHi), and any mention of 'ref' seems to be missing!

I started a section on using references, I only know a few attributes myself so please help by adding any I missed Frequencydip (talk) 17:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(Wikipedia:Footnotes), please list any others you find missing. --Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 19:48, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The page Help:Wikitext examples used to have examples for the 'ref' and 'source' tags. Until someone deleted all the text on that page and made it into a redirect[1]. Is it better to (a) unto that delete and restore that page, or (b) merge all the information that was on that page into this Help:Wiki markup page? --68.0.124.33 (talk) 05:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Most of that previous page was merged, or at least covered by this one.. obviously not 'ref' which we should merge/create a section for...maybe with mention of the cite templates? Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 22:28, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just a little warning: The documention will always be incomplete, since Wikipedia is changing and programmers are known for being lazy with documentation (like everybody else: see the summaries in page histories). -- Tomdo08 (talk) 10:00, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Semi/colon

I just added a semicolon and colon to the text describing it, to show examples, and given the following results, I’m guessing said description is incomplete:

A semicolon at the start of a line

is not displayed, but has the effect of rendering the newline.

A colon in such a line is not rendered,

but has the effect of starting a new, indented line.

I really have no idea what a semicolon is supposed to do, but that description is inaccurate. —Frungi (talk) 04:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. A semicolon at the start of a line renders the line in bold. -- œ ^™ 10:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn’t looked at the HTML source before, but a semicolon renders as a <dt> element, and a colon as a <dd> element, which implies they should be used as such:

Term Definition	;Term :Definition

I’m not sure how this should work in Wikipedia articles, or even if it has any relevance whatsoever. I added the semicolon item because I noticed it in use on this page, but should we remove it? —Frungi (talk) 20:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reply

In practice, semicolons are usually used to make a very minor subheading – one that will not appear in the table of contents. With colons used mostly for simple indentation, this means that they are very rarely paired with semicolons, despite the HTML implying that they should be. But we ought to explain to people what the semicolon does so they understand why some subheadings are formatted very differently from the ==usual== heading styles. In effect, the Wikitext semantics have now diverged from the HTML semantics, despite the Wikitext being converted to <dt> and <dd> when rendered. — Richardguk (talk) 02:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I thought subheadings beyond ====a certain level==== stopped appearing in the table of contents. I could have sworn I remembered reading that somewhere. I could be wrong though, as I don’t have time to check right now. And in the interest of accessibility, shouldn’t Wikitext use HTML elements that make semantic sense? The use of <dt> and <dd> don’t. —Frungi (talk) 01:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The level up to which level the table of contents displays subheadings is something you can set, see WP:TOC. There is a MoS reqirement that consecutive headings shouldn't skip levels (so no second-level heading followed by a fourth- or sixth-level heading), see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (layout)#Headings and sections and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (accessibility)#Headings. As the semicolon is used in FA-rated articles for the very purpose of non-displayed sub-headings, I think it shouldn't have been removed from the help page, even if the HTML is strange. --Rontombontom (talk) 09:50, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Standalone colons should be converted to something like <ul class="no_bullets"> so they will mix with lists created by * and #. Standalone semicolons to e.g. <h6>. 2aprilboy ^talk 16:22, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mailto Escape

I am looking for a way to link distribution lists internally. For example [All Employees] is a distribution list setup for us to use with Outlook. It uses brackets as an indicator for a distribution list. I would like to add mailto links. When I try to use html code or the nowiki indicators, I always end up with something that is non-functional. Any ideas? -CoolCole 16:52, 13 May 2010 (EST)

I don’t know what you mean by a distribution list in Wiki, but email links work the same as HTTP links. —Frungi (talk) 17:03, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We could use a smaller picture

If we used a smaller picture in the images section we could reduce the size a little ... and bring the instructions closer together, don't know what picture, something simple, colourful? anything really. We could replace image on the cheatsheet to reduce its size a tad too... I like the WP globe - but we do have it in the top left already ;) Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 12:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Problem: PDF of this page has malformed table (goes off edges of display/paper) in Images section (pages 16-18).
Cause: All other tables are 766 px or less wide, but the Images table is formatted to 1027 px by unknown means.
Code Fix: Unknown. Firebugged the code but table absolutely refuses to narrow using either direct code or CSS. D***edest thing I've ever seen.; JimScott (talk) 05:26, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the article.

Looks as if Gedionye 9 Oct 2010 has replaced the entire article with Ethiopian DVDs or somesuch. Also looks as if it's happened before several times. I'm new to this. Will look back in a few days. Maybe this person should be blocked.Wodawik (talk) 04:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

what does this mean?

I was wondering what does the following tag does? <nowiki/> Thank you, Bud0011 (talk) 16:41, 17 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

See Help:Wiki markup#Limiting formatting/escaping wiki markup. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:48, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An empty nowiki tag (ending with a slash) probably wouldn’t do anything… does it even have any effect? Unless it was a typo, that is, in which case, PrimeHunter is right. —Frungi (talk) 17:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

<nowiki/> can be used to prevent certain characters from having a special effect at the beginning of a line (such as an asterisk, hash, colon, semicolon or equals sign, which are usually interpreted as wikimarkup at the beginning of a line) or, less commonly, from having a special effect by being adjacent (such as pairs of braces, tildes or square brackets, and wikitable markup). — Richardguk (talk) 04:40, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so it’s a NOP that interrupts wikitext. —Frungi (talk) 05:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Space Within External Link?

I made a template that includes a link to an external page. I use this wikitext:

[www.domain.com/whatever.php?variable={{{code}}} Link Title]

However, the "code" parameter is meant to contain a space, so my link is broken and the last half of the parameter is included in the Link Title. Is there a way to force the URL to not break because of the space? I tried surrounding in quotes, but this didn't work. Soave (talk) 04:12, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can't use %20? —Tamfang (talk) 05:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The variable I'm trying to use needs to be displayed elsewhere on the Wiki page without "%20". The workaround for now it having two variables, one with %20 and one with a space, but it would be easier if it was just one variable. Any ideas? Soave (talk) 17:22, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Try wrapping it with {{urlencode:}}; see mw:Help:Magic words. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:04, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't appear to work for template variables. I tried "%7B%7B%7BvariableName%7D%7D%7D" (as well as wrapping the entire URL) without any luck. Edit: Never mind, had the wrong variable name. Thanks!! Soave (talk) 18:34, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion for a keyword index

How about we make a section at the top which lists various keywords e.g. <nowiki> as above and link them to the relevent sections ... should help a few people out? Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 10:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Almost sounds like a markup glossary. Something like that would definitely be useful. WP seems to be missing that sort of documentation. —Frungi (talk) 06:05, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll knock one up as time permits - if it is too cumbersome on this page, we can always have it as a separate index page! Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 18:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Updating section: Blend link

I am planning to update section "Blend link" for better clarity, to note "Some endings" are blended. Also, will explain use of "<nowiki/>" or smaller "" to suppress the blending. The nowiki-slash tag seems to add 44 bytes to the post-expand size (versus 4 bytes for ""), and might be a problem when used many times. Internally, a nowiki tag typically stores an identifier, such as: , rather than just 4 bytes for "". -Wikid77 12:10, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~ is never valid, it should be . ---~~— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:25, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Part of me wants to complain about improper semantic use of the tag here… but we all indent our discussion replies as dictionary list definitions, so I guess that sort of thing isn’t a concern on WP. —Frungi (talk) 07:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Amending titles

How does one amend the title of an article? (I need to add an accent to make a name correct.)—User:Philipparham (talk) 17:28, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Help:How to move a page. Questions no related to markup should be asked at the Wikipedia:Help desk. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:46, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Apostrophe after italics

How can I render the following:

Italic text's yadda yadda

in wiki markup? If I type

''Italic text'''s yadda yadda

the formatting is greedy, not lazy, and so it takes the first ' as the apostrophe, so it gets italicized, not what I want. 132.162.216.66 (talk) 01:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Use {{'}} (see Template:'):

''Italic text''{{'}}s yadda yadda

produces

Italic text's yadda yadda

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 04:54, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two ways to do this:

Markup	Renders as
''Italic text''{{'}}s yadda yadda	Italic text's yadda yadda
''Italic text''<nowiki />'s yadda yadda	Italic text's yadda yadda

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:59, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brackets within the link of the "File:"

I try to use this format [[File:someimage|link={{{place}}}}]] by placing a value of the parameter to link to the article, but some of the editors give the value within the infobox in square brackets.

If we add the value as:

[[File:Flag of the United States.svg|20px|link=USA]] =>

is OK, but when we do:

[[File:Flag of the United States.svg|20px|link=[[USA]]]] =>

, we can't link to the article. Is there a possibility to solve this problem?--WlaKom (talk) 23:20, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is this because this is the wrong link...

[[File:Flag of the United States.svg|20px|link=United States]]

↔

...? QM400032 (talk) 02:05, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links

Wouldn't it be simpler to state the characters that need to be encoded rather than the characters that don't:

sp	"	,	'	;	<	>	?	[	]
%20	%22	%2c	%3a	%3b	%3c	%3e	%3f	%5b	%5d

Single apostrophes do not need to be encoded; multiples will be parsed as italic or bold markup

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:18, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

I was just trying to learn about the proper way to do word pronunciation guides in an article. So I went to Help:Editing which lead to this page. I expected to, at least, be referred to the places that talk about it. Alas, nothing.

Does it make sense to have an Adding Word Pronunciation section that has a brief description with links to the appropriate pages? Donpayette (talk) 14:31, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I added a small Pronunciation Aids section to get it started. Add, delete, modify to your hearts' content. Donpayette (talk) 21:37, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

what is {{Unicode|}} ? --Qdinar (talk) 13:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See its documentation here. Also with most templates you can write {{Tl|Unicode}} to get a link ("Tl" stands for "Template link") in a display of the template like this {{Unicode}}. fg ^t _c 22:39, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia: wiki markup is cool!

I love the Wikipedia: wiki markup section because you can change text into colors like this. Thanks Wikipedia! CPGirlAJ (talk) 22:22, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Definition lists

I would have hoped that we had moved beyond the simplistic idea that everybody sees our output in the same way. Far too many articles misuse definition lists to produce bold markup as if non-visual user agents didn't exist. If we use this sort of markup ;Notes, we will produce this html:

<dl>
<dt>Notes</dt>
</dl>

which is a definition list. See http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/lists.html#h-10.3 . Although it may look like bold markup to a sighted reader, anybody using a non-visual agent will hear the start of a definition list, but no definition. We should not be making our text any more confusing for the visually-impaired than we have to, so I have removed our (dated) advice to use this markup in order to avoid the subheadings appearing in the table of contents.

Ideally third-level subheadings should be marked up as third-level headers (using ===). I understand that some people dislike seeing them in the table of contents, but in that case, please use {{TOC limit|n}} or simply mark up the subheadings as bold, as that at least is harmless to most screen readers. --RexxS (talk) 16:08, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see there was more that I missed and that you're seeing the TOC-limit option, too. All goodness; carry on. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:15, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

HTML v. wikimarkup

There are several sections that cover HTML, not wikimarkup:

Line breaks
Center text
Text formatting
Special characters
Invisible text (comments)

And some sections cover templates:

"As of" tag
Pronunciation aids

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:32, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

android problems

This article doesn't discuss android problems or provide solutions, for example why text visible as italics on Windows, i.e. correctly marked up with apostrophes, is displayed without italics in android 4.0.4. --Espoo (talk) 12:45, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki markup is supposed to be browser-neutral. Editors are not expected to put browser-specific code into articles, that's why it's not mentioned. If any browsers behave differently (and believe me, none are exactly the same as the others) we sometimes put special code into one or more of the various CSS classes or Javascript files.

You're probably best posting at WP:VPT giving as much detail as possible - not just the browser version, but also which pages are affected, and which wikimarkup is misbehaving. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indent and outdent

I've changed (I hope enhanced) the description of indent & added outdent - description & reference - mainly because I keep forgetting how to do the outdent when I need it. One is one and one is one (talk) 04:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Introductory Video Inappropriate

I don't think that the video present next to the table of contents should have been added in the first place because of how it is basically a slideshow covering only some of the article's content instead of a complete, step-by-step tutorial, which would be more appropriate if it were either added to its own section before the first section or after the last one or broken into segments pertaining to each of the article's sections. I also think that the video's creator did not consider the superfluity introduced into the video by its background music. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BCG999 (talk • contribs) 01:31, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

References in other languages or "Who holds the truth"

The ref in other languages section seems wrong in saying "es:plancton" between double square brackets. It does not work, and Jason at the teahouse indicated ":es:plancton" between sq.br., which work. So: what is the reference ??? the proof in the pudding or the manual page (which I hesitate to change, because that has meta-impact. Frederic Y Bois (talk) 20:45, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing wrong with the manual page. Thanks for not trying to change it. As Help:Wiki markup#Link to the same article in another language (interlanguage links) says, there are two types of interlanguage links. The primary one is without colon and creates a link under the "Languages" heading in the left pane of the page, regardless of where the link code was placed. For example, [[es:Plancton]] is near the bottom of the wiki source of Plankton, but it creates the link on the word "Español" at Plankton#p-lang. The other type of link is with colon and and rarely used. It places a link right where the code is. For example the code [[:es:Plancton]] is here: es:Plancton. Neither of the link types are allowed as references for the content in an English Wikipedia article. Wikipedia itself is not considered a reliable source by our own policies and should not be used as a reference. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:04, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Please note that the [[]] markup is not a reference, but a link. See WP:CITEBEGIN to find out about references.

I'm not sure which page you have in mind when you write "the ref in other languages section", but please see Help:Interlanguage links for details about the difference between [[es:plancton]] (without initial colon) and [[:es:plancton]] (with initial colon). Briefly, both forms create a link to a page on another Wikipedia (in this case Spanish), but the difference lies in where that link is placed. The form without an initial colon puts the link in the left-hand margin of the page, under the "Languages" heading (the link is shown as "Español"); whereas the form with an initial colon puts the link in the normal flow of text. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rework

As I get into this, it seems to me that this help page has become rather a mish-mash of information. Much of it is useful, but much of it just doesn't work here. There is a lot here beyond the title subject of wikimarkup. Much is better covered on other help pages.

Text formatting: this should be moved to Help:Text formatting
Headings: Help:Section
Line breaks: Wikipedia:Line-break handling
Special characters: Help:Special characters
Lists: Help:List
Quotations: create Help:Quotations to handle the technical creation of quotations (currently a redirect o an essay)
Links: Help:Link and Help:URL
Pronunciation: Help:IPA
Images: Wikipedia:Picture tutorial
Tables: Help:Table
References: Wikipedia:Citing sources, Help:Footnotes and others
Templates: Help:Templates
Talk pages: Help:Talk
Limiting formatting: Help:Text formatting
Variables: Help:Magic words

--— Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 13:04, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

mish-mash is an understatement! Not wanting to decipher text that is actually examples of marking up is the same reason why I stay away from crossword puzzles, or that sudoku stuff. Suggest instead a sample page each from a number of featured articles, and listed underneath the markups used therein, and explanations for them. I would guess that 99% of the population can handle learning it that way. 69.117.164.197 (talk) 02:18, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Magic links

PMID 12122621 MediaWiki:Pubmedurl
ISBN 978-0-471-70410-2
RFC 882 MediaWiki:rfcurl

--— Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 13:58, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

formating question

I need how to write a caret notation in italic (this not related to any wikimedia project, but urgent). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 20:34, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

semicolon issue?

Without discussion here, someone added a new markup restriction as a hatnote. I took it out:

If this is actually a problem, why is there no discussion of it here? What about the thousands or millions of pages that use it? Can't we get the techies to make it make valid HTML5? I bet they do already. Dicklyon (talk) 01:47, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added that.

Now this page fails W3C markup validation for Help talk:Wiki markup for "Element dl is missing a required instance of child element dd." The HTML5 specification states "You must pair at least one <dt>...</dt> with at least one <dd>...</dd>." In wikimarkup, this means that every ; must have a :. Using definition list markup to simply bold a line is semantically wrong. If you want to file a bug, go ahead, but currently it is a bad practice.. -- Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 02:31, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also see discussion on this page at #Semi/colon and #Definition lists. No mention of invalid HTML there, but there have been questions of accessibility. —Frungi (talk) 02:35, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can see why you think it's "bad practice", but it's not appropriate to let HTML5 spec drive wiki markup this way. And this page files the HTML5 test in two dozen other ways, too. The semicolon to bold a line is long established in WP. If it's to be discouraged, let's have some discussion of that. If it needs to be fixed, there will need to be an effort to do so, either in how wiki markup translates to HTML or in a big automated cleanup campaign. Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And please don't go changing guidelines based only on your own observations and opinions. This needs some discussion by others who know the long history and implications of the situation, I think. I reverted your re-changes. Dicklyon (talk) 04:26, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Doing something for a long time doesn’t make it right. The semicolon creates a definition list (see the rest of H:DL). If the semicolon is intended primarily to create a subheading, then MediaWiki needs to change how it’s rendered into HTML. Until then, using <dt>...</dt> as a section heading or simple bolding creates accessibility issues, and there are less problematic ways to do so (see WP:TOC). —Frungi (talk) 04:59, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just because there are other validation errors does not mean we should ignore the ones we have direct control over. The first few errors have bug reports. A number of the other errors are from signatures with the  tag. Let me ask: how did you learn that the semicolon was used to bold a line? Did you read it in the documentation or did you just copy it from some other use? -- Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 10:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Related edits at Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Reported validation bugs listed at Help:Markup validation, as is the semicolon issue. -- Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 10:49, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent question! Like most editors, I suspect, I learned wiki markup byy aping what I saw. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

"You must pair at least one <dt>...</dt> with at least one <dd>...</dd>." – does this mean that using colons (<dd>...</dd>) without a previous semicolon (<dt>...</dt>) to indent replies to comments in talk pages is now invalid? o.O — A. di M. 14:13, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and it’s always been semantically confusing (discussion replies are not definitions). But I think accessibility issues are more important on articles than talk pages, and colon-indenting is so endemic that there’s no point in trying to get people to stop. —Frungi (talk) 19:16, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If Mediawiki emits bad HTML from wikicode (rather than from HTML tags being directly inserted into a message), then that is a bug that should be fixed in the software. Editors should not worry, when they use pure wikicode, about whether it will create valid HTML, and we should not encourage them to worry about it. I agree with the removal of that line about HTML5. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:04, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Except that’s not it—improper use of wikicode generates bad HTML. —Frungi (talk) 19:24, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A lone semicolon line is broken markup, just like a {| without a matching |} is. There is arguably a bug in the software in that it lets such broken markup go undetected and generate invalid HTML, but that does not mean that we should encourage users to abuse it.—Emil J. 12:55, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) If we are to discourage the use of the semicolon wikicode (when used with no associated colon wikicode) because it yields a <dl><dt>...</dt></dl> which does not contain a <dd>...</dd>, we must also discourage the use of the colon wikicode (when used with no associated semicolon wikicode) because it yields a <dl><dd>...</dd></dl> which does not contain a <dt>...</dt>. I don't think that we are going to manage such discouragement - the use of colons is too well established (such as when it's used for thread indenting, e.g. at the start of this post) for change to happen now.

Please note that the structure enclosed by the DL element is now known as an "association list", although it was formerly known as a "definition list". --Redrose64 (talk) 13:01, 12 April 2013 (UTC) amended Redrose64 (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OTOH, I can't think of many terribly good reasons to use a <dd>...</dd> without a <dl>...</dl> in the article namespace, so just because we'll never use valid HTML5 in talk pages doesn't necessarily mean it'd be pointless to try to use valid HTML5 at least in the encyclopaedia proper. — A. di M. 14:20, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64: Yes, the use of the colon for indent does result in the markup you described. The W3C validation tool does not give an error on this use, so perhaps the tool is in error. I have never understood why the indent markup renders in this manner.

And to clarify: The HTML5 spec added the must. This markup usage did not fail validation until we switched to HTML5 in Sptember 2012.

Validation is a useful tool, especially for template editors. We have been rendering HTML5 for eight months now, and still have quite a bit of invalid markup that obscures issues that editors should be able to readily resolve (duplicate anchors is always a problem in manually created references). -- Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 15:19, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Bug - Colon (:) & semicolon (;) shouldn't output as HTML definition list when used for indentation, boldfacing (2006-01-07)

So: this isn't the first discussion on this issue, but previously the use did not result in invalid HTML. It hasn't been fixed in seven years, and I'm not going to speculate how long it will take for resolution.

Therefore, my statement stands: using the semicolon like this is improper and results in invalid HTML. It also results in some oddball markup, such as when a editor desires a bold line, but includes a colon, so they then have to <nowiki> the colon (real example here).

But I am not on a crusade: I fix it where I see it, but otherwise I am not too worried about it. -- Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 13:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Dicklyon, Gadget850, CBM, Redrose64, and A. di M.: Hey guys, did this issue ever get resolved? Shall we or shall we not continue to utilize semicolons to bold a line, like a heading within a section, as is the case all over the wiki? Thanks. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 18:13, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing we do here is likely to change the practice or reduce the number of pages that make this html error. If the invalid html5 is actually an issue, we should fix it by changing how semicolon and colon translate to html, not by trying to teach our editors new wiki markup rules. Dicklyon (talk) 19:24, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For one, the WikiProject Opera has incorporated the recommended use in its Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Article styles and formats, so I wouldn't discount recommendations made here altogether. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:28, 19 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That makes a lot of sense, saying "The format with a leading semicolon is no longer recommended because of compatibility issues with screen readers." Much better than declaring "Do not use" for something that is widely done. It won't fix anything, but it's true that it's not recommended. Like I said, if this is an actual problem, we should address it as such, rather than just put a "Do not use" and pretend we've done something. Dicklyon (talk) 19:48, 19 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Dicklyon and Michael Bednarek: Hi guys. I'm sorry to be a noob, but what exactly should all editors do, when they want to make a minor heading within a section, as I had described? You guys can go about discussing or solving any problems and I thank you for that, but what should editors actually do right now? I don't actually experience any problem from using semicolon-powered bold small headings. Is it something that we editors can just do right now, and which can be automatically replaced and upgraded later? I would like to have some designation for small headings, rather than just using three apostrophes and a carriage return to make it bold. Thanks. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 16:38, 19 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Smuckola: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Headings says "Do not make pseudo-headings using bold or semicolon markup.", it also shows how to make subsections that are consistent with the MoS. There are six levels of heading, four of which (levels 3 to 6) are suitable for use as subsection headings. More at MOS:HEADINGS and Help:Section. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:55, 19 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64: Ok I'll have to think about whether that'll suit practical reality though. For example, I've never seen a References section which contains actual subsections, but I guess they could. I'd have to make a fair amount of use of the {{toc limit}} template sometimes. So I can just try that out. Isn't this issue going to be solved inside of Mediawiki? And can you explain simply what exactly the problem is? I mean who actually sees a problematic symptom actually resulting from the use of a semicolon as a header, and what is the symptom? I mean does some web browser refuse to render something in a way that a human would notice? Thank you. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 01:33, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Smuckola: For a References section which contains actual subsections, you need look no further than Great North of Scotland Railway, which is currently on the main page as WP:TFA.

If you follow the link that I gave to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Headings, it says "Do not make pseudo-headings using bold or semicolon markup.", which I quoted above; if MOS:ACCESS advises against a practice, there will be very good reasons for that advice being included on that page, and we find that this is immediately followed by "Screen readers and other machines can only use correctly formatted headings." It is important to remember that not all web browsers yield visible output; there are various types of screen reader where the different elements are described in various ways. People like Graham87 (talk · contribs) or RexxS (talk · contribs) can indicate what these problems are in more precise ways than myself. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:59, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Adding a semicolon to the start of a line makes it read like this with JAWS, the most popular screen reader: "definition list of 1 items, <text>, list end", which is kinda annoying. Graham87 14:31, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Graham hits the nail on the head. Every visitor who comes to Wikipedia using a screen reader is faced with numerous problems (lack of captions on tables, missing alt text on images, information conveyed only by colour, etc.) and we should be striving to make their experience as pleasant as possible. Even things that are "kinda annoying" to Graham need to be addressed, because I know he is a most extraordinarily tolerant user, and screen reader users with less experience of Wikipedia can be put off by repeated nonsense like empty definition lists.

For what it's worth, if you want to make a heading, then why not use the wikimarkup for headings? The {{toc limit}} can sometimes be used to suppress unwanted subheadings, but even when it can't, is the TOC in Great North of Scotland Railway so terrible because it contains links to the subsections of the "Notes and References" section? If you can't stand even that and you must have bold 'pseudo-headings' as a visual presentation, then at least use wikimarkup for bold ('''Subheading''') because that can be skipped by many screen readers. --RexxS (talk) 15:28, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Idea: use a different element for colon markup

We seem to agree that when semicolon markup is used together with colon markup, that produces a valid association list; and when one is used in isolation from the other, that is invalid. How about somehow persuading the MediaWiki devs to add a feature that identifies where colon markup is used without any preceding semicolon markup, and then uses a completely different method of showing a sequential indent level, one that does not use an association list. I can demonstrate what I mean using the DIV element and a small amount of CSS:

First post
<div style="margin-left:1em;">First reply
<div style="margin-left:1em;">Second reply
<div style="margin-left:1em;">Third reply
</div></div></div>

First post

First reply

Second reply

Third reply

We would set up a class, possibly in MediaWiki:Common.css, to hold the margin-left:1em; together with any other styling that might be necessary. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:56, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn’t each : translate to one <div>...</div>? So wouldn’t it have to be more like:

First post
<div style="margin-left:1em;">First reply</div>
<div style="margin-left:1em;"><div style="margin-left:1em;">Second reply</div></div>
<div style="margin-left:1em;"><div style="margin-left:1em;"><div style="margin-left:1em;">Third reply</div></div></div>

First post

First reply

Second reply

Third reply

—Frungi (talk) 20:15, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here is that by closing all open DIV elements, and then opening a fresh set, it means that any one reply is not directly associated with the post(s) above. It's something akin to a colon-indented thread that doesn't observe WP:LISTGAP. Consider first a direct equivalent to my example above, using colon markup:

First post
:First reply
::Second reply
:::Third reply

This yields HTML as follows:

<p>First post</p>
<dl>
<dd>First reply
<dl>
<dd>Second reply
<dl>
<dd>Third reply</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>

Notice how each successive <dl><dd>...</dd></dl> construct is nested inside the one "above" it. But when we add blank lines, to create a direct equivalent to your example above (again using colon markup):

First post

:First reply

::Second reply

:::Third reply

we get HTML as follows:

<p>First post</p>
<dl>
<dd>First reply</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dd>
<dl>
<dd>Second reply</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dd>
<dl>
<dd>
<dl>
<dd>Third reply</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>

it's no longer three nested lists, but three separate lists. I imagine that closing and reopening DIV elements would produce similar accessibility problems.

Since the MediaWiki parser knows not to close the DD/DL elements until there is nothing outstanding, I expect it can do the same for nested DIVs. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:28, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I actually hadn’t realized colons worked that way. Hm… so then, we should never put a blank line between a comment and our replies, because that messes with the translation. Or maybe we need wikimarkup and HTML/CSS specific to Talk pages. —Frungi (talk) 23:53, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Bug - Colon (:) & semicolon (;) shouldn't output as HTML definition list when used for indentation, boldfacing (2006-01-07) -- Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 01:00, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aka ~~mw:Extension:LiquidThreads~~ mw:Flow. Helder 12:15, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The "==heading==" code is misleading.

I think the "==heading==" template should be changed to "==topic==" and "===subtopic===" and "====subtopic of subtopic====". By using heading while showing different text sizes, we indicate that it is a font, instead of an outline.

TheUnknownNinjaNN2 (talk) 14:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How about adding a line a la "Two == are used for sections, more for sub-sections, sub-sub-sections and so on." to clarify the use? Huon (talk) 05:51, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What does "a la" mean? That idea does sound better, though. TheUnknownNinjaNN2 (talk) 22:40, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's from the French, see wikt:fr:à la#Locution prépositive also wikt:fr:a la#Locution prépositive, or if you prefer English, wikt:à la#Preposition also wikt:a la#Preposition. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.

As for the issue, should I go make a change? What is the consensus?

TheUnknownNinjaNN2 (talk) 23:30, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know what you mean by font. The hatnote for the section leads you to Help:Section, which explains in depth. -- Gadget850^talk 00:17, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Could do something like this, but honestly it looks a bit silly:

Markup	Renders as
== Section ==	Section
=== Subsection ===	Subsection
==== Sub-subsection ====	Sub-subsection
===== Sub-sub-subsection =====	Sub-sub-subsection
====== Sub-sub-sub-subsection ======	Sub-sub-sub-subsection

—Frungi (talk) 00:41, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but code DOES look silly. The meaning is made extremely obvious so people don't mess stuff up. I see no reason why someone shouldn't do the same for Wikicode.

TheUnknownNinjaNN2 (talk) 06:19, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I meant the wording: “Sub-sub-sub-subsection.” But you have a point—that does make the meaning glaringly obvious. It just shouldn’t be comically so. —Frungi (talk) 06:40, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the comedy. I guess we need an appropriate name for each level?

TheUnknownNinjaNN2(Talk,Always willing to discuss this subject) 07:21, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I meant comic as in ridiculous or ludicrous, not comedic. —Frungi (talk) 07:38, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve edited the page, replacing the ==Heading== examples with a subset of the above. I’ve also split it into rows, as I’ve just done above. —Frungi (talk) 07:38, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm dropping out and unwatching. -- Gadget850^talk 10:55, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dropping out and unwatching?

TheUnknownNinjaNN2(Talk,Always willing to discuss this subject) 20:17, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Underlining

Shouldn't there be an underlining for the general guidelines of writing? I tried adding it twice, all to no avail (because both got deleted). QM400032 (talk) 13:01, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the consensus is that the subject is sufficiently covered at MOS:BADEMPHASIS and WP:Underlining. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:13, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If underlining is to be addressed at all in general guidelines, it should be discouraged—which is why we don’t have wiki markup for it (... is HTML). Or do you have a case where underlining is more appropriate than italicizing? —Frungi (talk) 15:33, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I’m sorry that you keep getting reverted, but this page is primarily about wiki markup. While the site also supports a good amount of HTML markup, HTML is not wiki markup, and is not the subject of this page. If a bit of HTML is in common editor use in the project (e.g., <ins>...</ins> and <del>...</del> when ~~editing~~ revising Talk page posts), it may be included here, but I really don’t think that’s true for ... underlining or CSS background colors. —Frungi (talk) 21:59, 11 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it IS true:

...
gives you
...
QM400032 (talk) 01:16, 18 May 2013 (UTC)‎[reply]

Um… okay, really not sure what you’re trying to say here. Underlining ellipses is not something that Wikipedia editors commonly do, so my point stands.

Also, your signature contains no links to your user page or Talk page, so you should probably fix that. —Frungi (talk) 01:26, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The ellipsis is a standard technique for representing markup whose actual content is immaterial, see the documentation at {{tag}}. QM400032 (talk · contribs) could have written some underlined text gives you some underlined text.

I think that what QM400032 is saying is that since the ... markup does have a visible effect, it should be described on this page. We are not saying that the ... markup should be excluded because it doesn't work - we are saying that it should be excluded from the page Help:Wiki markup because (i) it's not Wiki markup, but HTML, and as such is sufficiently described at Help:HTML in wikitext; (ii) we should not be encouraging the use of techniques that other pages (such as Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting) have stated should not be used. We should have consistent policies, and apply them consistently. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:58, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Should the output of redirects be shown?

NOTE: This thread is about the Help:Wiki markup#Redirects section of the page, and this change (Note added by Quiddity (talk) 08:31, 25 May 2013 (UTC))[reply]

In a lot of the examples on this page, the output of the markup is shown alongside the use of the markup. Another editor has attempted to add the output of redirects:

United States

But since redirects generally aren’t (and aren’t meant to be) seen this way, I question whether this is useful. Thoughts? —Frungi (talk) 17:57, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively, we could show (Redirected from …), which would be better, I think, but the examples don’t name a source page. Problem is this example can’t be formatted with existing CSS (it’s an IDed <div>, not a class), so it can’t reliably match the appearance; and again, not sure how useful it would be to include. —Frungi (talk) 19:37, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see no purpose served by displaying redirect output. Huon (talk) 18:55, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I, as the person who MADE the edit, do see some reasons to make the edit:

It could be useful for picky users who wish to create a redirect page.
It gives editors a feeling of how their pages look.

QM400032 (talk) 01:49, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But your second point isn’t true. The pages look like the target pages. That’s the whole point of redirecting. The process is mostly invisible to the reader, unless something goes wrong (like a double redirect).

As to your first point, I’m really not sure what you mean. A redirect page is blank except for the #REDIRECT. Could you clarify your point? —Frungi (talk) 02:43, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Added main link to Help:Redirect which covers this in full. -- Gadget850^talk 13:32, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a "Note" at the top of this thread, making it easier for people who come directly to the talkpage thread, to understand what the hell everyone is talking about. I hope this meme propagates. –Quiddity (talk) 08:31, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

{{Expand list|date=August 2011}} {|class="wikitable sortable"

Is this document supposed to be a complete reference for the WikiMedia markup language?

If not, then please put a link to the complete reference somewhere in the intro text. I was referred to this page form another summary page and neither is providing any help in trying to understand the language '{{Expand list|date=August 2011}} {|class="wikitable sortable"'

That I find in the article here List_of_cities_in_China_by_population.

The goal is to get the column like "Built-Up Area" to treat the data as numbers and sort appropriately. Instead the data is sorted as if it is text and the first number of the data is sorted, so that 5,000 is before 300 and then 1,000,000 is last.

So two issues:

1) Provide a clear source with complete markup language

2) If you by chance know how to get the table to sort by number, that would be great.

Thanks.Sthubbar (talk) 05:59, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is no single page listing all the possible markup and issues. Within Help:Wiki markup, tables are mentioned in the navigation box at the top right, and in the section Help:Wiki markup#Tables. Both of those take you to Help:Table - a very long page - and from there you can get to Help:Sorting - another very long page.

I've made an edit at List of cities in China by population, following the advice at Help:Sorting#Forcing a column to have a particular data type. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:22, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As John pointed to, {| markup is how wiki tables are made, and information about it can be found on that page. I really don’t think it would be practical to have all of this information collated on a single page; it would be ridiculously long, I think, and harder to find what you were looking for.

The first thing you mentioned, {{Expand list|date=August 2011}}, is a template. Templates’ effects can be very different from one to the next, but you can find information about them at Help:Template or Help:A quick guide to templates. —Frungi (talk) 07:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

small-size text

I think i'm having a problem generating or seeing small-size text. The instruction for doing that is e.g.: (this text should appear small) . I know that used to work. (Such instruction is given in this talk page's associated article or Help Page. There do a Find for 'small text'.) But when i do that now, the text at issue does not appear small to me. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Bo99 (talk) 18:09, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It looks fine to me: for example, I see this text as a smaller font size; to be exact, it's 9.9px instead of 12.7px. Where have you tried to use ..., that is not working? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:21, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much. Your above words 'this text' are the same size as all your other text, on my screen. I got the same type of result when i used the coding on various test pages, e.g. this test page. The problem is that my Internet browser is Mozilla Firefox, not Microsoft Internet Explorer. I just found an Internet Explorer copy on my pc, loaded it, and now i see that your above words 'this text' are indeed smaller than your other text. So the problem is Mozilla Firefox. I will report the problem to Mozilla. Thanks again. Bo99 (talk) 21:00, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I use Firefox... and it's always shown small text just fine. Perhaps you've got a custom setting that overrides this. For example, open the "Tools" menu, and select "Options", then "Content". Under "Fonts & Colors" you should find Advanced; click that, and find "Minimum font size". What is selected from the menu there? --Redrose64 (talk) 22:20, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose, thank you so much. You are exactly right. The problem was Firefox's 'Minimum font size'. Your analysis was right, you wrote it right, and you wrote it promptly. Thanks again. Bo99 (talk) 22:46, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

References and citing sources table

i'm confused by this table entry under References and citing sources:

A complete reference tag	`<ref name="WikiMarkup">{{cite web \|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Wiki_markup \|title=Help:Wiki markup \|publisher=Wikimedia Foundation}}</ref>`

in not sure why the url is given as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Wiki_markup,

instead of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup.

i was trying to learn citations, and how to make the "|title=" part of it, so the citation i was making wouldn't be the long messy url. in this example, the url (unnecessarily?) ends with "title=Help:Wiki_markup", which is immediately followed by the markup for the title which is identical except for the underscore "|title=Help:Wiki markup".

does what i'm asking make any sense? i'm a super novice editor, so i'm not sure if there's a reason for choosing one url over the other. ≈Sensorsweep (talk) 18:59, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some websites permit a given page to be reached via more than one URL, and Wikipedia is one such. Any Wikipedia page whose URL is of the pattern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pagename may also be reached as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=pagename and indeed also as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=pagename&action=view In general, you should use the shortest form that is guaranteed to reach the desired page. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:27, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just coming and going

My wiki markups just dissapeared. They are there like every fifth edit. How can I get it back? What is wrong? Hafspajen (talk) 00:28, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is an ongoing issue for many people. You might want to follow the discussion happening at WP:VPT#‎Skin and gadget issues 16 May 2014. — Makyen (talk) 00:44, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, now is back... but maybe it was you who mend it?

Hafspajen (talk) 01:49, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not me. It has been happening off and on for a few/several hours. It may, or may no, be fixed at this point. In other words, it may stop working again. People are working on the problem. If you want, you can follow the thread I linked above. — Makyen (talk) 01:59, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having problems with "nowiki" not working. Is this the same problem and is it still being investigated? --Ronz (talk) 18:30, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Ronz: What page is this on? What are you attempting to achieve by the use of <nowiki>...</nowiki>?? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:16, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking an interest. I first noted it on my personal page that I use for notes and reference, where I have items like {{subst:welcomeg}}
that I can quickly refer to and copy: User:Ronz/notes#Spam. I'm guessing that perhaps something previous on the page is interfering...--Ronz (talk) 19:23, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I copied the section to the top where it works, so it's likely something is interfering. --Ronz (talk) 19:28, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, you mean the UNIQ...QINU stuff? See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 128#some sort of mediawiki error is happening. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:15, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's it. Thanks. Glad it's fixed. --Ronz (talk) 21:32, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 321: / Line 321: @@
 :::::::If you follow the link that I gave to [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Headings]], it says "Do not make pseudo-headings using bold or semicolon markup.", which I quoted above; if [[MOS:ACCESS]] advises against a practice, there will be very good reasons for that advice being included on that page, and we find that this is immediately followed by "Screen readers and other machines can only use correctly formatted headings." It is important to remember that not all web browsers yield visible output; there are various types of [[screen reader]] where the different elements are described in various ways. People like {{user|Graham87}} or {{user|RexxS}} can indicate what these problems are in more precise ways than myself. --[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Red</span>rose64]] ([[User talk:Redrose64|talk]]) 11:59, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 ::::::::Indeed. Adding a semicolon to the start of a line makes it read like this with [[JAWS (screen reader)|JAWS]], the most popular screen reader: "definition list of 1 items, <text>, list end", which is kinda annoying. '''[[User:Graham87|Graham]]'''<font color="green">[[User talk:Graham87|87]]</font> 14:31, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
+::::::::: Graham hits the nail on the head. Every visitor who comes to Wikipedia using a screen reader is faced with numerous problems (lack of captions on tables, missing alt text on images, information conveyed only by colour, etc.) and we should be striving to make their experience as pleasant as possible. Even things that are "kinda annoying" to Graham need to be addressed, because I know he is a most extraordinarily tolerant user, and screen reader users with less experience of Wikipedia can be put off by repeated nonsense like empty definition lists.
+::::::::: For what it's worth, if you want to make a heading, then why not use the wikimarkup for headings? The {{tl|toc limit}} can sometimes be used to suppress unwanted subheadings, but even when it can't, is the TOC in [[Great North of Scotland Railway]] so terrible because it contains links to the subsections of the "Notes and References" section? If you can't stand even that and you must have bold 'pseudo-headings' as a visual presentation, then at least use wikimarkup for bold (<code><nowiki>'''Subheading'''</nowiki></code>) because that can be skipped by many screen readers. --[[User:RexxS|RexxS]] ([[User talk:RexxS|talk]]) 15:28, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 ===Idea: use a different element for colon markup===
 We seem to agree that when semicolon markup is used together with colon markup, that produces a valid [http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/grouping-content.html#the-dl-element association list]; and when one is used in isolation from the other, that is invalid. How about somehow persuading the MediaWiki devs to add a feature that identifies where colon markup is used without any preceding semicolon markup, and then uses a completely different method of showing a sequential indent level, one that does not use an association list. I can demonstrate what I mean using [http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/grouping-content.html#the-div-element the DIV element] and a small amount of CSS: