Last modified: 2012-12-13 17:24:38 UTC
Some users seem not to like it because it's already bolded... (Just for the records...)
Made it customizable with CSS in r110475.
Thanks. :-) Note: per code comment also addresses bug 28595.
I was about to post a new bug I had written up, but since I see Nemo_bis already posted it, I'll just paste the text of what I had written, below. In short, I think the default should be changed to the MediaWiki standard, and instead CSS customizations should be used to get weird things like asterisks. Here's my write-up, Niklas can reopen the bug if he agrees: Bookending with asterisks is not a semantically correct to indicate emphasis or "activeness" of a link, description, or page title. It is pronounced oddly in screen readers and text-to-speech software, which are 2 examples of how something like *English* is fundamentally flawed. Plus, I think it's actually an IRC or Usenet culture thing that first showed up in the 1980's or 1990's, and is not likely to be understood by the majority of people who have never seen it before, and don't know its implied meaning. Indeed, it is considered bad practice by those who consider it their profession to criticize other people's use of language. Even more confusing, it differs from the MediaWiki standard way of changing a link to indicate "you are here" by bolding the text and delinking it. Since that is already done, the asterisks seem to serve no purpose, and probably should be removed. I can think of no positive benefit from them. If more emphasis is needed, there are lots of better ways to do it: heavier bolding, increased font size, brighter color, <em> tags, and the title attribute are just a few suggestions. If you want to preserve the current look while still fixing it to be semantically correct, the asterisks could be replaced with images, and maybe alt text on only 1 of the images. Then, text-only applications and operations will not be disrupted unnecessarily. A text-only copy and paste will then work, for example. Another possible solution is to use a single asterisk, as long as it is linked, title'd, or alt'd with explanatory footnote-style information, like would be expected in one common Western usage of asterisks. I don't think that's the right multi-cultural solution in this case, since that's not how footnotes are normally done with MediaWiki and other fully electronic mediums (normally asterisk footnotes are used in print mediums). I'm in favor of just removing the asterisks, and doing nothing else. Increased font size might be nice, but it would probably screw with the line height in an unattractive way when the <languages /> box has lots of languages, like on this page: http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:New_project Changing the color could work, but the obvious color choice of red is already being used by the progress box thing, so it would thus be diminished in its ability to stand out, in addition to diminishing the prominence of the progress boxes. The CSS style text-transform:uppercase; could be used in addition to MediaWiki's automatic bolding. More ideas are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emphasis_(typography) But, the more I think about it, the more I like just sticking with the standard MediaWiki way of just bolding and delinking. That works in all cultures, for all languages.
Patch in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/11273 would do what you request.
Merged.
*** Bug 36075 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
