I have to fix this several times a week…please read and heed. I’m hoping that if I announce this as a post, it will reduce the problem.
No wordpress.com can’t fix this issue with comments, I’ve asked.
PLEASE be careful when trying to bold, italicize, link, or blockquote in comments. Just one transposed character is all it takes. Also, there’s no need to try to hyperlink URL’s, WordPress will automatically hyperlink any URL you type in like this:
OK, please note this, then burn it into your mind, slash BEFORE, not after. Thanks for your consideration – Anthony
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Just checking
I understand.
You might consider if there is some code that can be automatically inserted at the end of every post that will turn off any such markup that the post has left on.
REPLY: And that is what I asked wordpress.com for…no can do -A
Why not expand the HTML tags and attributes to show exactly how to make use of them. Use simple examples.
>>i>I’ve never had that problem. Myself, I’m not that familiar with html.
[Reply: I can tell. You did the backward “hosed” tag that Anthony wrote about, and every post after yours was in italics. Fixed now. ~dbs, mod.]
I was going to suggest a scratch-pad permanent thread, but then found that you have one on the menu bar, labelled “Test” – good to see (if maybe a bit obscurely titled), and I think it may be useful to note the link/thread/purpose in the heading of the post. If you can set it to auto-purge at 10 or 15 posts, it would make for a good scratch-pad/preview area for those wanting to test out their tags/posts. It won’t eliminate typos, but we don’t live in a perfect world. Good luck! 🙂
I am an old fashion kinda a guy–*stuf* or _empfassis_ is good enough for me. If you can’t do it with a 4-row teletype, it doesn’t need to be did.
What if everybody _started_ their comments with **?
A lot of people don’t know this, but the REAL culprit behind broken html codes? Yup. Global warming.
@Larry Sheldon: We would be baudoted to death?
Someone left the tag open. I’m putting in a closing tag here:
I think that should work for everything after this…
REPLY: Sadly, no, and that’s the maddening part about it. – A
Anthony,
Many thanks for the illustration on the error of my HTML ways
on screwing up the “slash” in front of the “i” when trying to italicize.
I’m still adjusting to my new trifocals.
Don’t I recall you saying some time ago that wordpress.com isn’t
able to provide a segregated sandbox for HTML test runs on our
comments before we enter them onto the thread ?
My old Word editor won’t let me run HTML tests at home.
[Reply: use the “Test” page in the masthead menu. ~dbs]
Hmm. Guess not. a few more?
Slash-eye
I sympathize completely, Anthony.
Yup global warming.
Not only every following comment, but also all the text in the sidebar.
[You da man!☺ ~dbs]
Now about what the fine WordPress peeps told you.
It is baloney.
The generated code from a posting operation is under complete control of the WordPress system they can block any attribute from being open at a post boundary.
True it will slow things down but it is doable.
The only problem with publicising something like this is that there are people out there who will now do this sort of thing just to cause mischief.
http://nei.cachefly.net/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/
Testing URL sans html
This is really a bug with WordPress. They should automatically self-contain each comment and run a filter to weed out errant html for allowed tags. I realize this is nothing AW can fix, it’s something WP needs to fix.
WE HEAR AND OBEY!!
…I feel like a kid that just got spanked by Dad! Forgive us our sins, Anthony!
WordPress could fix this iff they ran stuff through HTMLtidy before sending it to the database. I used it to fix some tragically screwed up HTML entered idiots who were incorrectly trained in how to enter HTML in our database and who insisted, even after I corrected the training advice, in entering tragically bad HTML. Tell the geeks at WordPress that HTMLtidy can fix lots of egregious problems in user entered HTML. There is no excuse.
If it’s such a common error, it really shouldn’t be so hard for WP to run a regular expression hunt/fix for the incorrect tag, replacing it with the correct tag.
I’ve moved to using BBCode rather than HTML tags for user interaction in my own website development projects, specifically to circumvent this kind of issue. It’s the best way by far to prevent code injection etc.
My experience is that even knowing how to properly use HTML tags and being a veteran at it does not prevent a simple mistake in the heat of commenting.
When drafting a comment I find that using a full capability word processing program with spell checking at least brings attention to the HTML tags as being a misspelled word. So you can at least look to see if it is correctly constructed. When everything is OK in the word processor then cut and paste to the WUWT comment box.
John
I am a web application developer by trade, although a Chemical Engineer by education.
Anyway, if you want to test any html code with tools that you very likely already have, you can simply put it into a text document, save it and open it with the browser. In I.E. it is control-O or under the file menu. Instead of entering a URL, click browse and find your file.
Alternatively, on a PC, you can right click and “open with” your browser.