Using <em> doesn't really seem semantically appropriate: we don't want to _emphasize_ those redirects; if anything, we want to make them easier to gloss over. Using <i> would be better, since it at least doesn't come with inappropriate semantic baggage. (That's the same reason we use <i> instead of <em> for ''italics'': the parser can't know if the editor meant the italics to signify emphasis or something else.)

I suspect the reason allpagesredirect was originally made into an unstyled span was to avoid complaints from users about an unexpected interface change. Certainly that was one reason I did the same when I later added redirect-in-category (although mostly I was just following precedent). In some ways, that's [[Parkinson's Law of Triviality]] at work: rewrite an interface completely, and people will shrug and adapt to it, but if you just change a tiny detail like italicizing some links, many folks will go "Hey, we had it looking just right before, why did you have to mess it up?!?"

Yes, please use <i>. I will pull via SVN the minute I hear you have made this change. Thanks.

As for all the others out there, I will try and do something about them via this thread http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2010-December/050618.html .

Can this (<i>) be implemented soon? Taiwan counties are being merged on 2010/12/25 causing a ton of redirects for me, and I would like to avoid just fixing it for myself, to be later forgotten for the rest of the MediaWiki community. Should I post in wikitech-l to see if there are any objections?

I object!

Please just add the css-line to the standard styles (be it common or skin-specific css) in SVN.
That way scripts looking for spans with that class won't brake and everything stays in sync.

CSS classes are made exactly for that reason, right ? To use them.
The classes are already implemented, so we only have to add a single line to the default MediaWiki styling (as has been done before for certain styles that make sense by default)

Why can't you make it work for both text and non-text browsers, like MediaWiki already does here:

<div class="mw-specialpages-notes">
<hr />
<ul><li> Normal special pages.
</li><li> <strong class="mw-specialpagerestricted">Restricted special pages.

imho

• because using <em> or <strong> has a special meaning which we dont intend to trigger and <i> is going towards deprecation because CSS should be used.
• because replacing markup causees a selector like $(context).find("span.allpagesredirect") or CSS "span.allpagesredirect { color:green }" will no longer work if the element gets a different tagname.
• because using CSS is what Wikipedia has done for years and what people are copying to their websites.

And about text/non-text browsers... can you elaborate on that ? I'm now sure I follow, MediaWiki currently supports down to IE6. Anything older is not fully supported and failure or degration will occur in places.

All I can say is there are a lot of us
http://www.google.com/search?q=text+browser
users out there and we're not going away.

If <em> is bad, then use <i>. If <i> is not allowed, then remove it
forthwith from all MediaWiki code, and don't talk about accessibility
anymore during funding drives, etc.

I refuse to take part of this discussion again.
Have a nice day.

That is unfortunate.
Use any tag you like, just make sure it is HTML, not just CSS.

How about <DEL>?

Ilmari, mail does not get to you.

Default styling added to the CSS in r78964 (as the bug requested).

If you think the HTML markup should be changed, please open a seperate bug.
The issue raised in the mailinglist thread is fixed.

OK, I added Bug 26415. Thanks.