Is this still an issue? The example no longer works for me :(

The br tag was removed at my request to work around this issue: https://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E6%B0%B4%E4%B8%AD%E3%80%81%E3%81%9D%E3%82%8C%E3%81%AF%E8%8B%A6%E3%81%97%E3%81%84&type=revision&diff=53346360&oldid=53061468

You could use that old revision to test if the bug still exists.

Thanks @Legoktm that's super helpful. Will take a look Monday.

In T74546#1771785, @Legoktm wrote:

In T74546#1660425, @Jdlrobson wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox#action=query&prop=extracts&format=json&exchars=100000000&titles=Test%20br%20tags%20in%20extracts
<br> tag shows which is expected since html is requested.

Yes, that's what this bug is about. There's no good reason for a <br clear="both" /> in the extract.

Well.. you've asked for HTML so it makes sense to include it, but I can understand that in some applications this might not be useful... however some applications it may be. Maybe what is actually needed here is an additional API parameter which explicitly asks for an extract without any unnecessary* formatting..?

• we'd have to define what this means.

In T74546#1775155, @Jdlrobson wrote:

Well.. you've asked for HTML so it makes sense to include it, but I can understand that in some applications this might not be useful... however some applications it may be. Maybe what is actually needed here is an additional API parameter which explicitly asks for an extract without any unnecessary* formatting..?

• we'd have to define what this means.

If we need a decision maker, I can be that person: I think this makes sense. I could email mediawiki-api-announce and see if there are cases when this behaviour wouldn't be desirable?

Sounds good to me @phuedx that would be a great first step.

In T74546#3364083, @phuedx wrote:

If we need a decision maker, I can be that person: I think this makes sense. I could email mediawiki-api-announce and see if there are cases when this behaviour wouldn't be desirable?

Here's the archived thread: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mediawiki-api/2017-June/004001.html

Let's give people a week to respond to the email. If no problems we'll go ahead and do this.

Given lack of responses I guess we should go ahead with this?
Are there any cases where removing the br tag may be problematic?

e.g. poetry?

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat - jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen, 
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o' mud 
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay...

would become

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat - jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:Bloomin' idol made o' mudWot they called the Great Gawd BuddPlucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!On the road to Mandalay...

We probably want to replace it with a space rather than strip to avoid lines joining.

@phuedx what do you think?

In T74546#3392353, @Jdlrobson wrote:

Given lack of responses I guess we should go ahead with this?

👍

We probably want to replace it with a space rather than strip to avoid lines joining.

👍

@phuedx should we do this? This one seems quite a trivial fix so I'm open to fixing it, but I'm also wary we'd be adding more complexity to an API with many many problems so an alternative approach would be to add a warning as part of T170617

In T74546#3437147, @Jdlrobson wrote:

@phuedx should we do this? This one seems quite a trivial fix so I'm open to fixing it, but I'm also wary we'd be adding more complexity to an API with many many problems so an alternative approach would be to add a warning as part of T170617

Yeah! It'll make HTML extracts easier to consume – arguably – and there's been no pushback about it on the mailing list.