Stop enforcing strong/emphasis style
Why is this change being made?
I suggest we remove MD049 and MD050. Copying over my reasoning from the Slack discussion:
The Markdown Linter for the Handbook currently breaks when you have this Markdown:
My **bold** text and my _italic_ text.
– it expects both to use asterisks. That is not a a requirement in the original Markdown spec, and not what most Markdown editors do by default, for good reason. Using distinct characters for bold and italic helps readability in the non-rendered version. Most importantly, our very own buttons for styling text in the comment editor (where a lot of suggestions for Markdown changes are written) use different characters for bold and italic. By creating Handbook changes with our own tooling, they will fail our Linter.
I think the reasoning in the markdownlint docs about those rules (“Rationale: Consistent formatting makes it easier to understand a document.“) is correct at face value, but ultimately very misguided. The original Markdown rules are already consistent. The consistency is that two characters are for bolding, and one character is for italics.
Using the GitLab comment editor applies even stronger consistency, even though our renderer doesn’t require it: Two asterisks for bolding, one underscore for italics. That is a very common narrowing of the OG Markdown rules (for example, Slack only accepts that format), so I find it counterproductive to have the linter on the Handbook not allow it.
I’ve been using Hugo myself for many years and I’m not aware of any renderer concerns.
Author and Reviewer Checklist
Please verify the check list and ensure to tick them off before the MR is merged.
-
Provided a concise title for this Merge Request (MR) -
Added a description to this MR explaining the reasons for the proposed change, per say why, not just what - Copy/paste the Slack conversation to document it for later, or upload screenshots. Verify that no confidential data is added, and the content is SAFE
-
Assign reviewers for this MR to the correct Directly Responsible Individual/s (DRI) - If the DRI for the page/s being updated isn’t immediately clear, then assign it to one of the people listed in the
Maintained by
section on the page being edited - If your manager does not have merge rights, please ask someone to merge it AFTER it has been approved by your manager in #mr-buddies
- The when to get approval handbook section explains the workflow in more detail
- If the DRI for the page/s being updated isn’t immediately clear, then assign it to one of the people listed in the
-
For transparency, share this MR with the audience that will be impacted. -
Team: For changes that affect your direct team, share in your group Slack channel -
Department: If the update affects your department, share the MR in your department Slack channel -
Company: If the update affects all (or the majority of) GitLab team members, post an update in #whats-happening-at-gitlab linking to this MR - For high-priority company-wide announcements work with the internal communications team to post the update in #company-fyi and align on a plan to circulate in additional channels like the "While You Were Iterating" Newsletter
-