Issue 1: character sequences mapped to symbols
It is often useful to discuss in plain text. One should not need to use preformatted text enclosure to say that an empty_list = where the forum has damaged empty_list = [].
Even the preview here is screwy, the box character that is output replacing the brackets has a cursor pointer change that indicates clicking on my brackets would take some action.
Maybe even ↔ was meant to be <->
Issue 2: directional quotes
If I want to provide JSON or map, someone cannot copy and use my {“key”: “value”} that I provide - the forum has screwed up the quotes in {"key": "value"}. The directional quotes do not communicate things more clearly, they only ‘damage’ communication, altering characters ( even 'damage' was damaged).
Issue 3: appearance damage even while editing
Try typing into a reply box <- or <-> - then you receive in your text input editor by font (not just the preview):
That conflates that ← actually becomes a new character but not when in backticks.
More features:
We often need to communicate code. The blocks are prohibitively small line count before overflow, preventing clear communication.
We often need to communicate data structured in tables. The forum itself has a maximum message width that is too narrow even on huge viewports, overflowing these also.
The only fenced monospace block that will not word wrap is if it is type hinted with “markdown”, e.g. ```markdown (then that’s even hard to write here). However, that applies its own screwy highlight. A “text” or “plaintext” type should allow word-wrap monospace presentation for data that is long paragraphs that should be easily seen and be also easily copied without damage, such as prompts.
OpenAI went as far as making their own bland code highlight theme for the forum - surely they can make the forum more code-friendly with some customization of Discourse. Remove the “sugar” that turns the forum sour.