This is a really small issue and not very urgent, but I keep finding myself typing (.1), (.2) or (.A), (.B) to list a series of things in a comment, and I always forget and they appear as mana symbols.

I'm not sure exactly how to fix it, since we want to use mana symbols in comments sometimes. One way would be to have a special character that could be included at the start of the bracket that says "remove this symbol and show the bracket as text" (like the full stop above).

Another would be to auto-detect circumstances where they shouldn't be expanded (but probably wouldn't work as I can't think of any rules where it would work).

Another more complicated option would be to let people customise the brackets used for markup on a per-user basis. That's a lot of work and probably not really worth it, but might be at some point in the future.

Really, I don't know why parenthesis can be used for mana symbols anywhere. The Fancy Brackets do the job fine... I never even noticed it until I happened to type in an (s).

Oh yeah, I actually forgot they were different. Maybe we should turn off round brackets for mana totally after all? (Although I don't know if anyone has been using them like that.)

Hmmm. I usually use braces/squigglebrackets, but I think people probably do use parentheses from time to time. I'll do a database query and find out what people have actually used.

I only use { and }.

Looking at the database, it seems like about 3/4 of the time when people use (.) in comments, they're not using it as a mana symbol, but in lists like (a), (.b), (.c) or (.1), (.2), (.3); optional plurals like colour(.s); or expressing uncertainty (.?). So I think I should disable paren-matching for mana symbols entirely in comments, and require people to use braces in comments.

The reason why I allowed parens in the first place is because I think many people find them easier to type than brace.

Even if I haven't been using the site long, I agree with disabling parens. I always end up using that (?) mana symbol, especially since I overuse question marks. :)

I realise this is a small thing, but I'd still appreciate it if it was easy :)

Yes, I ought to be able to get this done quickly enough. I can't believe I made the "I think I should" plan 5 years ago and then didn't do it >.

­:)

(1) Is this fixed now?
(2) I hope so.
(3) Yes, it is!

(1) (a) (b) awesome!

(Did you leave it an option somehow for people who used it, or just, everyone should use {} not () now? )

Nope, just removed the () option for mana symbols everywhere; everyone should use {} now. I'll do a database edit to fix up the cards that were using them for mana symbols.