+
+>>> Agreed that it would be cleaner to just change everything, even though the transition might be painful.
+
+>>> Another interim option might be to change the basewiki links to be just \[[link to whatever]] without having a description.
+>>> That style of link would work whether the link style was "backwards" or "forwards". Unfortunately it could make some links less readable; after all, there is a reason why one wants to be able to change the link text! But I don't know what proportion of the links are like that. It's a thought, anyway.
+>>> --[[KathrynAndersen]]
+
+>>> Another option for internal links is to just use the regular markdown links instead of `\[[text|link]]` markup, that way it works regardless. Then the documentation for the link plugin just has to state both syntaxes in a safe manner.
+>>> I also agree that we should just switch in one shot, although I am worried this means this could be postponed indefinitely.--[[anarcat]]
+
+>>>> I have done just that in my branch: now the underlay only uses wikilinks in the wikilink page, elsewhere regular markdown links are used. I haven't converted the whole of the doc/ directory however, that would be left to the migration. I have written a ikiwik-transition tool to migrate from wikilink to markdown while i was there. --[[anarcat]]
+
+----
+
+FWIW, I think this change may well be painful, but is a good idea. I can never remember which way around it should be.
+Rather like USB plugs, I invariably have to try both ways. — [[Jon]]
+
+The bikeshed color should be ...
+--------------------------------
+
+...[blue](http://blue.bikeshed.org/) of course. :) Just to make things clear here, the "bikeshedding" potential is absolutely huge here. right to left? left to right? who's right? how could we even decide this?
+
+I think we can approach this rationnally:
+
+ 1. left to right (text then link) can be considered more natural, and should therefore be supported
+ 2. it is supported in markdown using regular markdown links. in the proposed branch, the underlay wikilinks are converted to use regular markdown links
+ 3. ikiwiki links break other markup plugins, like mediawiki and creole, as those work right to left.
+ 4. those are recognized "standards" used by other popular sites, like Wikipedia, or any wiki supporting the Creole markup, which is [most wikis](http://www.wikicreole.org/wiki/Engines)
+
+Therefore, to respect interoperability and [POLA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment), ikiwiki should respect that convention and reverse the way links are parsed by the link plugin, or move that functionality into creole/mediawiki modules, and out of the main core, which I do not think can be an option.
+
+So here's a roadmap to deploy this change:
+
+ 1. the code in the backwards_links branch i am working on is tested and proven, then merged in
+ 2. a release of the 3.x branch is published with the possibility for wikis to convert to the new markup, with the notion that the older markup is deprecated
+ 3. this wiki is converted to the new markup
+ 4. 4.0 is released with the new markup enabled by default and runs ikiwiki-transition on your wiki on upgrade
+
+Note that ikiwiki-transition can be ran multiple and will convert your markup to and from rtl/ltr, without issues, so this is pretty sturdy. I think the configuration variable can be kept throughout 4.x, with the notion that it will be completely removed eventually. --[[anarcat]]