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Our biggest concern is that this problem occurs in the description of many popular mods so we've delayed the release until 20 December 2023. This will allow time for mod authors to make the changes required to ensure their content still displays correctly.
Why are we making this change?
So you might be thinking "Why is Nexus Mods pushing out a fix that might break my mod page?" and we understand where you'd be coming from with that.
To give a bit of background, mod pages and comments were implemented many years ago using the BBCode markup language which matches what the original forums used. The parser (the clever bit that converts the raw BBCode into HTML) used on the website has gone through several changes over the years in response to new best practices and security advisories.
We recently had our entire website professionally reviewed by a security company to see if there were any exploits we'd missed. While I'm pleased to report that nothing major came up, there were a few problems with the way that BBCode is translated on the site that could - in very specific circumstances - cause problems for users of the site. I'm sure you can understand that no matter how obscure, we can't allow that to happen.
As a result of this review, we've removed our custom BBCode parser and migrated to using a more modern version. This change fixes any possible loopholes by applying stricter rules on what is considered valid BBCode. This has very little impact on 99%+ of the posts/mod pages on the website but for a few pages where the mod author has gone the extra mile to add a lot of formatting, we found that there were problems with how spoilers had been added to the page which tripped up the parser.
We had a lengthy discussion about this issue internally and there was no question that we needed to apply this security patch but at the same time, we understand the ire that coming back to your mod page and finding the formatting messed up would cause. As a result, we are giving a week of notice before we deploy this change and will be doing our best to help fix any formatting problems before they start to impact the resulting pages.
What is the problem?
The problem mainly involves the spoiler BBCode tags which can be used to create a collapsible section of your content. While this feature works and is well-used, it is not something that is technically supported in the WYSIBB editor we use. This means that users who want to add spoilers would manually add the open and close tags around the content they want to collapse. What is happening now is that spoiler tags are no longer considered valid if they are incorrectly nested with other formatting tags.
Being able to add the tags manually to any part of the text without validation is an oversight on our part. We understand it's not a great experience when posting content and appreciate that changing the requirements for spoiler tags to work will be frustrating for some of you. That's really on us for not being stricter with the original implementation of the feature. Unfortunately, we're still hamstrung by the editor which hasn't been updated in quite some time. Newer parts of the website (Collections, Collection Comments, etc) no longer use this editor and the long-term plan is to migrate everything away from BBCode, if possible.
How can I tell if this affects me?
We estimate around 10,000 mods use the spoiler tag, but only a small percentage of that number will be affected by the change. The quickest way to check if this issue will apply to you is to open your mod page/post in edit view and see if the tag has any formatting applied to it. This can include:
- Bold
- Italics
- Underline
- Strikeout
- Font Colour
- Font Size
- Font Family
- Code Block
- Quote Block
- Order/Unordered List
- Center/Right Alignment
A few examples of this issue are available in this forum thread.
Once the fix goes live, the issue will be characterised by empty spoilers with all the content previously contained in the spoiler, now posted below it.
The way the new parser works is that it expects a valid hierarchy of tags. This means that the content inside a spoiler can not have any tags closed inside it that started outside it or vice-versa.
How can I fix it?
The BBCode that makes up your page will need to be updated to re-establish a valid flow of content. If you need some help with updating your content, you can read our latest advice here. You can also post a link to your content in that thread and our team will offer you suggestions on how to improve it.
What happens if I see this issue after 20 December 2023?
We're quite aware that not all users who've posted these spoilers are currently active. If you spot a post, mod page or other content that has this bug after 20 December 2023, please use the "Report" button on the content to flag it for moderator review. We'll do our best to fix these up within a few days of getting a report.
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To be explicit, properly written nested lists are broken.
This list is properly coded, but doesn't display correctly, it should be a numbered item for 'item c', but displays as a bullet point on mod pages and a section[?] on the forums.
I'm probably just going to cut 99% of the content from my mod pages because I do not have the time to edit them all.
You need people to edit every mod page they have if it includes spoiler tags
You need this done in the next week or two
You've only mentioned this in a throw-away line on a post about page comments.
You should currently be assuming all those tags will break and coming up with a way to address it, because there is about a zero percent chance of every single modder on the site seeing this post and acting on it in a week.
Folks, you need a marketing department. (I'm job hunting, call me).
Here's the thing:
Major platform transitions require a communications plan.
The communications plan cannot be just we'll make a post when you require action on the part of the users.
You know how you communicate this kind of thing?
Banners. Modal popups. Emails.
For s#*! that will break pages? Hell, I'd do a popup on login that warns people and won't go away until they click accept to acknowledge they've read it. Add an extra mandatory checkbox or popup warning that hits when someone goes to save a mod page. "The spoiler tag will no longer be supported after Dec Whatever, please ensure you are using New Tag on all mod pages." and an OK button. If there is no new tag, you need to provide a workaround. Period. Like, you see who your target market is? There isn't a neurotypical brain for miles. There are mod pages with hundreds of images nested behind spoiler tags. People document. And they are going to ask what to do now. Have an answer at the ready. If there isn't a straight out replacement tag, make a page showing other options using HTML for people get similar results and link it right on the popup.
I mean, we know most won't read it, but that isn't your job. Your job is to at least try. Communities are twitchy things, they rely on goodwill, and goodwill is a finite resource. At the end of the day, the most important thing is being able to tell everyone that you tried and mean it.
You have a website to share this info. You have a database and the ability to see where this code is used. Run some queries. Figure out who will be impacted and reach out to them directly. Like, you have their email addresses, even. You're a business operating in the US and EU, so you've got to have mailchimp or marketo or constant contact or something for the spam compliance. Use it! Make a subgroup for the owners of the impacted pages, toss them into your email platform, and let the authors know directly that they need to fix their pages. Use a mail merge and include a list of the impacted links and you'll make it much more likely they will do the thing.
I don't know your tech stack, but seriously, you can get a mail merge plugin for google sheets that will literally do this out of gmail for you, based on a single template written in docs. There are better fucking ways. Why are you relying on offhanded references and posts with vague titles as your primary communications plan?
Also, people will likely ask about if they use that tag on their about me page they currently can't edit yet. You might want to plan an answer for that in advance and just proactively send it along.
(Everyone thinks they hate marketing until you see what happens when it isn't there.)
Now [ bold ] [ spoiler ] text [/ bold] [/ spoiler] won't work anymore and you have to write it as [ spoiler ] [ bold ] text [/ bold] [/ spoiler].
So only those who have it wrong will it break. For most users nothing will change.
its fake pixels. take a breath, holy shit. were you not around for the week-long warning parade we got about site maintenance that was only going to last about a day? over-warning people about s#*! is just about the only thing nexus staff has done consistently. i never thought i'd see a day again where i feel the urge to defend a choice they've made, but my god, you've managed to get me to do it.
for someone in marketing, you sure do a really terrible job of marketing yourself as an asset. "hello! i think everyone in your company is high or incompetent! i will belittle your team at every turn and make them feel like lazy skeeves, all because i like to go on egotistical tirades about subjects i dont actually comprehend! you're idiotic if you don't hire me, xoxo"
(everyone thinks they're so superior on the internet until they have to prove it.)
I hope you are able to recognize that you, yourself, are acting very superior in this comment. I kinda cringed for you when I got to this last line of it. Look at the advice you're giving him and apply it to your own comment. You're being super aggressive and abrasive towards someone who wasn't even addressing you personally. You even insulted and ridiculed him.
I really think you're the one who should be taking a breath here, and using it to count to ten, or maybe a hundred, before you commit to writing something like that.
The old editor had a (IMO nasty) habit of adding Size tags in surprising places (e.g. before a section header, around a bullet list's bullets) after switching from raw BBCode view, so although I believe my content has properly scoped tags, I do not trust it does 😣
You could add a suggestion to your feedback board: https://feedback.nexusmods.com/
Quick question, will spoiler tags within spoiler tags, as per my recent advice/help page still work? I set it up because Nexus' own original bb code page at the time was not quite complete on the matter, didn't fully include examples, and was rather heavy reading for newbies.
(i)
(spoiler)
(b)
this is my spoiler text that I intend to be italicized and bold
(/i)
(/spoiler)
(/b)
It's like this, all across my mod page.
I've corrected it for you and the page looks as expected. So it's worth noting getting one pair of tags wrong breaks all of them.
Just so you know, images in spoilers are downloaded when the page loads, it just doesn't show them :)
edit: posted while Picky was answering. Glad that usage won't affected.
[ color=#ffff00][ size=3] [ spoiler] [ /size][ /color]Some spoiler text[ /spoiler]
don't mind the spaces I had to do that so it doesn't actually apply incorrectly because apparently you can apply formatting inside a code blockI hope formatting inside a code block will also be addressed with the new parser.
For example, you can't have "[bold] some text
The properly formated code would be "[bold] some text [/bold]
123=321