Here's a controversial proposal: allow external links to be wrapped in double brackets: [[http://foo.com]]. Rationale: My grammar (and the existing parser, I believe) have to go out of their way to detect these malformed external links, then explicitly treat them as a normal external link wrapped in extra brackets: [<a href="http://foo.com">[1]</a>] However, what the user almost certainly wanted was: <a href="http://foo.com">[1]</a> So this is a case of existing wikitext probably being written with a different intention to how the parser is actually rendering it. Since we have to explicitly detect this situation, wouldn't it make more sense to render it how the user wants it while we're at it? Steve PS This is a somewhat idle query - compared to the amount of work involved in rewriting the parser, this is a trivial change either way. I'm just curious what kinds of improvements could be made that fit within the "don't break existing wikitext"/"mimic what people are expecting" guidelines.