I understood that it was a feature, to prevent users creating hidden pages by accident. That may be a community-generated gloss — I can't remember if it came from staff or not. Still if the behaviour changes I bet there will be a number of mysteriously vanishing pages being created; pages with leading underscores don't appear in most ListPages results.

To my mind this feature just needs to be more open. If an error box popped up when it happened nobody would be confused. For extra points only allow the creation of hidden pages by mods and admins — or make a permissions check-box that defaults to that state.

I'm not sure I understand the point you are making: surely the need to create live template pages is much more common than the desire to create hidden pages.

If it's a feature it's out of date and I suspect it pre-dates the introduction of live templates.

For extra points only allow the creation of hidden pages by mods and admins

I agree, but would re-phrase rhat "only allow the creation of live templates and hidden pages…"

My point was that if the NewPage module could create hidden pages, there will be a surprisingly large number of hidden pages created by accident. I would try to avoid that because it is a more difficult problem to detect and diagnose.

Live templates are hidden pages. That's what the leading underscore does.

Yes, it is a feature. To prevent creating hidden pages by mistake. The rationale was that if admins want to create a _template or any other hidden page, they know how to enter the page name directly in the URL field in the browser.

Quoted from our internal issue tracker:

The NewPage module lets the user enter invalid page names starting with underscore.
The module should silently remove leading underscores from the entered page name.

It was created by Pieter in Jun 2009, after introducing live templates.

Although I could not agree with it, I guess it came from our users. But I cannot trace it since there was no reference.

Live templates are hidden pages. That's what the leading underscore does.

I'm well aware of that! You don't seem to understand the problem from the perspectiver of a new user (or any user for that matter) trying to create a live template with the module. It doesn't work! As it stands at the moment it is confusing and produces an incorrect result.

If a new user is using the module and thinking they are creating a live template, as happened with the forum link I gave, they don't understand why their live template doesn't work because the page title correctly shows the underscore but it has been stripped out of the url and the chances are they don't notice that. As I did last night, we then have to spend quite a lot of time working out what they've done wrong (or haven't) and then realising their live template page is missing the underscore so needs renaming. There is no warning to show that the module has created a totally different page from what they thought they were creating. This is bad and it's not their fault.

I always create live template pages from the browser address bar so it took me a while last night to realise why the user couldn't get the live template to work. But we cannot assume that everyone will create their live template pages this way. Therefore the module should work properly and create the page as typed by the user.

if the NewPage module could create hidden pages, there will be a surprisingly large number of hidden pages created by accident.

I doubt it, typing an underscore requires 2 keys to be held down so is a less likely user error than typing an incorrect letter. And to be honest I couldn't care: if people make a typo when typing the page name and inadvertently put in an underscore that is their fault. That is not the same thing as them entering a new page name as category:_template and the module stripping out the underscore so their live template doesn't work.

if admins want to create a _template or any other hidden page, they know how to enter the page name directly in the URL field in the browser.

Where have you put that into the documentation? It is not in the documentation for the newpage module. It is not in the documentation for templates. It is not stated anywhere that I can see that the newpage module does not work if you want to create a live template or any other hidden page. I had forgotten it last night so had a frustrating hour with a new user whom we had advised to create a live template then it didn't work. Yes an admin might know how to enter the page in the browser address bar, but that's not the same thing as knowing that they must do so.

This is not a feature, it's just bad design: a page with a leading underscore is not invalid; now that we have live templates it's perfectly valid.

To prevent creating hidden pages by mistake.

In nearly 3 years of using Wikidot I cannot think of a single occasion where I have created a hidden page by mistake when using the newpage module. I must be in the minority and that we have a user base made up of spectacularly bad typists.

A feature that introduces an error through no fault of the user is a very bad feature and should not take precedence over the desire to protect users from their own typos.

now that we have live templates

or _public on private categories, or forum:_start, or any of a number of different uses for hidden pages. This is not a live-template issue. It just so happens that live templates tend to be when most people learn about it the hard way.

if people make a typo when typing the page name and inadvertently put in an underscore that is their fault.

But it is the admin that has to pick up the pieces. And people are more perverse than you give them credit for.

As I said at the beginning: To my mind this feature just needs to be more open. If an error box popped up when it happened nobody would be confused. What we have now is a weak solution anyway.

@RobElliot: I can see your point, because these were almost exactly my own objections.

From the discussion I can see 3 solutions for it:

1. Leave as is. It IS a feature after all.
2. Allow creating page names starting with underscore from NewPage module.
3. Do not allow, but present an error message.

A variation is: allow only admins to edit/create _hidden pages. I can see we have been discussing this internally but without any conclusion. There is a "Lock page" option you can use on any page that prevents non-admin users from editing a page that somehow overlaps.

Which one do you think would be best?