On the Goan Konkani Wikipedia just now, on a "Flow-enabled" talk page, I tried to purposefully link to a user talk page using a nonexistent namespace name (the original localized "user talk" name that had recently been changed via a Phabricator task) to illustrate how the original NS name was not being treated as an alias to the current one in existing wikilinks, as was intended. When I saved my comment, my link was automatically converted to use the current NS name, resulting in a blue link and thereby completely "missing the whole point" of my message. So, instead of "[making] the wiki discussion system more efficient for experienced users" and "[encouraging] meaningful conversations that support collaboration", the oh-so-helpful Flow system has actually made it more difficult for an experienced user to effectively collaborate. Thanks. (Can you tell I utterly despise Flow?) [And then I had to edit this comment again because the working interwiki link I provided in the first sentence was completely removed. Now it's an external link. -- Nope, it was just invisible, and my external link was actually saved as an interwiki link. Oh, the irony… Note: Had to switch to the wikitext editor to make this comment "work right".]
Topic on Talk:Structured Discussions
IIUC, you wanted to create a broken link and you didn't managed to? And you don't like the fact that there is automated redirects from incorrect NS names to the correct ones? As the Discoverer explains "The old user talk namespace name is supposed to be an alias to the new one.".
What you expect is a very particular case.
What would be the best? Change all links manually or by bot to remplace the namespace, or have that namespace redirected automatically? That limitation known, as an experience user, I'm sure you can find a way to explain your point concerning NSs, no? And I think this is problematic, with a lot of possible broken links.
Yes, I wanted to create a broken link because that was the problem I was trying to discuss. The old name is supposed to be an alias to the new one, but is currently not working as such. That was the exact problem I was trying to illustrate (in my comment on gomwiki). Now, forget about that particular gomwiki namespace issue, because it is soon going to be fixed. The rest of this comment will address the larger problem this brings up with Flow.
When creating the (broken) link in Flow, using the visual editor, I typed in what I wanted and a little drop-down menu popped up containing two suggested bluelinks and the redlink I typed. I chose the redlink, because that's what I wanted. I clicked to finish the link. I saw the link. It was red, as I intended. Now, when I completed my comment and saved it, the link turned blue because Flow had changed the namespace. This is not only not what I wanted, it's not what I was "promised" (i.e., shown in the visual editor) before I saved my edit. If an editor shows one thing and then saves something different, that's called a bug, and it indicates that the editor has not been designed properly.
Now, the preferred behavior would be (in the visual editor) either to (1) show me the redlink but warn me (somehow) that it's a broken link and give me the option to fix it or not — and then respect my choice in the matter; or (2) show a blue link with a warning that my link has been changed from what I typed/selected, give me the option to not accept the change, then respect my choice.
Does that seem unnecessarily complicated? Congratulations, now you see why I avoid the (regular, non-Flow) Visual Editor as much as possible. It turns trivial tasks like forming a wikilink, which can be done by an experienced wiki editor in about 5 seconds, into a carefully orchestrated series of steps (read: hoops) that takes 3 times as much effort. It may seem "easier" to wiki newbies, but to experienced wiki editors, it just obscures what is actually being done — meaning that sometimes what gets done is not what the user intended. (Bad experiences with their nascent [non-opt-outable] WYSIWYG editor is why I walked away from Wikia however-many years ago, and have never gone back. Badly designed user interfaces have consequences...)
So, why was I using Flow's visual editor to leave my comment in the first place? Because I didn't actually notice how I could switch to the "wikitext" editor. When I discovered I could do so, I did so. Editing my original comment in glorious wikitext, I was able to type exactly what I wanted. I saved it and got... exactly what I did not want. A bluelink.
On a non-Flow-enabled page, when one uses the wikitext ("source") editor, what you type is what is saved. Period. The same should be true on a Flow-enabled page. Inexperienced users (those not familiar with wiki markup) are not going to intentionally use the wikitext editor (unless they want to learn, of course). If a user chooses the wikitext editor, they are likely an experienced wiki user who wants to save precisely what they type. For the software to do otherwise is annoying and counterproductive.
Now, maybe the particular problem that has led me here really is just a quirk caused by the particular configuration issues on gomwiki. If that is true, well... "my bad", I suppose. But I know the problems I had on this page leaving my initial comment above were not caused by wiki configuration issues.
Suffice it to say, I "opt out" of most gee-whiz features that come down the pike (gadgets, beta features, and such), and Flow is one gee-whiz feature I most decidedly cannot opt out of (unless I simply refuse to use flow-enabled discussion pages — which, up to now, has actually been mostly true). Ultimately, it is the "unavoidable" nature of Flow (from the individual user's perspective) that is perhaps the one "unforgivable sin" that causes each problem users find with it to seem more like a creeping evil than an inconvenience......
OK, I'm done.
You case is not a Flow specific problem, it is a Parsoid problem.
I think the choice made here was to facilitate page redirections. I don't know why it is working on visual modes bot not on a classical wikitext page (Flow's wikitext is a wikitext based on Parsoid).
I can report the fact that you want to force a link to be wrong. But I'm pretty sure it will not be addressed soon, because it is a particular case, due to that namespace renaming. You want to create a broken link where people would be very happy to have a working link with a wrong syntax. Plus you have managed to explain what was the problem with the broken-but-not-broken link if I've understood correctly.
By the way, concerning Flow, you are contributing to the only two wikis which have enable Flow as the default talk pages system: gom.wp & mw.org. I think that's bad luck. :)
Redlinks are something that quite often pop up on article discussions, to be able to use proper redlinks is a conditio sine qua non for any useful editor. Is there any reason for this mindless paternalism?
In the case we are discussing of, is not possible to create a redlink because of a namespace redirect defined on the configuration files for the wiki. It is an exceptional case.
For all other cases I can remember of, you can create all redlinks you want without any problem.
OK, I just spent over an hour constructing a link-laden comment on a Flow-enabled talk page only to lose all my work because I hit the "Esc" key to get out of editing a link, which happened unintentionally while I was "previewing" my comment.
Fuck Flow!
I will never be visiting — let alone editing — this page ever again, so don't bother replying to me.