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    SE migrated to CommonMark in mid-2020, and CommonMark is one of those implementations that requires a space after the hash signs to produce a heading. Per We're switching to CommonMark, they did make a migration script to automatically edit posts that weren't compliant, but if the post contained some difference that wasn't covered by the script, it was left alone. Commented Apr 13, 2021 at 4:31
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    From the above question: Things might get funky when you're editing a post that renders differently with the new CommonMark renderer. Again, if we detected that a post would look differently when rendered with the new CommonMark renderer during the migration, we wouldn't save a new version of this post as part of the migration. This way, all posts continue to look the same when being viewed. However, once someone comes in and edits it, it will be rendered using the new CommonMark renderer and this might cause the post to look slightly different than what we had before. Commented Apr 13, 2021 at 4:32
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    See this answer where I've explained this in detail, with a similar case. Commented Apr 13, 2021 at 4:37
  • @SonictheCuriouserHedgehog, thanks, the links confirmed, what I’ve guessed. However my question is a change request suggesting to fix particular issue rather than acknowledge that some posts will be unexpectedly broken by unrelated editing. It took me some time to think, how can my changes broke layout of an existing post, and I prefer, if others would not have such issue. Commented Apr 13, 2021 at 4:53
  • As mentioned, there was already an automatic migration script written that took into account common rules, including the one you mention. However, it didn't edit posts if the CommonMark rendered HTML after its edit wouldn't match the original cached HTML from earlier, which would occur if there was some other difference in the post which wasn't accounted for in the script. This was done so as to avoid unexpectedly mass-breaking a lot of posts. Commented Apr 13, 2021 at 4:56
  • @SonictheCuriouserHedgehog, according the quote “ if we detected that a post would look differently when rendered with the new CommonMark renderer during the migration we wouldn't save a new version of this post as part of the migration” the migration didn’t try to fix any incompatibilities with new renderer Commented Apr 13, 2021 at 4:58
  • That post also says: Then there are those posts that are written in a Markdown flavor that was cool for our current renderers but isn’t what CommonMark would expect. [...] We’re talking about ##headlines without spaces after the hashes and other minor oversights. For these posts, we’ve built a tool that automatically fixes these well-known issues by changing a post’s Markdown source directly and re-rendering the HTML of the post in question. Commented Apr 13, 2021 at 5:00
  • @Michael ... it will be good to run convertion to update all old posts .... Part of the problem is that there are many ways to produce the same result as the hash, and different renderers for server side and user preview; along with the need for different scripts for different sections, posts, Tag excerpts, etc. --- that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do what we can, just that there will always be something missed and in need of repair (without ruining any inventive contortions the writer might have resorted to). Commented Apr 13, 2021 at 5:32
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    I anticipated on this problem: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361539/… Commented Apr 13, 2021 at 8:40