How to prevent users from emphasizing text in comments as "code" instead of "emphasis"?

Question

Recently I have seen several comments that use code formatting (with `…`) instead of emphasis (with *…*) in order to format some text.

This is not correct since the text is not code and this results in text using monospaced font, the display is not pleasing in my opinion.

Can this be prevented by displaying a warning when some text is formatted as code? It would be hard to distinguish when the usage is correct or not.

See these examples on websites unrelated to code:

How did my candle wax crawl up the sides of the jar?

Should I use gasoline 87, 89 or 93 on 2016 RAV4 SE

Answer 1

We can't really prevent that, same way we can't prevent it in suggested edits.

For good and for bad, many users simply consider this as valid formatting, and blocking it altogether would make more harm than good.

We can, of course, post a comment reply saying something like:

@codeabusername Inline code formatting should be used only for code, to highlight other text please surround it with * and *

However, considering the vast amount of users who do it, it will just be a drop in a vast ocean.

I'm afraid that on this one, we don't really have a choice but to accept defeat, swallow the frog, and move on.