Imagine a spiral staircase, where walking [n, w, s, e] will result in going up (or down) the stairs. But walking [n, s, e, w] in that order will result in staying put.
Anyway, better to follow the problem spec than to complain about it.

What exactly is your reasoning behind that, @Absurdated?

Try to imagine it on a globe with big steps. Basically, when you move by 1 degree of latitude, it is the same distance everywhere (approximately 100 km). But when you move by one degree of longitude, actual distance varies from ~100 km on equator to few steps near a pole. Conversely, when you move the same distance west on one latitude and east on another, your shift by longitude is different and you end up in different point.

At the risk of sounding stupid: What exactly is your reasoning behind that, @Absurdated?

I'm sorry, but stepping through "NORTH", "WEST", "SOUTH", "EAST" one will arrive exactly at the same position where one started, as a result of any reasonable thought process.

No. For most places on earth, after going the same distance in these directions you will end up slightly west (east) from original position (for northern (southern) hemisphere respectively).

Unfortunately, it's not physics... it's simply a game with its rules:-)

it's phisics, N->W->S->E will lead you to exactly the origin point, at least we include magnitude for each direction , like 1 mile to north , 5 miles to west , etc,

this exercise should be redefined

In the description part "Task", to "... with the needless directions removed." I added after "needless directions removed" "(W<->E or S<->N side by side)".
Have a nice day too!

Once more, very sorry for having attracted your thunder on me:-)

What? That's not thunder. That's somewhat constructive criticism. THAT'S THUNDER! TREMBLE IN FEAR, MORTAL! (j/k)

That being said, I'm also tired of the discussion, so I guess I just leave you be. Also, I think my comments sounded more harsh than they were actually meant. After all, it's your kata, not mine, altough I guess that my "desert" story makes the threat of thirst a little bit too hard, so it's probably also my fault that there's the confusion. Either way, whether you change the kata or leave it is completely your decision, but if you want to use another story, you can take one of the other two (or write another one :D).

I didn't see why I would wait, we already discussed a lot about the description without finding a real suggestion.

Yeah, but I would phrase it slightly more diplomatic:

This has been already discussed. The discussion didn't lead to a common point, but the description of the task should be clear; just strip North<->South and East<->West, don't perform a complete reduction.

Feel free to use the comment above for any new comment on this topic. Other than that, have a nice day :).

Yes, I know I was too fast to answer and I am sorry for that but I was (and still am) a bit tired of these quibbles. For me the description of a kata is similar to the rules of a game, you play or you don't if you don't agree the rules; maybe I am a bad codewarrior:-( As for the problem of resolving the suggestion, I didn't see why I would wait, we already discussed a lot about the description without finding a real suggestion.
Since the start my aim was only to remove what I called going and coming back as soon as, nothing more. I added a detailed example with the case NWSE so that people don't waste their time to solve that problem, having notice as you have noticed yourself that a lot of comments tackle that aspect of the description. The suggestive comparison with parentheses is interesting but I suppose there are already lots of kata with that.
It might be that the only solution is to give an extension to this kata named Direction Reduction II where the going and coming back + cycles are to be reduced. We could on each one put a link to the other, Direction Reduction I being a first step to avoid thirst in a desert.
Once more, very sorry for having attracted your thunder on me:-)
PS: maybe it would be more convenient to have another mean of communication than Codewars to expose our problems?

It is logical what you are saying. But you forgot, that it is not the requested task. Therefore any discussion going beyond improving the description is pointless.

@g964: He read the description. He already solved it. He provided a suggestion to improve it. And yet, you simply discarded the suggestion without any discussion. Again. Resolving isn't a race.

That being said, did you notice that aside from the translation comments, around ~50% of all top-level comments tackle the current description and the N->W->S->E problem? One might notice that there is something off in this case.

It's your right not to agree but did you read this part of the description:
"All paths can't be made simpler. The path ["NORTH", "WEST", "SOUTH", "EAST"] is not reducible. "NORTH" and "WEST", "WEST" and "SOUTH", "SOUTH" and "EAST" are not directly opposite of each other and can't become such. Hence the result path is itself : ["NORTH", "WEST", "SOUTH", "EAST"]."
?

If you were thinking about chemical reactions then rewrite the exercise.

Well, g964 didn't think in chemical reactions, that was a suggestion I provided in order to fix this problem, see below. I also provided an alterantive description, but at the end, we couldn't agree on something that fixed the problem entirely.