Comments on: ASCII display errors

ASCII display errors

insomnyuk — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 07:54:54 -0800

I'm seeing these ? everywhere. It's maddening for those who post them (when they go unseen in the preview), and makes reading difficult. Is there anything that can be done about this? I don't just mean a programming solution, but what is it, specifically, that the users are doing which causes this?

By: insomnyuk

insomnyuk — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 07:56:17 -0800

Shit. I meant the boxes. The boxes everyhwere, EVERYWHERE, except when I try to intentionally post one. Also, I've never posted and had a box show up.

By: ljromanoff

ljromanoff — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 07:56:42 -0800

I don't think users are doing anything. If one checks old threads (like from six months or a year ago) they are now there where they once did not appear.

By: ljromanoff

ljromanoff — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 07:58:48 -0800

That is to say, they have appeared where single quotes once were.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:00:57 -0800

Are you posting straight into the comment box, or are you composing your thoughts in Word or something similar first? If so, there are special characters you need to turn off ("smart quotes" in Word are one that I know of). Or you might switch to a simple text editor (Notepad, etc.) That's the "clueless luser" explanation. Someone more technically knowledgeable than I will have to tell you why it happens in the first place.

By: Frasermoo

Frasermoo — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:03:25 -0800

is this one of them ' ?

By: Frasermoo

Frasermoo — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:03:42 -0800

never mind

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:07:34 -0800

..."smart quotes" in Word are one that I know of...

Eek! How about

...the "smart quotes" feature in word causes some problems, for instance...

By: insomnyuk

insomnyuk — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:08:26 -0800

I never compose my posts in Word, but I've used NotePad on occasion(I haven't had a problem like the one I brought up, though)

Which characters specifically are causing this problem?

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:14:50 -0800

'Single smart quotes'
"double smart quotes"
an apostrophe like the one in "don't"

These were all done with smart quotes and look fine on Preview. Let's see how they post.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:21:08 -0800

So if one cuts and pastes from an article (like your example above), and the article was composed in Word (or something that uses similar characters), quotes and apostrophes will look fine on preview but post as boxes. I guess a user could do a find and replace on the copied text, replacing all "curly" quotes, with "straight" quotes.

I still have no idea why this happens, but isn't it fun to experiment?

By: yhbc

yhbc — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:26:18 -0800

"this is a quotation that's got 'smart quotes' inserted by Wordperfect"

"this is the same quotation that's got 'smart quotes', after running it through Notepad"

They both looked fine in preview.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:28:16 -0800

Mmmm... don'ts... Sorry, couldn't resist it. Thanks for the tips, PinkStainlessTail. I need to use Notepad more often.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:31:48 -0800

This is maddening for me, too. It's making me feel like some sort of punctuationally-impaired version of thomcatspike.

I have to consciously delete the last period in everything I write, or something appears after it from out of nowhere. And even that doesn't work most of the time.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:33:41 -0800

karl, you give me an idea! This could be a great feature instead of a bug:

Kiss my 'ss
F'ck me gently with a chainsaw
Don't sh't where you eat

Mmmmm, expurgation!

By: gi_wrighty

gi_wrighty — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:38:06 -0800

I think Matt explained the current situation here.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:42:01 -0800

The best I can do is switch to UTF-8 encoding for data, but that still loses some high ascii characters. I'll see if I can do straight search-and-replaces for the current problem characters.

(you can also continue using word for posts, just turn off "smart quotes" in your Word preferences)

By: adampsyche

adampsyche — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 08:55:49 -0800

Can we quit labelling everything that does not seem to make sense "tomcatspikish?" Come on, if calling self-promotion a "BM" isn't flying here, I don't see why this is.

By: Sapphireblue

Sapphireblue — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 09:01:40 -0800

Hey Matt, I wrote for my own purposes a custom tag to replace curly quotes, emdashes, trademark characters, and single-character ellipses with their low-ASCII counterparts... it won't fix all the existent high-ASCII stuff in the database, of course, but if you'd like to have it to integrate with the post/comment boxes here, send me an email and it's yours.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 09:05:57 -0800

adampsyche: "BM"?

Do you mean Billy Maulana? Or rather, "pulling a Billy Maulana"?

(still the third link on Google.)

By: yhbc

yhbc — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 09:09:00 -0800

b""bies!

sorry, I'll stop now

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 09:10:59 -0800

"Thomcatspeak"

By: BlueTrain

BlueTrain — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 09:20:50 -0800

Can we quit labelling everything that does not seem to make sense "tomcatspikish?"

First, what's "everything"? I've only seen that term used once, and it's the one you've linked.

Second, and more importantly, clavdivs is rather difficult to understand. But he doesn't post 20 comments a day, 5 days a week. If thomcatspike would reduce his commenting, or better yet, make some damn sense every so often, he'd be ignored by those who don't understand him.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 09:25:53 -0800

So as it's only been used twice, it's OK? How bluetrainish.

By: gen

gen — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 09:38:21 -0800

My trick is to paste the relevant text into Notepad and then cut it and then paste it into MeFi. That takes out any of those non-standard characters.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 09:51:39 -0800

Aren't "smart" quotes the 'bee's knees'?

Trying gen's trick. The above was written in Word and pasted to Notepad. It works in preview, with curly quotation marks. Let's see if it's still the same when posted.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 09:56:02 -0800

N' way, d""d.

By: PugAchev

PugAchev — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 10:00:26 -0800

If thomcatspike would reduce his commenting, or better yet, make some damn sense every so often, he'd be ignored by those who don't understand him.

why can't you just ignore him now?

I for one enjoy his posts and hope he continues to post whenever he pleases...

By: adampsyche

adampsyche — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 10:02:43 -0800

First, what's "everything"?

Uh, comments? Comments that don't make sense? Like, didn't you get that from my post? I'll be more specific next time.

I've only seen that term used once, and it's the one you've linked.

Well, it was used up here. Don't you read threads you comment in?

If thomcatspike would reduce his commenting, or better yet, make some damn sense every so often, he'd be ignored by those who don't understand him.

Do you really think that he has a reason to reduce his commenting? Perhaps it just sticks out more? I don't see him commenting more than most others. Sure, he gets a little superfluous in a few threads, but who doesn't?

By: quonsar

quonsar — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 10:04:45 -0800

i have always thought that was a result of this, and have always wondered why mefi runs on that mickeysoft crap instead of apache/php anyway.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 10:08:49 -0800

Quonsar: answered here.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 10:15:34 -0800

My trick is to paste the relevant text into Notepad and then cut it and then paste it into MeFi. That takes out any of those non-standard characters.
people actually do this? people actually load word, compose, copy/paste to notepad, then copy/paste to the page form? [shakes head in wonder] i remember how hard i laughed the first time outlook asked if i wanted to use word as my email editor! apparently there are those who actually took that suggestion seriously. [shakes head somemore]

oh, and thanks for pointing me to that explanation PinkStainlessTail!

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 11:01:36 -0800

wh't Q''ns'r s''d

By: Ufez Jones

Ufez Jones — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 11:05:21 -0800

As the author of the linked post, adampsyche, I'll apologize, but only to TCS. We've exchanged a few e-mails, and i'll be meeting him at the meetup on tuesday, which will be cool. I really doubt it offended him, and he's the only one i'd be worried about offending. I certainly didn't mean to start a trend, and I hope it doesn't become one. It won't happen again.

By: adampsyche

adampsyche — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 11:11:25 -0800

As long as it's good natured. ;-) Sorry to you if I got a little testy.

By: adampsyche

adampsyche — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 11:13:14 -0800

(I guess I got the feeling at times that it wasn't so good natured. Sorry if I misconstrued.)

By: Ufez Jones

Ufez Jones — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 11:20:26 -0800

it's cool, adam. like i said, if it became a trend, it would get really old really quick, so I won't do it again. Not a prob.

By: Sapphireblue

Sapphireblue — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 12:00:59 -0800

*looks for a hole to fall into as she tests the previously-offered custom CF tag for replacing high-ascii characters and finds that it no longer works in CFMX*

and I was so hoping to be able to help... there's no electronic karma here on MeFi but there's still the metaphysical kind and I fear I'm in the hole.

By: luser

luser — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 12:32:39 -0800

That's the "clueless luser" explanation.

PinkStainlessTail, I resent that.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 12:39:40 -0800

Ah, but I think of you as the Clueful Luser. or indeed, Luser the Clueful!

(that oughta appease the little Sh'thead).

By: thomcatspike

thomcatspike — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 17:07:18 -0800

or better yet, make some damn sense every so often, he'd be ignored by those who don't understand him.
(please BT with LOL)

Please explain, a) I make sense so ignore me? b) I don't make sense so start ignoring me? c)you just pulled a thomcatspike, per above comments about me, and the trick is on me. d) per your calculations I've been here 2 and 1\2 weeks. e) It not my fault, the sq ua re. f) I just received again a Meta spin-off series on an unrelated thread g) sometimes I post as Matt asked me to follow up and not leave folks in the dark, yet I do have e-mail h) some of you open your own pandora's box i) because "I"( as in this comment letter) like pancakes....they make you feel dumb after digesting them as in all the sweet syrup goes right to your brain.

By: BlueTrain

BlueTrain — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 18:11:37 -0800

If thomcatspike would reduce his commenting, or better yet, make some damn sense every so often, he'd be ignored by those who don't understand him.

a,b,c) thomcatspike, this means that if you commented less, more people could easily ignore your comments because there would be less to bitch about. Instead, because you do comment quite often (and there's nothing wrong with that), there are many more comments that need to be ignored.

e) I am not blaming you for the square.

f) This is not a MeTa spinoff. Please don't make it seem like this is a big deal. It's not.

h) they make you feel dumb after digesting them as in all the sweet syrup goes right to your brain.

It certainly looks like the "syrup" went to someone's brain and I'm looking in your direction.

By: rhyax

rhyax — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 20:40:38 -0800

“i'm just wasting space”

By: beth

beth — Thu, 01 Aug 2002 21:29:41 -0800

you guys with the squares are making me crack up. Hilarious. Especially the "b[][]bies" one.

*snicker*. :)

By: BlueTrain

BlueTrain — Sat, 03 Aug 2002 06:07:34 -0800

Hey, so thomcatspike sent me an e-mail a couple days ago, but, surprise surprise, I have no idea what the heck it says. Can anyone help me translate it please?

thomcatspike, I will, of course, let you approve any translator.

By: dg

dg — Sat, 03 Aug 2002 06:30:38 -0800

Be happy to help, BlueTrain. I can usually understand what he is saying without too much trouble (I think)