Your comment appears to be blank

June 19, 2006 12:09 PM

When trying to post to another thread, I get "Your comment appears to be blank, go back and try again." Problem is, the comment is not blank.
posted by Doohickie to Bugs at 12:09 PM (8 comments total)

What I tried to post was something along the lines of

<em>Quoted post in italics</em>

<strong>Someone's repsponse to first to quoted post in bold</strong>
<small>posted by (user) at x:xx PM CST on June 18</small>

My comment.
posted by Doohickie at 12:12 PM on June 19, 2006

("My comment." was part of the comment I tried to post, in reply to someone who replied to another post.)
posted by Doohickie at 12:13 PM on June 19, 2006

Ending a quoted comment with the small tag seems to cause this error. I usually try avoid using small altogether for the "posted by" section.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:15 PM on June 19, 2006

People trying to style up the posted by line tend to confuse others and it looks like an inline comment by someone else, so I block comments meant to spoof other comments.

I should put in a nicer error messge, but drop the small tag or posted by line altogether and it'll post just fine.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:16 PM on June 19, 2006

Or just put in a random (naturally non-printing—thanks, HTML!) space anywhere in there.
posted by cortex at 12:51 PM on June 19, 2006

Thanks for the tips.... I guess it's too late for my comment now. That'll teach me to get fancy!
posted by Doohickie at 7:11 PM on June 19, 2006

People trying to style up the posted by line tend to confuse others and it looks like an inline comment by someone else, so I block comments meant to spoof other comments.
This is just one of the many reasons we can't have nice things.
posted by dg at 8:10 PM on June 19, 2006

mathowie writes "People trying to style up the posted by line tend to confuse others and it looks like an inline comment by someone else"

Check this Meta for confirmation.
posted by Mitheral at 8:38 AM on June 20, 2006