Foreign characters get turned into question marks upon posting

June 6, 2005 2:38 AM

Foreign characters (chinese in this case) are previewed correctly, but get turned into question marks upon posting. It'd be nice if the behaviour was consistent.
posted by mosch to Bugs at 2:38 AM (12 comments total)

I wish there were a bugs->trivial section I could've put this in...
posted by mosch at 2:40 AM on June 6, 2005

It's an old, old problem, and the only current workaround is to find the character codes for the characters.

That said: Matt, I know you're working on redesigning the infrastructure of Mefi to some extent (separate from the aesthetic redesign). Is that on the drawing-board, or is it not under consideration?
posted by Bugbread at 2:43 AM on June 6, 2005

I was simply caught off-guard by the preview working, but the posting failing. Thought it'd be nice if either both worked, or if both did not work.
posted by mosch at 3:18 AM on June 6, 2005

The easier workaround is to click Preview, type your message, click Preview again, and then press the back button and hit Post there.
posted by cillit bang at 3:51 AM on June 6, 2005

??
posted by Bugbread at 4:55 AM on June 6, 2005

Nope, doesn't work, cillit. Perhaps you're thinking of HTML codes, ampersands, and the like?
posted by Bugbread at 4:58 AM on June 6, 2005

I didn't realize we were already due for another "it worked on preview" thread. Where does the time go?

* waits for the inevitable next "what does the '.' mean?" thread *
posted by yhbc at 7:17 AM on June 6, 2005

Metafilter: Why do our pancake overlords vibrate, Lib'rul?
posted by Bugbread at 7:31 AM on June 6, 2005

(Note: the above is not intended to be read as a Mefi tagline, but with the tone of a question)
posted by Bugbread at 8:19 AM on June 6, 2005

I die a little inside everytime this question comes up.
posted by sbutler at 4:24 PM on June 6, 2005

Who are you to say that Chinese characters are "foreign" anyway?
posted by dg at 5:03 PM on June 6, 2005

dg : "Who are you to say that Chinese characters are 'foreign' anyway?"

Presumably a non-Chinese?
posted by Bugbread at 5:09 PM on June 6, 2005