Odd Character Replacement in some articles

10/29/2015 | Self

[Gaffer]

Since the badware scare about "attack sites", I've been seeing odd character replacements in some linked articles and thread titles.

[EternalVigilance]

It’s something internal to FR. Even when I type a quote directly into a post - no cutting and pasting from another site - the formatting is going kerploo-ey.

Sometimes anyway.

[pgkdan]

The diamond with a question mark is a replacement character for one not recognized in the character encoding.

The number of characters not being recognized is increasing if that's the case. I saw an article summary that had two of those diamonds a half hour ago. It's now got 10.

[McGruff]

�“

[Marcella]

I have Windows 7, use Internet Explorer, have not had the malware warning at all and my posts are correct (in substance and individual letters :o). However, I see those odd characters in other people’s posts.

[smoothsailing]

Please be more specific, Free Republic is full of odd characters.

[867V309]

It’s a character set issue. Cut and paste from an article and their character set being different from FR’s.

I have the problem even when I copy and paste from a FR post to a FR reply.

[FortWorthPatriot]

I'm also seeing that as well.

But I'm also seeing this a lot:



Anybody know what might be causing this?

[Jet Jaguar]

Act,” Horowitz

[Heart-Rest]

That's caused by a combination of "Demonic Dissociative Disorder" and "Late-Stage AIDS".

[FortWorthPatriot]

Mmmmkay. Whatever.

[Heart-Rest]

(I was referring to B-O’s head splitting up.)

[FortWorthPatriot]

Ah, I see. No worries then.

[Zack Attack]

Thats just to remind you that big brother IS watching.

[Repeal The 17th]

I am not seeing these odd characters anywhere else on the web except for Free Republic.

[DouglasKC]

Me too...I’m seeing an a with a caret, a weird e and tm for apostrophes in some articles. Happens on two different computers so I know it’s not me.

[Repeal The 17th]

I am not seeing these odd characters anywhere else on the web except for Free Republic.

[Zack Attack]

I’m seeing an a with a caret, a weird e and tm for apostrophes

Betting it will do it again in your text I quoted.

Seems these odd characters are a difference between western character set (Windows-1252) and Unicode (UTF-8), often when cut and pasting text. The odd thing is they only showed up a few days ago. Can't recall seeing them prior to this.

Hope it gets cleared up soon.

[cynwoody]

It’s a character set issue. Cut and paste from an article and their character set being different from FR’s. I typed this directly, so let’s see if I get apostrophes or we see a+hat/euro sign/tm symbol.

You typed that garbage? What kind of fancy typewriter do you have?

On my machine, if I type an apostrophe ('), I get an apostrophe — a straight-up apostrophe, that is. If, for example, I want curled apostrophes (‘’), I have to do something different.

If you want some insight into the problem, see here.

[NonValueAdded]

I bought my typewriter from the TANG. They told me it was only used for fitness reports and memoes to file. I had to outbid Dan Ra^ther.

[ColdSteelTalon]

I am seeing this in safari too.