Hi, today I'm finding this string added to my forum posts, any idea?

Weird... 

I can tell as much as, if this cloudflare text will be added to the post, it's shown in the "Preview".

I'm using Chrome on Windows 11. When I start writing a post, the message box always has a character that looks like a square in it. I always backspace that character out before I start typing my post. However, if I do not backspace that character out, I get the "cloudfare" coding in my post. I can further edit the post and remove the coding and that takes care of it, at least for me.

So, this "square" character is a Unicode control character, U+0002, which stands for Start of Text. It's the same as ASCII control character STX (decimal value 2). I'm not entirely sure how relevant this character is for posting something on a forum. These control characters date back many decades I believe and were more or less for communicating formatting instructions to a computer. Start of Text literally means what it says. So, one possible solution would be for M@X or somebody that has access to the forum settings to see if this could be removed (maybe the software needs to be updated to a newer version??).

In library metadata land, which is my day job, Unicode control characters in our MARC21 bibliographic records often cause problems. They're not supposed to be there. The standard is very, very specific about what kinds of characters can be in a record (though it is accepting of most of the Unicode character set; in the past it wasn't). When these characters show up, they can mess up the entire structure of a file I might be using for batch loading. Often, the characters come from copying and pasting from things like MS Word and other word processing software, or even web pages. These characters were a real pain in the ass. They take time to track down. I don't come across them as much anymore, suggesting data in my industry is improving (though there is some debate about things other than control characters).

Another thing I'd like to point out. It's possible the "square" character I'm seeing may not appear on everyone's computer. Different fonts display things differently. I'm using Times New Roman on my work laptop and Arial Unicode MS on my personal laptop. I can see it on both of them. Some Unicode control characters don't display (like line breaks). They are there, but you can't see them with your eye.

Now having said all that, we are all using different browsers, different fonts, different operating systems, etc. My solution of deleting the "square" by backspacing over it may only be a solution for my setup or others with the same setup. As usual, your mileage may vary.

Hi,

Sorry ... how do I disable the WYSIWYG editor again?

Thx in advance