Implicitly, the "no" references the answer to the question itself, hence it's still selfreferential.

In other words, the fallacy is to assume the following response was fixed to be an answer to the question. If I answered "no" it would be obvious that i wasn't planning to say "no" prior ("about") to the question. There is just no context in which the question would make sense the way you suggest. It's non-sense.

To put my words in context, I was thinking about mathematical questions, such as "does there exist a curve that goes through every point in a square?". Everyone has some kind of intuitive understanding of what's a "curve", but mathematicians need a precise definition in order to make this question clear enough for mathematical study. (There is such a curve: the Hilbert curve.)

It's not at all easy to recognize when a question is stated "clearly enough", and your questions provide an excellent example of this. The question "is this question more than eight words long?" refers to question itself (as a string), and in general, this kind of self-reference is perfectly harmless. The question "Is the answer to this question 'no'?" refers to its own answer, and this kind of self-reference is potentially problematic.