Hacker News Reader

Comment by Athas | Hacker News Reader

I think there are some "features" missing from this list. I seem to recall that Hacker News will transparently remove some characters from titles (such as emoji and exclamation points), which seems like a bad feature to me, and one that people should be aware of.

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It will remove many emoji from comments as well, although not all of them. Not sure what the criteria is for that, either.

That’s a shame, because I could see legit and serious reasons why someone would want emoji in comments. For instance, what if someone was trying to illustrate a point by “drawing” a diagram of a network, using different emoji to represent different types of nodes.

ℑ 𝔴𝔬𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔬𝔴 𝔦𝔱 𝔡𝔢𝔠𝔦𝔡𝔢𝔰 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔬𝔫𝔢𝔰 𝔱𝔬 𝔯𝔢𝔪𝔬𝔳𝔢?

ʎɹɐɹʇᴉqɹɐ ʎʇʇǝɹd sɯǝǝs

C̸̡̙̹̠̪͊̽̉̃̆̎͝ͅó̶̧͇̳̝̇̓̉̇̋ṵ̷͊̃̓̏͊̌̉͊́̈́͐l̴̛̘͓̪͙̣̩̼͙̂̌͂͛̄ḑ̷̗̫̲̣̺̞̣̖̎̊ ̴̢̤̩̭͇͈͚̜̣̯͚̖̞̪̿̈́̃̌͌̀̿̃͝͠b̸̨̢̧̢͙͙̯͕̼̩̼͚̹̘̟͆́̈́̇̈́̆̅̈̇̾͘̚͝ḙ̴̭̾͒̈͒͂̌̍̈̂͗́ ̴̛̝̲͈͍͉̲͈̗̗̪͖͌͆̓̐̽̊̌͂͛̚͘͘͜͝ẅ̷̧̛͚̜̳̬͙̥̦͈̟̺́̉ö̶̧̠̱̭̻̱̓̾ȓ̷͔͍͙̠̳̬͍̻̱̙̭̖̈́͊͆͛̅̕͜s̸͚̳̥̬̖̲̯͉͈͇̓͊̄͒̒̕ḙ̷̫͔͉͚̻̗̆̋͐̾͊͂̒͛͘͝,̴͕̤̹͙̈̎̊̽̈́̉͘ ̷̨̛̤͈̲̥̙̟͙͍̉̆͂̽́̆̈́́̓̀͗̕͘̚ͅͅF̷̠͕̳̬͚̾̎͌̅̓͌̅͝N̸̡̧͔̰̰͎̝͍̪͇͈̠̻̐̏O̶̢͓͙̜͓̤̰̟͚̓̀̈́͛͗́͘͝R̷̛̞͕͙̘̋͛̒͆̽̈́̊͝͝͠Ḏ̵̨̠̔̀́̌̔ ̷̡̯̹͕͇̗̺̗̰̹̑͂̈́͜͠.̵̢̞̈́͂̈́̄.̸̧̹̫̞͔̣̦̼͙̃̏͒́̽͘ ̶̲̹̺̠̠̗͑͋̾̈́̈́̒̾̒̏̈́̈́̕͠͠͝

Unicode penis?

𓀐𓂸 edit: yeah hieroglyphics are allowed apparently

Get thee behind me, Zalgo!

As someone who despises emojis, I am more than happy that they are removed. There are other ways we could show the hypothetical example.

Agree. It's almost as if using vocabulary is wrong. I've been watching how our conversations deteriorate by gratuitous use of emoji. It seems that some seem to think that emoji can cut through all language barriers, because they're universally understood. Unfortunately, the effect I see is newspeak to the detriment of all, as we lose the nuances of language itself, and indeed we become more 'visual only' in our language.

One that comes to mind is the "thrangrycat" vulnerability. I say "thrangrycat" but the researches insist on calling it . I've taken liberty of shortening the excerpt to the more reasonable reasons, as the answer got more nonsensical as it went on.

>How do you describe the meaning of this vulnerability name?

>We chose to communicate through a visual representation of symbols, rather than “words.” Naming vulnerabilities using emoji sequences instead of other pronounceable natural languages have several advantages. First, emoji sequences are universally understood across nearly all natural languages. Choosing instead of a name rooted in any one language ensures that the technical contents of our research can be discussed democratically and without latent cultural or linguistic bias...

from: https://thrangrycat.com/

Edit: and HackerNews has indeed stripped the emojis used to name this vulnerability.

On some platforms, the emoji is so small that is difficult to determine what it is, let alone what it's supposed to represent.

Not just emoji either e.g. the box-drawing characters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-drawing_character) also get stripped.

OTOH domino or mahjong tiles (🁓, 🀕), playing cards (🃅) or musical symbols (𝅗𝅥) are allowed. So are arrows (↸) including supplementals (⤪), number forms (ↈ), superscripts and subscripts (⁴₂), "miscelllaneous technical" (⎋, ⏱) or geometric symbols (◉), however misc symbols (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_Symbols) is a no.

So yeah, pretty arbitrary. I guess pg likes playing domino but hates chess.

Also funny note: we have access to musical symbols but not notes, because the notes are in the misc. symbols block. Unless you want to use byzantine (𝀶) or ancient greek (𝈙) musical notation then it's OK.

Yeah, I wanted to use U+266A once and it didn't let me, but random emoji gets through: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23028433

On FF on (older) Android I get the symbols here:

>So are arrows (↸) including supplementals (⤪), number forms (ↈ), superscripts and subscripts (⁴₂), "miscelllaneous technical" (⎋, ⏱) or geometric symbols (◉), however misc symbols (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_Symbols) is a no. //

But not the others, they're just get boxes; except the boxes which are missing completely (ironic).

IIRC, we had access to UTF font formats (using bold, outlaid, double, open, etc., letter forms) and to Zalgo, Z̸̠̽a̷͍̟̱͔͛͘̚ĺ̸͎̌̄̌g̷͓͈̗̓͌̏̉o̴̢̺̹̕ ?

> But not the others, they're just get boxes; except the boxes which are missing completely (ironic).

That's a different issue, the glyphs are missing from your machine's fonts rather than HN stripping them.

Box-drawing characters are allowed. I made a comment[1] a while ago that used them to make a table. Unless they're only allowed in monospace blocks?

┐

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23139517

Interesting! It looks like the box drawing are allowed but the block elements are not, and I just used the box elements in my test assuming they'd behave the same!

Sorry for having been misleading.

Another thing that's undocumented is that comments can be "detached" from a post. The comment isn't deleted, but is removed from view, so the participants can continue having a conversation but that thread is no longer discoverable from the post that spawned the discussion.

Is it no longer visible, or just moved to the top level? I've seen plenty of top-level comment threads that start with something missing context, and then is followed by a reply from dang, of the form "We've detached this thread from $url because $reasons".

it just becomes its own top-level comment, and typically is pushed to the bottom.

I wish they had markdown’s list feature

In my opinion, they should implement this by removing the feature that combines two lines without a newline. Most people type entire paragraphs out on a single line (since web browsers word wrap inside <textarea> tags), so I don't really see the point in having this feature anymore.

Lists:

- like

- this?

That's with an extra newline in between, correct? Most places allow you to make lists without the abnormally large line spacing.

* But yes, this is how I

* Make a list workaround

* It is not ideal

Yes, double newlines between. For paragraph-length bullets that makes sense, but for a few words each it is a lot of extra vertical space.

  There
  Ain’t 
  No
  Such
  Thing
  As
  A
  Free
  List

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