Odd characters showing up after an edit

Question

I was trying to make an edit on this question. Minor spelling change and I added a link to better justify the small change.

When I submitted the edit I was surprised to see oodles of these characters:

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I rolled back the edit since the spelling error was preferable to what I had turned it into. I saw some characters like 牘ࠂÆ in the original post but thought nothing of it.

Is this a browser related issue or just a quirk of the system based on the locals of me and the author of that post. If I see this sort of thing do I just need to continue the edit and replace these characters.

System

• Chrome Version 42.0.2311.90
• Windows 7 x64 SP1

Answer 1

I believe that what has happened here is that somebody copied non-Unicode text from a Windows console window in some randomly queered up encoding into the original, mojibaking it mercilessly. The code points used were not upgraded into Unicode but were left in their legacy encoding.

That produced the garbage seen in the original. But then a second error occurred. When you tried to edit the moijbaked goods from the initial edition, the SE editing software kicked in with a bugg(er)ed vengeance and for reasons beyond all comprehension made a complete dog’s breakfast of what was already as unsavory as sin is attractive.

The first part is probably a Windows or browser bug, not an SE bug. However, if I am right about what happened, the second part is an SE bug.