‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎It's possible to create empty content fields - particularly question titles and bodies - on sites

Question

‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎Prior to an edit, this question was posted with no content in it, both in the title and the question body.

The explanation to reproduce is provided in Temani Afif's answer.

Since this was discovered, similar text fields around the site have been found to have similar issues and they are outlined in the answers below.

Note from Catija:

While we appreciate all the effort y'all have gone to to test and find places this is possible, we'd like this question to be understandable so that seeing it doesn't cause confusion. Feel free to add additional information to this answer but please leave the question itself as-is. Also, while y'all are free to continue to seek out these issues, we hope that you would all refrain from actually abusing this feature.

This was incredibly hard to get to; nothing is clickable from the Tagged Questions page. Why would you do this?! — Larnu, Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 21:22
I still can't stop laughing... You know how BAD this looks in the followed posts menu?? — Ollie, Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 22:11
@Ollie Honestly... not really worse than it looks in the questions list. I expected something more horrifying :) — Adam Lear, Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 2:15
Chat oneboxen of this post are also not clickable... which is fun cause I thew this into a chatroom to keep an eye on it... — Journeyman Geek, Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 2:34
Doesn’t Stack Exchange use a bug tracker internally with questions being automatically added as soon as they get the status-review tag? I’m wondering what this question looks like in the bug tracker. — Sebastian Simon, Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 5:48
Staff, while you're at it, please have a look at my similar request for usernames. — Glorfindel, Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 8:26
@fedorqui'SOstopharming' another one: meta.stackexchange.com/q/10519/386331 ... seems like I ressurected a very very old bug after 10 years — Temani Afif, Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 9:47
So this is like Winter Bash, but instead of hunting for hats we are hunting for places we can post empty stuff. — Henry WH Hack v3.0, Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 11:27
Not really no. Its meta being meta and testing things to destruction, like infinite monkeys with infinite bolts of silk recreating the works of Christo :D — Journeyman Geek, Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 11:46
Given the answers, I was tempted to add the fun tag... Apparently we're all still in Winter Bash mode :) — Glorfindel, Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 21:53
I'm laughing at the "Needs details or clarity" close vote here... how could you make the problem any clearer? — Ollie, Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 22:23
@ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ why, just why do you have to do this? — 10 Rep, Commented Jan 19, 2021 at 18:10

Kyle Pollard · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-07 17:59:06Z

56

status-completed

As we can not see, I was able to submit an empty question.

To reproduce it:

Submit a question with a content
Right after the submission, edit the question to remove everything and include invisible zero-width spaces.

Edit the below snippet to be able to see the spaces (they will show as red dots if you are using Chrome)

‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎

The system didn't allow me to submit the question initially due to the quality check but there was no quality check after edits.

We can, by the way, submit empty answers without the need of an edit after (see this answer).

edited Oct 7 at 17:59

Kyle PollardStaffMod

7,7433 gold badges31 silver badges51 bronze badges

answered Jan 6, 2021 at 21:27

Temani Afif

2,0862 gold badges12 silver badges20 bronze badges

19

I can see this is going to be a real pain to stop people doing this, but also I suspect that it's going to be unlikely be abused. If anything, if someone does this with malicious intent they'll likely just going to get stern words from the mods. Though, I won't lie, the whole thing is really amusing. It would be even better if we'd all lumped in to post "blank" comments and answers. ;)
– Larnu
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 21:33
4

@Larnu and using blank usernames ;)
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 21:35
4

That is the stuff of nightmares.
– Larnu
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 21:36
Don't focus too much on visibility. Although the content isn't visible, it's clearly visible that (on the main sites) this would be deliberate malpractice, making it not different than any other malpractice, which community moderation is perfectly capable of dealing with.
– Gert Arnold
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 23:06
1

@GertArnold why waiting for moderation intervention when we can prevent this from happening? Few more tests on the content should do it.
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 23:09
1

“if you are using Chrome” — Works in Firefox, too, at least using Nightly 86.0a1.
– Sebastian Simon
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 5:33
It's not a real pain to stop people doing this @Larnu alter table Posts add constraint ChkPostBodyLength check (datalength(body) > 100); (repeat for all fields with user input text).
– ben is uǝq backwards
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 10:50
2

@benisuǝqbackwards a zero width unicode character has a value of 2 for datalength, so 50 of them, and done. But that would also force users to post comments that are 50 characters long. That is far from desired.
– Larnu
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 10:54
The length could be different for different fields @Larnu, but you're right about the spaces having a length. You'd have to replace them first before performing the length which would make longer strings (i.e. posts) a real pain at scale.
– ben is uǝq backwards
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 11:53
10

Stripping leading/trailing spaces (including zws, zwj, etc) was routinely done on submission for years, @ben. It led to some other obscure bugs, so I'm guessing someone fixed them by moving the check without considering the implications.
– Shog9
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 15:20
LOL, this is so funny.
– user688097
Commented Jan 29, 2021 at 16:33
@KylePollard can you please explain what exactly is completed? I prefer not to test in order to see.
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Oct 7 at 19:47
Yeah, now that the bug is allegedly fixed, can the method previously used to exploit it be publicly disclosed?
– Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
Commented Oct 7 at 21:33
@ShadowWizard This has been fixed since September 2022 and got updated in the tracking table but this answer didn't get updated. You shouldn't be able to make empty questions anymore.
– Kyle Pollard StaffMod
Commented Oct 8 at 19:17

Add a comment |

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-09 01:46:14Z

30

Oh boy:

We can use it to raise empty custom flags (status-completed). Empty tag wikis, too (not completed).

edited Oct 9 at 1:46

Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog

99.3k17 gold badges201 silver badges425 bronze badges

answered Jan 6, 2021 at 22:39

Ollie

26.9k3 gold badges44 silver badges139 bronze badges

12

Please don't, though.
– Ollie
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 22:39
25

The stackexchange team must be hating me .. I opened the pandora's box ...
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 22:51
9

@TemaniAfif The Stack Exchange community is loving you, if the upvotes are anything to tell by ;)
– Ollie
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 22:51
5

@TemaniAfif and that box is apparently full of emptyness.
– VLAZ
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 7:56
2

@TemaniAfif But the last thing left in the box, is hope.
– Jack B Nimble
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 14:55
@KylePollard here as well, there are two different bugs reported: submitting empty custom flag, and empty tag wiki. Are both now fixed i.e. can't submit empty content anymore?
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Oct 7 at 19:49
1

@ShadowWizard My bad, I didn't see that there were two reports in one. I've just fixed the empty custom flag. We didn't look at empty tag wikis yet.
– Kyle Pollard StaffMod
Commented Oct 8 at 19:19

Add a comment |

ppwater · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-07 01:44:02Z

23

I can also use this method to screw up my "About Me" section, e.g., remove the text "Your about me is currently blank", and the "Apparently this user prefers to keep an air of mystery about them" that y'all see:

Go take a look in my profile.

edited Jan 7, 2021 at 1:44

ppwater

6065 silver badges20 bronze badges

answered Jan 6, 2021 at 22:22

Ollie

26.9k3 gold badges44 silver badges139 bronze badges

10

Rep for Nothing
– rgettman
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 22:40
10

@rgettman badges for nothing
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 22:54
8

I'd say that this is by-design. Users should be able to have an empty "About Me" section, if they like.
– Cody Gray
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 23:13
5

@CodyGray They can, but empty profiles always show the "Apparently, this user preferred to shroud themselves in a veil of mystery" or the like.
– Ollie
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 23:14
13

Yeah, but what if I don't want that silliness? Seems reasonable to allow its removal. What I'm saying is, there shouldn't be a content requirement for profile pages like there needs to be for posts.
– Cody Gray
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 23:27
1

@CodyGray By all means go ahead and make an FR, but I'm just posting the bug according to the current settings.
– Ollie
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 23:59
15

What I'm saying is, I disagree that this is a bug.
– Cody Gray
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 0:13
Answer outdated, showing old avatar and also they now simply don't show the About Me section at all when there's no content.
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Jun 27, 2022 at 13:55

Add a comment |

Glorfindel · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-07 09:57:22Z

22

Thanks to @ppwater, the empty tag now has an empty excerpt and wiki. See the tag info page.

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 9:57

GlorfindelMod

256k61 gold badges638 silver badges1.3k bronze badges

3

not as empty as it should be. I made it even more empty ;) [let's wait for peer approval]
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 10:00
3

This is nothing new. If you initially propose them as suggested edits and they get rejected, they'll be blank anyway.
– Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 10:19
2

The tag no long exists, making the link to the tag info page dead.
– bobble
Commented Jul 21, 2021 at 19:13
@bobble is correct, answer has no value now. :-(
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Jun 27, 2022 at 13:57
It's function is to share the fun we all had with this bug report ...
– Glorfindel Mod
Commented Jun 27, 2022 at 13:59

Add a comment |

Kyle Pollard · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-07 17:59:57Z

22

status-completed

Empty bounty summary:

See Where I started the bounty. (Now awarded)

edited Oct 7 at 17:59

Kyle PollardStaffMod

7,7433 gold badges31 silver badges51 bronze badges

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 1:52

ppwater

6065 silver badges20 bronze badges

3

and an empty duplicate banner: meta.stackexchange.com/q/359301/386331
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 8:11

Add a comment |

Spevacus · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-07 15:11:42Z

16

There's no clickable area to this post from the 10k tools' Delete Votes page (there's an answer here with a pending delete vote).

Even on posts I'm unable to vote to delete/undelete, I can still click the link to hop to that post from this entry.

Not super unique (I mean, we already know the title is unclickable) but I see other answers documenting places where this affects accessibility and figured I would add this to the list.

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 15:11

SpevacusMod

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wizzwizz4 · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-08 19:19:45Z

13

I don't think I need any further explanations. I can create an empty room name using the ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ symbol.

edited Jan 8, 2021 at 19:19

wizzwizz4

24.7k6 gold badges51 silver badges91 bronze badges

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 11:19

Henry WH Hack v3.0

1,9751 gold badge11 silver badges22 bronze badges

Add a comment |

Kyle Pollard · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-07 17:59:40Z

12

status-completed

Empty suggested edit summary. (I edited Ollie's answer) approved edit

Edit view:

edited Oct 7 at 17:59

Kyle PollardStaffMod

7,7433 gold badges31 silver badges51 bronze badges

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 1:34

ppwater

6065 silver badges20 bronze badges

3

Suggested no longer, as I approved it.
– Ollie
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 1:45

Add a comment |

7 revs, 5 users 47% · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-07 17:51:32Z

11

Summary of locations where this issue occurs, posted as answers

Want to contribute? Great! But please read the notes at the bottom of this post first.

Summary	Status
Empty display name	status-completed
Empty question	status-completed
Empty "About me"
Empty custom flag	status-completed
Empty chat message
Empty (suggested) edit summary	status-completed
Empty bounty summary	status-completed
Empty tag excerpt and wiki
Empty suggested edit rejection reason
Empty chat room name
Empty chat room tag
No clickable area when empty post is found via a tag search
Empty "other off-topic" close reason
No clickable area in 10k tools' "Delete Votes" page
Empty password
Empty site proposal name on Area 51
Alternative method to publish such empty posts
Empty answer using a 1x1 transparent pixel
Inconsistent display of the empty character in SEDE queries
No clickable area in followed posts list
Empty "Achievements" dropdown dialog
Empty badges
No clickable area in chat onebox
Empty duplicate banner
Empty comment	status-completed

Notes

Anybody is welcome to contribute to this post; it's a Community wiki after all.
Sorting order: status-completed > status-deferred > status-declined > status-planned > status-review > status-bydesign > no status tag.
Comments can be used to discuss the structure of this post, e.g. whether the sort order above makes sense or needs to be improved.

Credits

Essentially copied the format from here.

edited Oct 7 at 17:51

community wiki

7 revs, 5 users 47%
JNat

1

I created this answer as a placeholder, and will be filling it up early next week (lot on my plate this week). In case folks wanna start contributing, though, have at it! ^_^
– JNat StaffMod
Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 10:25
1

Some issues have been mentioned only in the comments. These are what I could find: empty comments, no clickable area in followed posts list, broken chat oneboxes, and (apparently) empty duplicate banner.
– The Amplitwist
Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 13:56
1

Prolly ok to add to the main post, @TheAmplitwist . Also, thanks for filling that table in ^_^
– JNat StaffMod
Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 13:57
Sure, I'll do that. Happy to help :)
– The Amplitwist
Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 13:59
2

I would say that the empty duplicate banner is not a real issue here, since that's just because the post title is empty cc@TheAmplitwist
– Luuklag
Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 14:17
1

@Luuklag Perhaps that reasoning is also applicable to the "no clickable area" issues, since they, too, only occur because of the empty post title/body. Sure, they can be removed from this list if it's clear that they don't need to be tracked.
– The Amplitwist
Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 22:22
Empty is not the same as invisible. For instance, invisible characters, even zero-width, can still (blindly) be selected by Shift + arrow key right (at least in edit views). And copied. If not zero-width it might take up space when rendered. Is this problem about using invisible characters?
– This_is_NOT_a_forum
Commented Sep 12, 2022 at 11:03
1

As part of the Community Asks sprint, we spent some time fixing the validation in a common library function. It now has an extra check for invisible strings, just like usernames do. I marked the ones that we looked at as fixed, though its possible others have been fixed since it's shared validation logic.
– Kyle Pollard StaffMod
Commented Oct 7 at 17:51

Add a comment |

double-beep · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-07 10:48:40Z

10

Empty reject reason:

Empty custom close reason:

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 10:48

double-beep

6,3412 gold badges12 silver badges57 bronze badges

1

i.sstatic.net/kxnvS.png
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 11:10

Add a comment |

user917967 · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-07 16:32:35Z

9

It turns out I can have zero-width characters in my password, although I also need to add one letter and one number.

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 16:32

user917967

992 bronze badges

9

Best password ever.
– mindstormsboi
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 16:57
5

In this case I don't think it's a problem, as it won't be displayed anywhere. If you want to make your password difficult to type, that's up to you.
– OrangeDog
Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 0:18
1

Why did you deface your username? Now it's impossible to find anything of yours! Also see meta.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/76648, there's already a post that did that.
– Ollie
Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 19:05

Add a comment |

Sabito · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-05 14:40:47Z

8

People are vandalising their questions into "no title, no body" questions. Here is an example (see revision 3).

This is the 2nd or 3rd time I am seeing this happen in the wild...

People testing it out in answers:

edited Feb 5, 2021 at 14:40

answered Jan 23, 2021 at 14:40

Sabito

1,0688 silver badges14 bronze badges

8

flag such behavior .. vandalism isn't something new. I'd prefer empty content rather than bad words
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 23, 2021 at 14:46
3

Agree with @Temani - that's just one way to vandalize, they can also edit it into "plz delete" over 100 lines, seen it done countless times. High rep users can rollback, and if it goes on moderator can suspend the problematic user and/or lock the post.
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Jan 23, 2021 at 17:14
3

If you see this then flag. It's no different from normal vandalism.
– 10 Rep
Commented Jan 23, 2021 at 17:22
Another test : meta.stackexchange.com/a/361810/598066
– Sabito
Commented Mar 7, 2021 at 5:40

Add a comment |

Shiyao Li · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-15 16:12:13Z

8

I posted here earlier that the issue had been fixed, but it's reported that the issue still persisted. I just moved it back to status-review.

Update 7/15/2022: The previous fix was grouping consecutive zero width characters into a single one when we validate the post length, which fixed the issue on my machine If I used the steps listed here to reproduce it.

We looked at this issue again and decided to remove all zero width characters when validating length. This change only affects length validation, and it doesn't actually remove the characters.

edited Jul 15, 2022 at 16:12

answered Jun 22, 2022 at 15:03

Shiyao LiStaffMod

1,73318 silver badges21 bronze badges

6

not for me, I was able to submit an empty answer: meta.stackexchange.com/a/379735/386331
– Temani Afif
Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 15:10
1

If you will elaborate what exactly has been fixed, maybe we can point out what's still missing? (e.g. if you only fixed the bug allowing to submit empty questions, there's still a bug when posting empty answers.)
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 15:15
4

We added a check to remove all zero width spaces and zero width non joiners when we validate question and answer body. I wasn't able to submit an empty answer just now. But I'll change this back to status review.
– Shiyao Li StaffMod
Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 15:20
Well probably the trick is using something else, @TemaniAfif can you please elaborate how exactly you were able to post empty answer yesterday? What characters were used?
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Jun 23, 2022 at 7:28
@ShadowWizardSaysNoMoreWar check the most upvoted answer. I already detailed how to create empty question/answer
– Temani Afif
Commented Jun 23, 2022 at 7:43
1

@ShiyaoLi the bug report is about many places where users can submit empty content, you fixed only empty posts. I don't think it is status-completed, unless you prefer to have each as a separate bug report?
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Jul 18, 2022 at 18:10
2

I created this post to start keeping track of all the places where this issue is occurring, so we can better track it, @ShadowTheKidWizard — feel free to start filling it up ;)
– JNat StaffMod
Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 10:23

Add a comment |

This_is_NOT_a_forum · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-12 11:11:46Z

‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎What interests me is that no matter where I put the magic dots, they don't render. Search engine, Notepad, Notepad++, IDLE, PyCharm, etc. None of them rendered the actual dots.

Also, it's not possible to put your profile name as these characters. This is what happens when you try:

That doesn't mean answers and questions should work the same way, though.

Lastly, this:

Why do you have to do this to me?

Also, I've tried this on Codidact.

they render as zero-width space ;) In the HTML/CSS world, it's useful. — Temani Afif, Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 22:50
some related posts where I used such magic: stackoverflow.com/a/62322234/8620333 / stackoverflow.com/a/57896638/8620333 / stackoverflow.com/a/64608352/8620333) — Temani Afif, Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 22:58

E_net4 · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-07 11:26:25Z

7

As relaxed as chatroom tags already were, we can also have empty tag identifiers.

The same can't be said about tags created through the [tag:...] format.

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 11:26

E_net4

4,4423 gold badges20 silver badges26 bronze badges

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Ollie · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-06 23:05:29Z

6

You can post empty chat messages with this trick:

answered Jan 6, 2021 at 23:05

Ollie

26.9k3 gold badges44 silver badges139 bronze badges

yes was going to edit my answer to include it too ;)
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 23:07
@TemaniAfif too late ;)
– Ollie
Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 23:08

Add a comment |

Ollie · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-19 22:56:08Z

5

There is also another method I found that will do all the things posted so far (credit to a vandal). The characters are in the below snippet:

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤIt stops here.  Copy/paste the chars <-- from "It".

They are Korean Unicode characters - a Hangul filler (U+3164).

edited Jan 19, 2021 at 22:56

answered Jan 19, 2021 at 17:40

Ollie

26.9k3 gold badges44 silver badges139 bronze badges

"I'm still trying to find out what they are." It appears to be Korean Unicode, a Hangul filler (U+3164).
– Mast
Commented Jan 19, 2021 at 17:59
1

Yes, there are several nonprintable Unicode characters, e.g. ⠀ (U+2800), the blank Braille character. I don’t think it’s necessary to add another answer for each one of them. It doesn’t even matter if Stack Exchange fixes the ZWSP bug for all nonprintables or just for U+200B, as ⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁ would be an equally low-quality post and should not be accepted anyway.
– Sebastian Simon
Commented Jan 20, 2021 at 6:43

Add a comment |

iBug says Reinstate Monica · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-30 13:07:47Z

5

||||||

The | bars are for indicating the edges of the image.

Empty "other off-topic close reason" indeed.

edited Jan 30, 2021 at 13:07

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 13:20

iBug says Reinstate Monica

29.8k5 gold badges63 silver badges123 bronze badges

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Kyle Pollard · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-06 22:30:58Z

5

status-completed

One can use Unicode combining characters to produce an almost empty display name.

Try it yourself:

const textarea = document.querySelector('textarea');
document.querySelector('button').addEventListener('click', function(e){
  textarea.focus();
  textarea.select();
  document.execCommand('copy');
  textarea.blur();
});

Select all and copy in the textarea below or 
press the Copy button to get an almost empty 
display name you can set. <br>
<textarea readonly>̣̣̣</textarea> <br>
<button>Copy</button>

edited Sep 6, 2022 at 22:30

Kyle PollardStaffMod

7,7433 gold badges31 silver badges51 bronze badges

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 17:41

Unmitigated

2672 silver badges6 bronze badges

It's Unicode combining characters, right?
– iBug says Reinstate Monica
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 17:48
@̣̣̣ Yes. I see you've tried it.
– Unmitigated
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 17:48
2

This has been fixed - display names cannot consist entirely of malformed combining characters or other similarly invisible characters. They must contain at least one visible character (in addition to the other rules that already existed).
– Kyle Pollard StaffMod
Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 22:30
@KylePollard how can you tell 1) when combining characters are malformed?, 2) whether a character is visible or not?
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Sep 7, 2022 at 9:41
1

For visibility, we checks each Rune of the string for it's UnicodeCategory. A display name must contain at least one rune having the category Letter, Number, Punctuation, or Symbol categories. (eg. ModifierLetter or OtherPunctuation)
– Kyle Pollard StaffMod
Commented Sep 7, 2022 at 17:04
1

A malformed combining character would be one that's not combined with another character. For example, you can add the combining character representing an acute accent◌́ (U+0301) with e (U+0065) to get é (U+0065 U+0301), like in Pokémon. Note that this is a different than the single character than é (U+00E9). If you were to put just the combining character ` ◌́ ` (U+0301) on it's own, it would be malformed because it's not combined. Some programs add ◌ (U+25CC) to represent that there should have been a character, but others just reject it outright.
– Kyle Pollard StaffMod
Commented Sep 7, 2022 at 17:06

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This_is_NOT_a_forum · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-12 11:16:27Z

4

It works on the Area 51 Stack Exchange site:

‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎

It doesn't work on example questions as far as I know.

edited Sep 12, 2022 at 11:16

This_is_NOT_a_forum

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answered Jan 9, 2021 at 13:20

Henry WH Hack v3.0

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Yes I know Area51.SE uses old code.
– Henry WH Hack v3.0
Commented Jan 9, 2021 at 13:25

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OrangeDog · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-07 12:35:18Z

2

Unlike on the main questions feed, there is no clickable area I can find for this question on a tag search: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/empty

edited Jan 7, 2021 at 12:35

answered Jan 7, 2021 at 12:18

OrangeDog

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How about "Edited 2 mins ago by OrangeDog"...
– Luuklag
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 12:21
1

it's only available on my profile or the active tab
– Temani Afif
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 12:21
@Luuklag there is no such text
– OrangeDog
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 12:35
@TemaniAfif it's also clickable in the "Linked" section from other questions
– OrangeDog
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 12:39
1

@OrangeDog that's because you sort on Newest, and not on Active
– Luuklag
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 12:40
1

You can access with <kbd>Tab</kbd> + <kbd>Enter</kbd>
– ppwater
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 13:11
1

@ppwater enjoying the limited markdown in comments? :D
– 10 Rep
Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 22:45
@10Repsaysgetvaccinated that's not markdown :P
– riQQ
Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 19:41
... this is too funny
– user688097
Commented Jan 29, 2021 at 17:39

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score 2 · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-30 12:51:24Z

2

I can make a SEDE query with this now: SELECT * FROM Posts WHERE Body='%‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎%';

I am using Chrome, but it does not appear as a red dot in here

But in SEDE:

But, if I visit its saved link:

edited Jan 30, 2021 at 12:51

answered Jan 29, 2021 at 16:44

user688097

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‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎It's possible to create empty content fields - particularly question titles and bodies - on sites

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