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I was trying to format code in this revision, but it wouldn't submit because "The title is too short, minimum 15 characters." I had not changed the title, so the original version must have suffered from the same problem.

How was the OP able to create a question with a 13-character title? I tried to do that and I failed. I tried consecutive spaces, that didn't work either.

(Seen this question. Nobody seems to be surprised that a short-title question made it to the system in the first place. Why? Apparently not because a recent change in rules, there were none.)

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    Special characters get stripped from a title. I assume OP padded the length with a couple of those (maybe more, who knows), they were automatically removed server side, bringing the count down to 13.
    – user200500
    Dec 30, 2012 at 12:55
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    @Asad Likewise, spaces are also removed, and the title length is checked after the trim; should really be same for special characters.
    – GSerg
    Dec 30, 2012 at 13:35
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    That must have been changed then, because it used to be possible to use a bunch of whitespace to workaround this. I just noticed you've already tried this approach.
    – user200500
    Dec 30, 2012 at 13:49

1 Answer 1

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The author may have wrapped the question in other characters, such as -==- (as can be seen in the revision history of this question) and then a moderator may have removed them. At least, this happened to me once before but I do not remember the site.

It cannot be white-space because white space is stripped out before the length-check is applied.

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    And you really couldn't come up with a better title in that case? Why wrap a lousy title in nonsense characters, when you could simply take the time to make it a good one?
    – Bart
    Nov 9, 2013 at 10:15
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    Nah, my definition of a good title is based on plenty of experience writing them, or adjusting the bad titles of the posts of others. "Genotypic IQ" is a poor title that tells me very little about the exact question you're going to ask. Additionally, wrapping this in nonsense is not only lazy on your behalf, but deferring the editing of it to others is just poor form. Stop doing that please.
    – Bart
    Nov 9, 2013 at 10:20
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    Terrible title, I donnow what you're talking about but could write a couple of better titles to that -=IQ=- question.
    – brasofilo
    Nov 9, 2013 at 10:32
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    Seems to me even "How can IQ be genotypical?" better summarizes that question. And yes, "MySQL backups" is a terrible title too.
    – Arjan
    Nov 9, 2013 at 10:46
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    "How can IQ be genotypical?" [...] asks the same thing. No, it does not. Simply try to answer "Genotypic IQ". There's no hint whatsoever about what is being asked there.
    – Arjan
    Nov 9, 2013 at 10:57
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    We're creating questions, not surprise gifts.
    – Bart
    Nov 9, 2013 at 11:24
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    The question was: how to bypass the length filter? I have answered it: you can do that with the help of moderator. -- no, the question wasn't how to bypass the filter. The question was a) how the hell that user bypassed the filter, and b) how to make sure people don't bypass filters in future. There was no moderator intervention in that question, so it wasn't moderator who shortened the title for the user. That alone makes your answer wrong, which is partially the reason it has so many downvotes now. It is definitely not an example of "right answers are closed."
    – GSerg
    Nov 9, 2013 at 11:56
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    Title must just tell you what the question is about. No. While you were typing your question the title's placeholder clearly stated: What's your biology question? Be specific. Why not simply take a few seconds to do that? Also, the title is needed to show you the possible existing duplicates.
    – Arjan
    Nov 9, 2013 at 12:32
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    This question is about how it happened and how we can prevent it in the future. Not how we can continue this behaviour
    – Richard Tingle
    Nov 9, 2013 at 13:04
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    If you disagree with the filter you should propose changing it, you are receiving down votes because (a) you are suggesting "cheating" the filter rather than suggesting it be removed and (b) you are suggesting making huge quantities of unnessisary work for moderators
    – Richard Tingle
    Nov 9, 2013 at 13:43
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    Unless I have considerably misunderstood; you have proposed it as a good thing to do this, rather than "I am reporting this exploit I have discovered which should be closed". If you would like to discuss the minimum title length I am happy to do so, however that should have it's own question
    – Richard Tingle
    Nov 9, 2013 at 14:17
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    P.s. I think you should reread the question as I think you have considerably misunderstood it's context. It is asked in the context of the police investigating a crime rather than criminals attempting to plot their next crime. You have answered as if it was the second type of question
    – Richard Tingle
    Nov 9, 2013 at 14:22
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    And he has already clearly stated "no, the question wasn't how to bypass the filter".
    – Bart
    Nov 9, 2013 at 14:27
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    Ok, the useful part of your answer is "The OP may have wrapped their title in noise characters such as -==- and then a moderator may have deleted them" Everything else is noise and your political opinion which is not on topic for this question
    – Richard Tingle
    Nov 9, 2013 at 14:31
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    The rest (regarding whether the length check is a good thing) could find a place in annother question, but not here
    – Richard Tingle
    Nov 9, 2013 at 14:41

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