Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

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kaf
Posts: 47
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 6:09 pm

Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

Post by kaf »

Hi Adum,
I suggest banning x-ASCII and non-ASCII symbols from user names. It's causing problems in some browsers. Besides that, it's often impossible addressing such a user in a comment.
User avatar
adum
Site Admin
Posts: 422
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:09 pm

Re: Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

Post by adum »

i agree with this suggestion. i need to reexamine the user registration process. thanks.
ytqb
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2010 11:52 pm

Re: Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

Post by ytqb »

Hi Adum,

I think the problem goes beyond registering the user name in ASCII. For instance, in problem 3368, the problem and the source are encoded in a non-ASCII code.

Upon further review, I tried to access problem 3368, and it was not the same problem that I worked on. The only way I could get the problem number was from the URL box on the browser. Apparently that number didn't identify the problem. The non-ASCII issue remains, nevertheless, for text in the heading panel on the problem page.

Maybe it was 3378, but 3378 has all ASCII text in the header. Only thing I can say, is that I'll try to get another example. I'm not ready to say that the problem page has a bug.

FWIW, ytqb
ytqb
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2010 11:52 pm

Re: Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

Post by ytqb »

What I discovered in my previous message wasn't fiction. This time I did the following search:

1. number to search 0
2. type=tesuji only
3. ranking 25kyu to 20kyu
4. sort easy to hard
5. last 3 test boxes checked
6. clicked on get problems

The second problem on the list was garbage. It should have been a problem number or a short description. I click on the second problem in the list. The problem# and source are both garbage.

The URL for the problem is:

http://goproblems.com/prob.php3?id=3777&psetid=5579628

The contributor for problem 3777 was sing216.

Did sing216 enter non-ASCII data, or is there a bug?

Thanks, ytqb
Nickj
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 7:36 am

Re: Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

Post by Nickj »

I disagree with this suggestion. Leap forward into the 1990s, Adum, you should be using some version of Unicode by now. Every programming language still in use solved this problem 15 years ago. Which browser, exactly, can't handle Unicode? Maybe the 2 users still using it could upgrade, instead of telling tens of millions of people whose names contain accented characters that you don't support them?
tails
Posts: 90
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:10 pm

Re: Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

Post by tails »

I (as a maintainer) think you are right, but it requires total overhauling of this site, for the massive data and resources are stored in other (and various!) encoding. I bet Adum will create next site in UTF8 :-)
kaf
Posts: 47
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 6:09 pm

Re: Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

Post by kaf »

By all means, I'm not suggesting drastic measures. Just ask users to change their names in English characters. And the matter is not in the coding. Let's say, I want to tel user '__цf4кы'рув something in the comment. And I simply can't, for I got no Japanese (Chinese, Russian, etc.) keyboard. How do I address him? "Hey you"? Or "someone who posted problem #13465"?
tails
Posts: 90
Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2008 12:10 pm

Re: Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

Post by tails »

Ah, of course I agree with your opinion, Kaf. I meant that allowing all Unicode characters would be difficult. Sorry if I was confusing.
kaf
Posts: 47
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 6:09 pm

Re: Non-ASCII symbols in user names.

Post by kaf »

My reply was addressed to Nickj's posting. Sorry, - I should have been more explicit.
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