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I tried to ask a question about Korean fonts and copied some text directly into the question box. The following image appeared, though I moved the red box beneath the question to make the aspect ratio more attractive. The red box actually appears on the right:

Question with Korean characters

Tried adding, deleting various bits of the Korean text...and StackOverflow always says "Body cannot contain BLAH". I'm assuming this is a bug on SO. Google Translate confirms the text is benign: "Conveyor is not running".

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    I suspect this is due to a rather nasty spam influx a couple of years back which resulted in a blanket ban on korean: meta.superuser.com/questions/10730/sudden-influx-of-korean-spam
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 13:02
  • Hmm, yes that is exactly the problem I am seeing. Shouldn't the filter be a bit more sophisticated? For example, if (user.reputation > 50) then can post? Is the anti-Korean ban still in place?
    – AlainD
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 13:04
  • Seems that it is still blacklisted. I don't know if we have any way to know what would happen should the ban be lifted, but the easy fix is to leave out to Korean text or otherwise isolate it in an image...
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 13:16
  • That is what I have done (converted the text to an image). Perhaps you could raise this with the Stack Exchange developers to lift the ban and make the filter slightly more sophisticated? There must be several simple, effective ways to do this such as requiring a minimum reputation and/or length of membership.
    – AlainD
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 13:35
  • I have asked a question. Will let you know if anything comes back.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 13:59
  • I suggest tagging this as [spam], so it's more easily found in the future.
    – user380375
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 14:11
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    @NormalHuman but this question isn't about spam, it's about a system enforced ban. That the ban was designed to catch spam is entirely tangential to this post. Tags should define and narrow down a subject, not be used to show everything that might be vaguely related.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 14:28

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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This is due to a rather nasty spam influx a couple of years back which resulted in a blanket ban on korean: Sudden influx of Korean spam

I've spoken to a member of the team and they have pushed out an update to the rules that should be slightly less restrictive.

Give it a whirl and let us know.

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  • Thanks Mokubai. Just tried it and I was able to ask a question with Korean text in it. Are you able to mention what the rule update was? I'll understand if you cannot (so that the rules don't get gamed by the spammers). Coincidentally, my wife works for Nature and since yesterday they have had an influx of thousands of fake accounts and fake chemical lab groups on Nature.com...and these fake groups are selling DVDs and other non-science junk. They cannot delete these groups fast enough and are looking into beefing up the rules for creating accounts and labs.
    – AlainD
    Commented Mar 16, 2017 at 9:44
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The restriction on what characters are no longer allowed has been relaxed.

You should be able to post Korean characters now and the error message has been updated to be more helpful.

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  • Thanks Oded. A delicate balance between total freedom and some restrictions to protect freedom is required. Generally StackExchange get this balance about right.
    – AlainD
    Commented Mar 16, 2017 at 21:37

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