Current NSF Forum Feedback Thread 2

[clongton]

While I like the fun in calling it Klingon, from a UX pov, that can create confusion for users and I would suggest just calling it ambient.

FYI, Klingon is a real spoken language. In truth it is an artificial language, in that it was created by fans of Star Trek, but it actually exists and is spoken in many places. One Klingon speaker raised his son Alec to speak Klingon as a first language and for his 1st 5 years of life, conversed with him only in Klingon, while his mother taught him English. I myself speak broken Klingon, but not well enough to be comfortable with it. All this is to say that Klingon is not "ambient"; it is real.

[ChrisC]

I guess I'm the resident historian here, noting the milestones in the Youtube channel   In today's Starbase highlights video, Chris B filled in for Das to do the narration, and I believe this is the first time that he's appeared any such prepared video, but certainly one of these narrated Starbase videos.  Lots of live videos, sure, but never in a prerecorded one.

Normally I watch with the audio in ambient mode ("Klingon", lately) but listened into the narration for this one.  Sounded good, Chris!  You deserve an actual credit for it though -- your name was missing at the end   An oversight, I'm sure, using boilerplate credits.

[catdlr]

I guess I'm the resident historian here, noting the milestones in the Youtube channel   In today's Starbase highlights video, Chris B filled in for Das to do the narration, and I believe this is the first time that he's appeared any such prepared video, but certainly one of these narrated Starbase videos.  Lots of live videos, sure, but never in a prerecorded one.

Normally I watch with the audio in ambient mode ("Klingon", lately) but listened into the narration for this one.  Sounded good, Chris!  You deserve an actual credit for it though -- your name was missing at the end   An oversight, I'm sure, using boilerplate credits.

That is correct. All of them are in the NSF Starbase Video Library Thread that I maintain, including all the Shuttle Sunday shows he hosts. 

[ChrisC]

All of them are in the NSF Starbase Video Library Thread that I maintain, including all the Shuttle Sunday shows he hosts.

My god, you are everywhere!  Thanks!  Link: NSF Starbase Video Library Thread

[catdlr]

All of them are in the NSF Starbase Video Library Thread that I maintain, including all the Shuttle Sunday shows he hosts.

My god, you are everywhere!  Thanks!  Link: NSF Starbase Video Library Thread

Yep:
NSF Weekly / Spaceflight Update videos
NSF The Flame Trench - 30 Aug 2024 onwards
NSF The Launch Replay Views - Compilation Videos library
KSC Flyover - Video Series
NSF Shuttle Sunday Series
NSF Starbase Daily Summary Videos
NSF Starbase Update videos
and my favorite: Hazegrayart Master Thread

[Nomadd]

 What the heck are all these  symbols popping up everywhere?

[gongora]

Could you point out an example?

[Nomadd]

Could you point out an example?

" What the heck are all these  symbols popping up everywhere?"
"My god, you are everywhere!  Thanks!Â"
"Pages: [1] 2 3 4 Next  All  Â"

 Almost every line I see has them.

[gongora]

What device are you using to read the forum?  That seems like it would be some sort of character encoding problem, but I don't know why it would be happening for you.

[Nomadd]

What device are you using to read the forum?  That seems like it would be some sort of character encoding problem, but I don't know why it would be happening for you.

Plain ol Dell Windows 11 computer. It happens on no other site. Both Firefox and Chrome browsers.
OK. It happens with Nord VPN.

[OM72]

Quite seriously, this forum needs to bring back the "like/dislike" or "vote up/vote down" feature.  There are so many here that just say things like they think they know what they are saying but have no real idea.  Taking on this misinformation shouldn't always require a reply. 

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Could you point out an example?

" What the heck are all these  symbols popping up everywhere?"
"My god, you are everywhere!  Thanks!Â"
"Pages: [1] 2 3 4 Next  All  Â"

 Almost every line I see has them.

I have also seen this problem over the past 2 days or so on my PC (not on iPad and iPhone though), however it seems to have resolved by itself over the past 24 hours.

I’m using Firefox version 132 (the latest one) on Windows 11 24H2, but with no VPN.

[dglow]

I've seen it briefly before too, @Nomadd. No idea what caused or resolved it.

[rsdavis9]

Could you point out an example?

" What the heck are all these  symbols popping up everywhere?"
"My god, you are everywhere!  Thanks!Â"
"Pages: [1] 2 3 4 Next  All  Â"

 Almost every line I see has them.

I have also seen this problem over the past 2 days or so on my PC (not on iPad and iPhone though), however it seems to have resolved by itself over the past 24 hours.

I’m using Firefox version 132 (the latest one) on Windows 11 24H2, but with no VPN.

I have 134.0.2 firefox and have not seen it.

[Chris Bergin]

I've seen it briefly before too, @Nomadd. No idea what caused or resolved it.

Sometimes a certain browser updates and wacks it out. Site looks fine to me and usually it will resolve. Nothing's been changed on the  forum lately, so it's "not us"

[Cabbage123]

Hi. I don't know if anybody else has reported this issue, but for at least a few weeks I am seeing lots of instances of the wrong symbol being rendered in the forum. Specifically non-breaking space is being rendered as "a capital A with a slash on the top". I put the source of a page into Gemini and this is what it reckons.

Just wondered if this is something that could be looked at. Thanks.

The problem is definitely the character encoding.  The HTML source shows:
HTML

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"/>
var smf_charset = "ISO-8859-1";

This tells the browser (and the forum's own JavaScript) that the page is using ISO-8859-1 encoding.  ISO-8859-1 is an older encoding that does not handle all characters correctly, especially those like the non-breaking space (&nbsp;).  Specifically, in ISO-8859-1, the character code for a non-breaking space is often interpreted as the character Å (A with a ring above it) when viewed with the wrong encoding.

The Fix (You Can't Do It Directly):

The only way to completely fix this is for the forum administrators to change the character encoding of the forum itself.  They need to change the charset declaration in the HTML <meta> tag and ensure their server is sending data in UTF-8.  UTF-8 is a much more modern and comprehensive encoding that can handle virtually all characters.

What You Can Do (Workarounds):

    Browser Encoding (Temporary, Inconsistent):  As you've already tried, manually changing your browser's encoding might sometimes work.  However, this is unreliable because:
        It only changes how your browser interprets the data. Other users will still see the Å.
        It might not work consistently across all pages of the forum.
        It can lead to other characters being displayed incorrectly.

    Contact the Forum Admins (The Real Solution):  Politely explain the problem to the forum administrators.  Tell them that the non-breaking spaces are appearing as Å characters, and that their page is using ISO-8859-1 encoding.  Point out that they should switch to UTF-8 to fix the issue.  This is the best long-term solution.

In summary: While you can try temporary workarounds in your browser, the root cause is on the forum's server.  Only the forum administrators can fix this properly by changing the character encoding to UTF-8.

[AndrewM]

There was some discussion in Current NSF Forum Feedback Thread 2.

I've seen it briefly before too, @Nomadd. No idea what caused or resolved it.

Sometimes a certain browser updates and wacks it out. Site looks fine to me and usually it will resolve. Nothing's been changed on the  forum lately, so it's "not us"

[Cabbage123]

I'm seeing it on any browser (Firefox, Chrome, and Edge) I use on my main PC, but not all on PCs.

So it seems that there are probably character set, localisation settings which cause this, in conjunction with not using UTF-8 encoding. I do not see it on any other website other than NSF.

I have had a look at the source of a few sites I regularly use, and UTF-8 does seem to be pretty standard.

Any chance this could be added to the appropriate todo list?