Talk:Zalgo text

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 4, 2021	Guild of Copy Editors	Copyedited
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on April 17, 2021. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the Lovecraftian Zalgo text (pictured) is a common aspect of "surreal memes"?

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 22:27, 15 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Zalgo text

... that the Lovecraftian Zalgo text (pictured) is a common aspect of "surreal memes"? Source: https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/05/surreal-memes-are-the-best-way-to-procrastinate.html "They use the Cyrillic alphabet, little-known Unicode symbols, and Zalgo text that brings to mind Cthulhu."
- ALT1:... that when a teenager put Zalgo text (pictured) in his school yearbook caption, it distorted both his photograph and that of the student below him? Source: Teen's bizarre yearbook photo draws concern: 'Someone’s getting in trouble'

Reviewed: Did you know nominations/Green Bullfrog

Created by Vaticidalprophet (talk). Self-nominated at 16:06, 13 March 2021 (UTC).[reply]

I've read the article and I think it's okay. But could you maybe find a better source than this one for the description of Zalgo text as "Lovecraftian"? (I'm asking myself whether the source is sufficient...) --Moscow Connection (talk) 18:26, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Vaticidalprophet: I think I can tick this one anyway but there is another small problem. It seems to me that the opening sentence of the article is somewhat unclear. It can be understood as that Zalgo text is made by "combining several letters". It should be made clear that there are so-called combining characters which are intended to combine with the letter that comes immediately before them and that is how Zalgo text is made. My attempt at clarification is even more unclear than your original version, but I hope you will be able to come up with something better. (I will be out of Wikipedia until Monday or Tuesday, but I will come back and tick this nomination.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 18:57, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, @Moscow Connection. I've clarified the wording of the lede a little. A couple other sources make Lovecraft-type comparisons, such as here and here. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 07:15, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry for the delay. I will think about it tomorrow. (Actually, I returned to Wikipedia 9 days ago and saw that nothing much changed and thought, "Okay, I will rewrite the opening sentence myself." And I still haven't got to it. --Moscow Connection (talk) 22:59, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- It appears that even John M Wolfson misunderstood the definition of "Zalgo text" [1]. Zalgo text isn't an "act of combining characters".
  The simplest solution would probably be to change "combining characters" to "so-called 'combining characters'". --Moscow Connection (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"So-called combining characters" sounds odd in English. I could put 'combining characters' in quotes? Vaticidalprophet 15:08, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed the first sentence a bit (like this) for now and I'm passing the nomination. But I will make a copy-edit request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests. Maybe the people there will be able to come up with a better wording. --Moscow Connection (talk) 20:35, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The article is new enough and long enough. Both hooks are properly sourced and are good to go. (I don't have a preference for the hook to be used, however the first one sounds more intriguing.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 20:35, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

StackOverflow regex parsing of HTML

You'd need a reference for it, but I'd be surprised if this weren't relevant to the development and uptake of Zalgo text. At the moment the history rather jumps from 2004 to 2020. › Mortee _talk 03:53, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Zalgo text direct example

Since an IP editor added an actual string of Zalgo text to the article with this edit, I'm wondering if it's worthwhile keeping it. It probably violates MOS:NOSYMBOLS for accessibility reasons / potentially breaking the site. I don't think having just images of Zalgo text is a perfect replacement either, since it's the encoding of the text itself that's important. I feel silly, but I'm wondering if this is a rare case for WP:IAR. —Wingedserif (talk) 02:33, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting thought. I value both IAR and accessibility as highest virtues. What I'd lean towards here is having an actual screen reader user check out the article and see if it breaks it. Vaticidalprophet 03:29, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Could do something like this (see infobox). Elli (talk | contribs) 03:35, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Vaticidalprophet: As a screen reader user, I've gotten here through this village pump thread I started thanks to finding what turns out to be a completely ridiculous example of the phenomenon. I have no problem whatsoever with short examples like the one in the article and on the talk page. Also, Vaticidalprophet, I hope you don't mind what I did to the page history. Graham87 16:50, 10 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Usability

This articles does not mention that Zalgo is a "Fuck you!" to the blind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.160.30.123 (talk) 16:19, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]