# The message you entered is too short. And you're ugly! **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [August 26, 2005, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794 "2005-08-26T21:31:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/1 "2005-08-26T21:31:45Z")
I’ve been trying to post in this thread: > **[For all times we've complained "Where's a cop when you need one?" today he...](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=331885)** > > Cruising back at the end of day from outer western bohunk, I became aware of a Nascar fan, except my name ain’t Richard Petty. Sniffy McSphincter decided that he wanted to get a few more MPG out of his Volvo by drafting. Seriously, there were times... and I keep getting the response: “The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 2 characters.” WHA?? It’s signifigantly longer then 2 characters. I tried this in Mozilla Firefox and IE with the same result. Thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/2 "2005-08-26T21:42:45Z")
The only time that I have seen this message was when I responded to a post (quoting the relevant passage) and hit preview before adding my stuff. Quotes don’t count, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/3 "2005-08-26T22:32:46Z")
Are you here for a second opinion? 🙂 Seriously, I had the exact same experience mentioned above; I had tried to preview a post that had a quote in it – and nothing else. The system is designed to reject any posts that are just quotes and nothing else. . . it might be set so that you have to have more than the quote and “Me too.” Apparently it’s a ploy of abuse on other boards. Our folks are better behaved . . . or perhaps they just hadn’t thought of trying that here . . . guaranteed to get them a mighty DopeSlap from our staffers if they do try. your humble TubaDiva Gar-onteed! ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/4 "2005-08-26T23:24:21Z")
When I was using IE, clicking the preview post button would occassionally insert random characters at the start of my typing. One such character was _invisible_, and seemed to trigger an “end of post” event. If that spurious character happened to be one of the first 3, or was it 8 back then?, the board rejected it with an error message. ---
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/5 "2005-08-27T00:13:55Z")
> [@TubaDiva](#): > > Are you here for a second opinion? 🙂 > > Seriously, I had the exact same experience mentioned above; I had tried to preview a post that had a quote in it – and nothing else. The system is designed to reject any posts that are just quotes and nothing else. . . it might be set so that you have to have more than the quote and “Me too.” > > Apparently it’s a ploy of abuse on other boards. Our folks are better behaved . . . or perhaps they just hadn’t thought of trying that here . . . guaranteed to get them a mighty DopeSlap from our staffers if they do try. > > your humble TubaDiva > Gar-onteed! Weird though- I had a post typed in, not just the original quote. Maybe I formatted it funny…lemmie double check. ---
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/6 "2005-08-27T00:17:04Z")
I are stoopid. I had the whole thing in quotes, including my reply. How I didn’t realize that (I’ve only been posting to boards for 7 or so years, give me a break!) is beyond me. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/7 "2005-08-27T00:27:15Z")
TubaDiva, Wasn’t there one post, quite some time ago, that consisted entirely of quotes & hyperlinks within those quotes, and was quite funny? Or perhaps I’m misremembering. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/8 "2005-08-27T02:29:35Z")
Sounds vaguely familiar . . . lost in the mists of time. Did it make Threadspotting? Check the archive pages. your humble TubaDiva (Note to self and/or others, if you get there first.) ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/9 "2005-08-27T02:33:05Z")
Yeah, I know, there’s always someone in the class that says, “WHAT archive pages?” [The Straight Dope Archive Page](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/) (old stuff) and [The Straight Dope Threadspotting Archives](http://straightdope.com/mailbag/threadspotting.html) (really old stuff, kind of like Monty) your humble TubaDiva ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/10 "2005-08-27T10:44:51Z")
Hey, I’m not really old! I’m incredibly old. There is a difference! ---
**Author:** ![Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9dc877/32.png) [@Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightwatch_Trailer)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/11 "2005-08-27T23:44:59Z")
> [@Nightwatch Trailer](#): > > > [@Monty](#): > > > > TubaDiva, > > > > Wasn’t there one post, quite some time ago, that consisted entirely of quotes & hyperlinks within those quotes, and was quite funny? > > > > Or perhaps I’m misremembering. > > Of course, it’s easy to appear to beat the system. … ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2005, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/12 "2005-08-28T21:20:25Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Hey, I’m not really old! I’m incredibly old. There is a difference! Soooo… How old are you Montie? 🙂 I’ll be 65 in Dec. Fess up! Whippersnapper ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-message-you-entered-is-too-short-and-youre-ugly/318794/13 "2005-08-30T21:34:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Hey, I’m not really old! I’m incredibly old. There is a difference! I can’t believe that. Hey, whaddaya know, he’s right!