question marks

Whenever I post a new work, the display page is flooded by sometimes hundred of popped out question marks (depending on the length) at the beginning, middle and the end of each sentence. It is so irritating to keep erasing question marks. Where do they come from, and is it just me?

Hi Bob. This happened with me 2 years ago. But it was due to computer settings on my windows.

I guess this happens to you when you copy and paste? No? Like do you write your work on a certain program like (word doc) and copy it to P and Q?

Does this happen also from mobile upload? I doubt.. But anyway if you could clarify it would be great.

Also.. Do you use another language to type on your device?

I guess so. I never write my poems on the site page, neither I do them on my mobile.
This never happened to me before, until the last suspension witch all my works over 200 pieces, were messed up and infested with question marks. Also, every poem I ever erased till then ( hundreds) surfaced back and my quotes, entirely (which were extensive) was erased. It felt like I was voodooed. So I deleted my account and now again the same thing in the new account.

Thank you, Rania, for daring not to ignore this!!

Woah, I'm surprised it's doing that, especially since you don't write via mobile. Maybe try writing directly onto the site and see if it was the copy and paste causing it, as Rania mentioned. I can only imagine how frustrating that would be to have to go through and delete each question mark. I don't think this has ever happened to me, only the symbols on the old version of the site when I'd use apostrophes.

Can anyone else weigh in on this?

Thank you dear POP. It seems like voodoo. Initially, I thought it was my welcome back present.

One of the few things Janis took care of on the old site was to deal with non-ASCII characters. That was short lived because when he changed sites more problems arose depending on the font used in a member’s word processor

Try converting your poems to Times-New-Roman and save the poems before copying them to post.

I always do that. I am fanatic about Times-New-Roman. and All my works are saved already ( due to losing them when i do not save) though I make some changes either on my file or on the site page.

Thanks for responding.

hmmm I think 90% it's because of the copy-paste process. Although voodoo seems interesting :P but I don't think it has anything to do with your account.

Keep us updated if it gets fixed! That's very annoying.

Try writing a poem directly on the website and see if this happens. I tried writing a draft and thankfully it still works! so maybe this would help you? Keeping your drafts online without using your Word Doc or whatever other prog.

Thank you, but this doesn't work for me Rania, because then I have to retype my works, which would be more time consuming than erasing all those question marks, given if it works. Also as I explained I write my poems piece by piece.

For me, remains two logical question though::
1- Why did "this" started right after my account was reinstated?
2- Why did not "this" go away after I deleted my previous account and now in 10 months opened a new one, - assuming being still the only one who is having " this" problem to such an extent-?

Oh I'm sorry now I got this important detail, you're posting old poems already. And you took your poems from the account which was reinstated, etc.. I am not sure why though. Are you sure you are not copying any other character that is not an alphabet letter ? (excluding punctuation marks) - I do not have an answer to that inquiry..so far..

I made a test and tried to copy paste from old poems and then deleted them. Nothing happened.

I'll suggest that you simply use these sites to get rid of any unwanted characters before publishing here.

http://www.textcleanr.com/

http://www.ubertoolz.com/demo/CleanUp.php

https://www.browserling.com/tools/remove-punctuation

let me know if they work for you!

or maybe try use them after you publish, once you get all the question marks..perhaps one of the 2 sites gets rid of them for you. I know this is not a permanent solution but, just trying!

Rania, you’re amazing. I hope something works.

Does anyone else have this problem? I have noticed a few ?s in poems occasionally.

Maybe if we find a pattern we can solve it.

I use WordPerfect and Chrome for word processing and browsing.
On cell I use Notes & IOS.

Never have that problem.

I do what Larry does too. I write it on a word document then
copy paste, try that it might work

Yes, Meena, he does that now
I’m trying to see if the specific word processor/browser combination might affect it

?Dear Meena, that is right. I was trying to say that I always do that. I never can start or finish a poem completely on the P&Q sheet.
Thank you for responding .

Edit: SEE : even though I wrote the above sentence on this platform, still the question mark appeared regardlessly. but if it is one or two is fine, sometimes there are hundreds

Seems the only way possible to deal with deficiencies is when they are epidemic.
No system in this world would wests resources for individual rare disfunction. Perhaps because if there is not a pattern, it is hard to recognise.

O dear sunshine, Thanks so much for helping and being resourceful. You are the best!!

Another thing randomly came to my mind. It could be that the system is trying to prevent pasting, by encouraging members to use P&Q platform to present original works. This, if the case, well, would be executing not a well thought through idea. For as I said, in my case I write a poem and then built the language around it. And revising your own work could be another reason ( I do this often) or reposting an old work to check the authenticity of the first reception. There could be so many other reasons as-well. Evidently Larry and Meena also use pasting. So I hope this is not the case.

It is extremely rare for me to compose directly onto PnQ. I almost always cut and paste.

The only times I have experienced the "?" is when I used unusual characters.

As an experiment I will post each character on my key board & then also cut and paste the same.

.0321654987+-*//.,mnbvcxz?><MNBVCXZ';lkjhgfdsa":LKJHGFDSA\][poiuytrewq|}{POIUYTREWQ=-0987654321`+_)(*&^%$#@!~

.0321654987+-*//.,mnbvcxz?><MNBVCXZ';lkjhgfdsa":LKJHGFDSA\][poiuytrewq|}{POIUYTREWQ=-0987654321`+_)(*&^%$#@!~

?¨…???¶§©™®?—???¢²?¤¾³?

EDIT: the keyboard characters all came through. The WordPerfect symbols had many characters that could not be displayed, mostly fractions and paragraph bullets.