# An anti-gibberish filter

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/an-anti-gibberish-filter/20552>\
**Category:** Site feedback\
**Created:** [2014年九月27日 21:05 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/an-anti-gibberish-filter/20552 "2014-09-27T21:05:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bro](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bro/32/114962_2.png) [@Bro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bro)\
**Post date:** [2014年九月27日 21:05 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/an-anti-gibberish-filter/20552/1 "2014-09-27T21:05:02Z")

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Having read this:

> [@Why bother with the minimum character requirement for replies?](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-bother-with-the-minimum-character-requirement-for-replies/898):
>
> ?

and having decided I like the minimum character feature, I was wondering if there was any way to stop people from posting gibberish, as in

> feirererfgerkjrehjr rejhhhreuhrer eiruhfruhrehr

You know, as in just banging on the keyboard.

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**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)\
**Post date:** [2014年九月27日 22:20 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/an-anti-gibberish-filter/20552/2 "2014-09-27T22:20:08Z")

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This exists for topic titles, entropy check, but not for post bodies.

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**Author:** ![Bro](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/bro/32/114962_2.png) [@Bro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bro)\
**Post date:** [2014年九月28日 05:58 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/an-anti-gibberish-filter/20552/3 "2014-09-28T05:58:31Z")

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Hello Jeff. Thank you and your colleagues for such a great piece of software.

I am not a computer scientist, so please excuse me if I stick my foot in it. According to Wikipedia, an English text (and I’m guessing that the same goes for most other western languages) would typically have a low entropy, as opposed to gibberish, so is there any reason why the same check run on titles cannot be run for the body of a post? I think this would also avoid to some degree people just typing out random stuff to fill the character quota mentioned in the original thread, right?

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**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)\
**Post date:** [2014年九月28日 17:03 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/an-anti-gibberish-filter/20552/4 "2014-09-28T17:03:14Z")

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Two reasons

1. Like the mythical ALL CAPS POST, posts consisting of all gibberish are pretty rare in the wild. If we saw posts like this daily then it would be a more serious concern.

2. Titles are more important to protect as what you see on the home page is titles, not post bodies.

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**Author:** ![elberet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/elberet/32/122404_2.png) [@elberet](https://meta.discourse.org/u/elberet)\
**Post date:** [2014年九月29日 13:36 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/an-anti-gibberish-filter/20552/5 "2014-09-29T13:36:33Z")

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Gibberish is not the same as random. If a human types gibberish on a keyboard, you can expect to see patterns, i.e. low entropy.