# Bug? You can avoid the character restriction **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-you-can-avoid-the-character-restriction/23421 **Category:** Feature **Created:** [25 december 2014 om 11:12 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-you-can-avoid-the-character-restriction/23421 "2014-12-25T11:12:56Z") **Posts on this page:** 7 **Page:** 1
### Author: ![FHTzoob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/fhtzoob/32/37485_2.png) [@FHTzoob](https://meta.discourse.org/u/FHTzoob) #### Post date: [25 december 2014 om 11:12 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-you-can-avoid-the-character-restriction/23421/1 "2014-12-25T11:12:56Z")
You know that thing that says “Post must be at least 20 characters”? Well you can easily avoid that using html tags. In your invalid post, simply put ``` hi ``` and then you can post it. ---
### Author: ![FHTzoob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/fhtzoob/32/37485_2.png) [@FHTzoob](https://meta.discourse.org/u/FHTzoob) #### Post date: [25 december 2014 om 11:13 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-you-can-avoid-the-character-restriction/23421/2 "2014-12-25T11:13:33Z")
See? ---
### Author: ![digitalsurgeon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/digitalsurgeon/32/37288_2.png) [@digitalsurgeon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/digitalsurgeon) #### Post date: [25 december 2014 om 11:24 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-you-can-avoid-the-character-restriction/23421/3 "2014-12-25T11:24:19Z")
Well technically you still are posting at least 20 characters, just that is not getting rendered. I will agree that this is a bug, since `` is probably being stripped off but is still counted towards the 20 chars limit. ---
### Author: ![TechnoBear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/technobear/32/40546_2.png) [@TechnoBear](https://meta.discourse.org/u/TechnoBear) #### Post date: [25 december 2014 om 12:29 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-you-can-avoid-the-character-restriction/23421/4 "2014-12-25T12:29:53Z")
![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/a/a/aaf177f8fbf611e82c2e691ec62e6293ed426273.gif) ---
### Author: ![TechnoBear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/technobear/32/40546_2.png) [@TechnoBear](https://meta.discourse.org/u/TechnoBear) #### Post date: [25 december 2014 om 12:30 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-you-can-avoid-the-character-restriction/23421/5 "2014-12-25T12:30:55Z")
See also > [@Strange behaviour of emoticons in character count](https://meta.discourse.org/t/strange-behaviour-of-emoticons-in-character-count/19049): > > Continuing the discussion from [Notifications not clearing properly unless visited from menu](https://meta.discourse.org/t/notifications-not-clearing-properly-unless-visited-from-menu/19041/6): I was replying to a question of @sam’s, which really just required a “yes” or “no” answer, but of course, Discourse has a 20 character minimum requirement. Stuck for inspiration, I threw in a smilie and found that apparently counts for at least six characters, as you can see. ---
### Author: ![anon21958287](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee59a6/32.png) [@anon21958287](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon21958287) #### Post date: [1 januari 2015 om 14:24 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-you-can-avoid-the-character-restriction/23421/6 "2015-01-01T14:24:51Z")
There are a lot of ways to make “empty” posts by gaming the system: > **[What the Daily WTF?](https://what.thedailywtf.com/login)** ---
### Author: ![chapoi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/chapoi/32/537252_2.png) [@chapoi](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chapoi) #### Post date: [4 december 2025 om 11:33 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bug-you-can-avoid-the-character-restriction/23421/7 "2025-12-04T11:33:26Z")