There are some limits on characters which can be posted, notably various emoji and some Unicode charactersets.
Though I did find an example of someone achieving bold text on HN (ordinarily only italic is supported via enclosing content in *asterisks*)[1] by way of some Unicode character points.
That's frowned on but not explicitly coded against, mostly because explicitly coding against stuff takes time.
HN uses a lot of soft social pressure for behavioural control. Largely to good effect IMO.
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Notes:
1. Backslash escapes seem a recent addition to that markup. They're automatically added in cases of unbalanced asterisk usage, which is how I'd noticed them.
Though I did find an example of someone achieving bold text on HN (ordinarily only italic is supported via enclosing content in *asterisks*)[1] by way of some Unicode character points.
That's frowned on but not explicitly coded against, mostly because explicitly coding against stuff takes time.
HN uses a lot of soft social pressure for behavioural control. Largely to good effect IMO.
________________________________
Notes:
1. Backslash escapes seem a recent addition to that markup. They're automatically added in cases of unbalanced asterisk usage, which is how I'd noticed them.