[BenLurkin]

Every’’’thing loo’’’ks ’’’ne to me.

[Rome2000]

I never noticed.

[MeshugeMikey]

The software the forum runs on seems to have caught a cold.

It has something to with smart quotes

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20090225-00/?p=19033

there will be somebody here more cognizant than I on this matter posting shortly

[Coffee_drinker]

I get that sometimes, seems it’s a special font or special charactor that your computer doesn’t recognize.

[Texas Eagle]

Yes. I get it from time to time along with some sort of virus warning called webfilter or some such thing.

I just hit the "back" button and continue on. I'm sure quite a few threads have been cut short because of that stupid thing.

[Fai Mao]

The problem can be eliminated by checking in the preview bow for a small quote. Simply replace the offending characters by hand.

For larger blocks of text use this web site

http://dan.hersam.com/tools/smart-quotes.html

[Fungi]

What, getting what????

[TruthWillWin]

Yes, get them also. Suspect they will be gine soon, will miss them.

[garjog]

As soon as I uploaded Yosemite on my Mac I got those bugs.

I figured it was a bug that would get fixed, but so far it is on every page.

Anyone know how to get rid of these?

[luvbach1]

I get them all the time but only on Free Republic. Someone assured us (don’t remember who) that it would be remedied shortly. That was months ago.

[anton]

I see these as font conflicts. Paste your quote into MS Word, then correct the font to Arial, TNR, Courier or whatnot and then copy and paste into FR.

[tinyowl]

At the very base of things, characters you see on a computer screen are just 1's and 0's that are interpreted and then presented a certain way. As character sets expand, different computers / browsers read them differently.

When you paste text in to post, what you slurped as what looked like a regular quote it not a regular quote when pasted, so it comes out as a different character. that's a really simplified explanation.

If you check your post in preview, and just hand-replace the quotes by re-typing them over what you see, it will post fine.

I haven't read the linked article or used the site's recommended above ... but probably the software here just needs a tweak to intercept the bad characters and replace them. in the meantime ... just do it by hand.

I could be wrong about the details of what's above ... but it's something like that ... if you make sure to check your preview, and deal with it, or run your pasted text through the site above, then your post won't show up for others with the weird characters where the quotes should be. (may be affecting other characters ... but same rule probably applies ... )

[cornfedcowboy]

As long as you have donated to Free Republic you never have these issues. $10/month will solve the problem.

[Company Man]

This problem sprang up in October and has yet to be solved. For now, after you copy and before you paste, run your article through one of the filters mentioned above. Smart (curly) quotes are the biggest offender.

[caww]

Yes, I get those quite a bit...they’re annoying as all get out!

[Disambiguator]

"“! “! “!"

[Proud2BeRight]

Yes, I get it sometimes too.

[MinorityRepublican]

Everyone’s getting the same thing as you. I’m surprised that it haven’t been fixed already.

[publius911]

Welcome to the game, late.
Far as I know, there is not yet a fix. It's related to "slanted" " and ' symbol in the Freeper response software.

[Berlin_Freeper]

                          ::::::    .-~~\        ::::::
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          /    }~Xi--~  //  ||     /   }~Xi--~  // ||\
         Y    Y I\ \    "   ||    Y   Y I\ \    "  || Y
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        .--^.     o       .^||.  .--^.     o       ||--.
             "           ~  `'        "           ~`'