Review of pages intentionally left blank

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/22/review-of-pages-intentionally.html

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Seems like it would be more accurate to print “We intended to leave this page blank but as you can see we fucked that up.”

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Apparently there’s no blanket solution.

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This reminds me how the astronaut Pete Conrad responded when he was undergoing a Rorschach test and was shown a blank card, asked to describe what he saw: “It’s upside down”

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Hasn’t anyone used “the opposite/previous/next page is intentionally left blank”?

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Seems like a possible solution would be to come up with a pictogram or design to be on a blank page as a visual cue to let a reader know that the page is intended to have no content on it. Perhaps have an explanation of what that pictogram/symbol means in the index?

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“Every other line on this page intentionally left blank.”

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You have lost the game.

No, wait, let’s not do that.

via xkcd

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Perhaps a little message ‘Bonus page. Do whatever you like with it. Go on, go wild!’

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I’ve been a fan of these pages since I played Zork. I recently saw this from a 1981 document, which was a new one to me.

image

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“Something is hidden on this page. Can you find it?”

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There was a DOS based flowchart program (EZFlow, maybe) that had “witty” blank pages in the manual, like “This page left intentionally blank like a politician’s promise.”

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image

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I found a way around the “this post must be 9 characters”

I just posted a picture of white.

It’s not a perfect solution, because it’s taking up more room than I would like, and there is a thin blue line down the left side, but it’s sufficiently representative of a blank comment.

Now having commented on leaving no comment, I feel I must leave and think about the flaws in my character that has lead me to this moment.

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I’ve actually had to use this odd phrasing at work because they wouldn’t accept my alternative:

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One solution is to say “to hell with convention” and have no blank pages, and thus no need to mark them up and indicate “no, you’re reading this right. It’s not a copy error. You didn’t lose a graph somewhere.”

Another solution is to label such pages “This page is a divider. See next page to continue.”

Another solution is to make jokes in this vein until they cease to be funny, like most observational comedy. Then no one will care.

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I once played softball against a team from IBM. Their shirts said, “This shirt intentionally left blank.”

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Yeah, your second post was the equivalent of following every This page intentionally left blank-page with a second page explaining that, yes, they know there’s words on that previous page, but US Code of Regulations (1984) actually mandates… blah blah blah.

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No comment.

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Our final exams usually feature a page with one line of text that reads “Use this (mostly) blank page for rough work or interesting doodles.” We post the good ones.

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