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====== An Empty Table ======

~~NOTOC~~

[{{ :wiki:empty_table.png?nolink&200|List of good reasons to believe that the Earth is flat}}]

**An Empty Table** is a table that was drawn, but not filled in.

The properties of an empty table include height, width, number of rows, columns and styling. However, empty tables generally have no titles, since a title would depend on the content.

Empty tables are extremely popular among people who need to make a table on a subject that they are ignorant about. An empty table is also great as a listing of ideas that you still did not think of.

===== Empty Table Perception Asymmetry =====

It can be argued that empty tables can say more than intended. A person who has not yet filled out a table may seem smarter than she really is. Once the table is filled out, it would be clear she is a psychopath, or just a very bored diesel mechanic.

This perception asymmetry of a person before and after they fill out a table is called an //empty table perception asymmetry//. It is a strictly professional term, although the professions that use this term are very specialized, and the terms they use are so narrow, that their width hardly exceeds that of a hair. As a result, nobody really ever refers to the //empty table perception asymmetry//, and laymen are advised against showing off their knowledge of the concept.

Among intellectuals using the term even as an inside joke is considered extremely offensive, to the point of considering it an obstruction of justice.

===== Necessarily Empty Tables =====

A whole class of empty tables must logically stay empty. For example, a table of ideas you still haven't come up with is always necessarily empty. As soon as you put something in it - it then becomes an idea that //you did come up with//, therefore it has to be immediately removed from the table.

===== Criticism of empty tables =====

[[J. N. Spoilsport]] argues that empty tables may be breeding grounds for offensive content, since theoretically anyone can write anything in them. [[Mr. Porridge]] counters that any given table has limited dimensions, which in turn limit the amount of content it can hold. Therefore, you cannot write **anything** in an empty table.

"It is clear that if you have a small empty table, you cannot write a novel in it. This is fairly obvious. I have no idea how someone can think otherwise," - Mr. Porridge says.

[[The Cave]] forum post in 2016 has commented on this by launching a project that would allow an Excel table to hold compressed text. That way, Mr. Porridge would be proven false.

[[Dan Dindridge]] has summed up the whole exchange by pointing out that empty tables is something that "the public doesn't give a shit about".


===== An Empty Table Example =====

{{:wiki:empty_table.png?nolink|}}
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