Fonts and colors

[CaptainPanic]

I notice some members (esp. newbies) using fonts and colors to pimp their posts. Why is this allowed? Some people apparently think that their post is so good that it deserves a new color, and a new font. Some others just like to push all the buttons that they can find because they are 10 years old, and that's what a 10-year-old does. Personally, I find it ugly and distracting. Because that's what grumpy old guys do.

 

Someone has made an effort to choose the style of this forum, and it's quite pleasing. It's just ugly to have a single post in a thread which breaks with the style. In addition, the way I read / scan a thread is simple: I read everything in the default font/color, because everything else is not relevant for a discussion (signatures, and forum-related buttons and text). It's annoying when someone breaks that unwritten rule. In fact, I find that I often skip such a post entirely.

 

If there is a single post in a thread which uses a different font/color, then it looks like something between a large signature, and a regular post. I mean, sure, people can have a personal style. But I think that if we would disable the option to use different fonts and colors, we would lose almost nothing.

[Fuzzwood]

No, I find it a rather handy tool to put emphasis in stuff, for instance when I try to explain organic reaction equations.

[CaptainPanic]

No, I find it a rather handy tool to put emphasis in stuff, for instance when I try to explain organic reaction equations.

Hmm... fair point.

I guess that sometimes, it is used in a functional and responsible way too. Not often though (imho).

[swansont]

I suspect that this became more of a problem when we changed software. I scolded a few people right after the switch, and they swore they weren't doing the formatting. I seem to recall some issues had something to do with whether or not the rich-text editor was enabled

 

The overkill bothers me as well, but it is nice to be able to add emphasis on occasion.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

No, I find it a rather handy tool to put emphasis in stuff, for instance when I try to explain organic reaction equations.

Do you just need different colors to do that, or do you also use different fonts?

[StringJunky]

All I use is the bold, italic and underline...I find these three more than ample for my needs in getting anything across. "Fonts", "sizes" and "text colour" are the ones that are prone to abuse I think...these are largely unnecessary imo.

Edited August 8, 2011 by StringJunky

[rktpro]

It is a tool for some, a dagger for others.

I mean, using it appropriately for equations and other stuff is nice and you can easily find the formatted material the next time you look for it.

And when people just use colours and fonts for their post, it looks odd. Even lengthy signatures spoil the show. Using colours and fonts for the entire post make me think that the person writing is not serious and is just another drop out from some regular chit-chat forum where they use formatting and lengthy signatures that sometimes simply cover the whole page.

I think the text colour options should be just 4-Blue, Green, Red and Black. About the font, they won't make a mess.