Topic: Please don't use bold text in your posts. (Read 864 times)

I'm trying your advice. What does the end of your probable scam promoting sig say.... I can't read it those dumb fools left the caps lock on. What promises does it make?

These tips on this thread are really helpful.

Saved me a lot of time already.

Not just you, there are many who do not like it. I am also don't read a post but when that is full of bold text.


I totally ignore the capslock text. And it's really time-consuming for the reader. This is more annoying to me than bold text.

Visually, capslocked-letters cost more time to read, with the same topic title, the one is written with lowercase is more friendly and easier to read as well as catch ideas of titles. In contrast, capitalized-title is more difficult to read and catch ideas.
Let's compare:
I could be wrong but I think this is what most of readers feel about capitalization.
I agree.

Of course highlighting of certain words can be useful.  Regardless of bold, uppercase or color. To even waste time on a big conversation about it is about what one can expect from chipmixer spammers.

If you are getting paid 7 bucks per post, you could  place the letters in the correct order. We post for free so take it dirty or you can have a full refund. Can you believe the board has financed you gaining 14 bucks or whatever for this garbage. What is darkstar thinking?

Someone creates output containing some bold, uppercase or color you don't like. Move along.

Sure the effort to reward ratio can vary slightly (within a sensible range of caps, bold etc). I'm sure those presenting real value here are not going to abuse it to a level that seriously impacts that ratio to anywhere near worthy of a thread about it.

Actmyname has some strange fonts he uses for fun that make it hard to read. However, I'm sure he will not use those if he really wanted to convey and important point.

Caps is not anger or shouting in all cases. It just saves time using other variants of emphasis or highlighting.

Yes, I agree with you, it's quite possible that capslock can be used for the title to specify the content (like [SERVICE], [ANN] / [BOUNTY] or [OPEN] / [FULL] for signature campaigns) or to improve the layout of a post. I can't remember if I used capslock in my posts, usually I'm using bold in my guides or underlined font for explanations sometimes.

Like you've already said: it's relevant how often such features are being used and where (when writing a plain text, special formatting isn't useful but it's very useful in guides or even to outline technical stuff (for exapmle the formatting style of nc50lc in his technical explanations is a very good one.)

Capslock means capitalization that has its helpfulness if used relevantly, just don' abuse Capslock.

I think using capitalization for topic title in OP can be acceptable, I do it too. However, weeks ago, when I made my thread on posting technique (Bitcointalk posting etiquette), and I reread theymos' guide, I deeply rethought that topic title in OP is likely unnecesary, IMO. It simply repeats what writer already mention in topic title. I have still not had my final thoughts and decisions for my next threads (as well as edit my old ones), but I will keep that idea in mind. As you see in my thread history, my recent threads don't have titles - that repeat topic titles - in OP. I would prefer to keep doing this, because I feel my threads look better.

How about capslock? I've the impression that it's more annoying to read text in CAPSLOCK than bold text because usually it's also expressing anger and aggression. Or maybe my judgement regarding capslock is only a little bit damaged from some people using it frequently where normal text seems to be not enough. 

Bold text is fine if it's used in a decent way to highligh parts of a text or for sub-headlines. 

Same goes for smileys.

I agree with you Jet Cash.
I would add that this is also about a lack of personal culture and respect for others.
It seems to me that it doesn't really matter to such users whether someone will read their posts but just fill their writing quota for the day.
We may not consider it as spam, but it is irritating.

Some of you aren't picking up the point. We don't all have time to read all the posts in a thread, and thus we have to skip read. If we have to hunt for a reply because of the bad use of quoting, or we cannot gain a quick appreciation of a post, then we just skip the post. Too many of these distractions mean that we may exit the thread, and never revisit it. I have put members who frequently produce distracting posts on ignore. This may not longer be important as I have reduced my merit awarding due to time pressures. The point that I was trying to make is that a single emboldened word turns a single image phrase into a sequence of 3 images. This may not be significant for people who don't have English as a first language, but for those of us who have to scan text quickly, it is an annoyance.

Printed articles in the quality newspapers are displayed in columns, and one reason for this is to allow for fast scanning of the text. If you watch the eyes of most readers, they will move from left to right as they read the article. However, the eyes of a news analyst will have virtually no sideways movement, but they just scan scan down the column. This is because they are able to extract the content of a complete line from a single image. You will also notice that newspapers tend to use left and right justification, and to avoid splitting words over two lines - this is another aid to fast reading.

In this age of information overload, it is worth trying to speed up the processes of information gathering. For example, I have helped a couple of people who felt they had to repeat the words silently as they red them. You can recognise this if you watch their lips as they are reading.  Helping them to skip this spoken stage increases their reading speed quite dramatically.

When making post, don't write them for yourself, but construct them for your target audience. That way you will get the maximum exposure for your message. One of the problems with sig spammers is that they aren't interested in their audience, they just want to get a word string into a thread to meet their quota. Make sure that your posts rise about the polluting effluent of the sig spammers.

I think you're in the minority here. If you talk about colour text, fine. But you can't really say for sure that.bold prints are disgusting (you may personally find them so but it shouldn't be a generalization). I use bold texts from time to time and it's for stylistics and desired effect. And like other posters opined, this should be used with discretion.

Overusing tool will make posts more annoying!

Every tool has a useful feature for very special situations. If people use tool appropriately in context, and at acceptable intensity, don't overuse it, tool will give positive effects in general. In contrast, overusing them will cause adverse effects.

Tools (bold, color, glow, underline, italicization, capitalization) are helpful supplementary things, but they are not must one that writers have to use repeatedly; and overuse should be avoided.

In some high standard English test, like IELTS, writers have to make their essays as succinctly as possible. That is what I wrote as well-structured, and well-composed.

If people don't have to use bold in IELTS test to emphasize their ideas, they don't have to use bold in the forum. It is obviously that they can use bold, but it is not a must thing. I use bold too, in some situations.

The most causes that lead posters to make bold here is they naively think that using bold will help their posts become more interesting, and get more attention from readers. They don't know the fact that if readers see a post which totally in bold, they will ignore it (me too).

Well this is my belief so you and I agree on this.  And yet  jet cash does not agree with us. Along with some others.

This is why we as people have fights wars grudges etc. 

I do think bold type is not worth fighting over. At least compared to other stuff.

I am fine with bold letters as long as they are used properly, for example, to highlight important points. But, if whole topic is in bold letters it puts me off.

Bold or colored sentenses are the first thing that catch the readers attention especially when it is a long post.
Reader will unconsciously focus on those parts because he believes it will make him quickly understand  what the post is about.
It is like when someone is speaking and suddenly changes his tone. bold = loud tone.

A long text without special formatting is the same as monotonous speech, both are boring.

For the first sentence in the quoted rely above, i beg to differ with your school of thought as a well-structured and composed thread can still be characterized or identified based on the proper used of writing equipment made available by the forum which bold is one of those.

As for the second sentence, to my understanding this isn't a formal platform where everyone expects the discussion and style of writing to be so professional or queen-like. This is an informal forum were every style of writing probably is welcomed but still I'm advocating for those feature to be misused or abused.

I only tend to use it for single words, like when I'm quoting someone and I want to draw attention to one specific word they've said.
I can't just quote the single word, since I'd lose the context, but making it bold usually works.

Other than that, it still has its place in a good thread, only if used very sparingly though.

Bold is not a matter, but how people use bold is a true matter (when, where and how they use bold).

Well-structured, and well-composed posts don't need bold texts. I imply texts in paragraphs, not in ordinal contents if someone writes a long topic or a lecture here.

I don't think there are serious things to discuss we should use bold or should not use it. In international English tests, like IELTS, people don't have to bold their texts just to catch attention of markers and increase their odds to have higher scores.

I've selected this sentence as an example of a good construction.

When one is learning to read, then one looks at individual letters, and those are built into a word. Then one moved on the next string of letters.  Pretty soon, one starts to recognise strings of letters as words, and the word is no longer a string of letters, but an easily recognised image. If one spends a lot of time reading, then certain word combinations become recognisable as a phrase image, and this speeds up the reading process considerably. When I look at the quoted sentence, I see two images  - "But Hey" and "does it matter". The comma makes this even simpler. Text such as "does it matter" is recognised as 3 images, and therefore slows down to reading process, whilst it adds nothing to the message impact.

On scanning a thread, a post presents a single image for my evaluation. If it a wall of text, or has other characteristics that are likely to slow down the reading, then the probability is that I will skip over it. Of course there are exceptions. I realise that I could be missing the chance to read an interesting opinion,but I have found that as a general rule, formatted posts contain lower value content ( in my opinion).  Let me provide an analogy. If you are selling karate and kung fu equipment, then you don't paint your shop pink, and fill the window with Barbie dolls. You may have the best equipment at the lowest prices, but most material artists are likely to walk past your shop and go elsewhere. I appreciate that such a window could be attractive to a specialist market, but as a general rule photographs of Ip Man, Bruce Lee, or nunchaku, butterfly knives, or a wooden man will attract a wider audience.

Always remember that if you post isn't read, then it has failed in its purpose.

I guess this is what JetCash means when he said "bold text in your posts."

But hey, does it matter? It seems like people are posting based on their assumptions and lecture Jet Cash about posting style.

I stumbled upon this example:
I'd say this is incorrect use of bold font, because I instantly stopped reading.

Why forum have this option like bold color and so on? Because it's for use where you need.

Most likely you only, because I do not skip if bold is on appropriate places. If someone bold total topic or user color then its matter of skip. Sometimes its bit important to use bold or color on the post in order to highlight or make point. So I wouldn't if there is mind such as post.

Nevermind if you like to skip, OP only lose a single reader, nothing else.

Bold words in a sentence quite helpful if the post is too long to read but if people are doing it such nonsense way then better ignore that comment/thread.

For me increasing the font size quite annoying over bold text.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong in highlighting the text which are important. Bold texts are usually used to highlight the important texts in a paragraph. If the paragraph is lengthy, then highlighting the important points will be good and easy to read. If the texts are lengthy and plain, it will make the users boring to read. Also, I agree that using the Bold characters very often in a paragraph will not be good. It should be used where it is relevant.

Naturally, there are side effects if we abuse or overuse something, bold, glow, italicization, capitalization, colors, emoticons, quotes. Each effects/ features have their specific use-cases, and if we use them relevantly in context, they will do show their best effects. If we use them irrelevantly, they will do show side-effects.

I don't see a problem in using bold text for single words or parts of a sentence to put more emphasize on it. What I don't like to see is an entire paragraph in bold and even less a completely capitalized post. I have no problems with different colors either especially red which can be used as a warning.

I use bold to emphasize a point or italicized text with quotes when copying or answering to a specific part in a post. 

@theymos, also doing what you don't like, bold, color, and images.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.19602960

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.19915797

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.35683468

I myself often use uppercase letters, images and colors.

However, if it is used in a particular area of ​​each post, I think it does not matter, to make it easier to read each purpose of a particular topic.
In my opinion, if it's not excessive.

Excluded, color blind people.

LOL

The poster is presenting you with the opportunity of reading their output. If they feel part of it worthy of bold then they will use it.

Of course ALL BOLD is going to make it harder to read, but selectively using bold for what they consider important is actually very useful and can SAVE YOU TIME.

Anyway what's the hurry for someone retired who hangs out in mc donalds all day?

We hardly bold anything, It is far quicker to slap caps lock down and off.

People tell us all the time " we never read your long winded junk"  then somehow they know every detail we have posted lol.

If it is interesting to them, people read it bold or no bold.

Do you turn down hot girls because she is wearing tight jeans and not a skirt with no panties? put that bigmac down and put some effort in.  Those new annoying paper straws are a killer for the milkshakes though, we give you that.

There's a purpose all the simplest feature that help communication become effective are present on the message box. If there wasn't a need for them then the forum won't have had those features on the message box. You aren't here to please anyone with your style of writing although don't abuse or over use them. Make use of those features (e.g bold, emojis, color or glows etc), when the need arises.

Sometimes I just want to get the point a post is trying to pass across without having to read through the whole reply or by just skimming the post. Having users highlight important point either through bolding or glows, make it a little easier for the main message to be spotted and intend information get passed across.

I don't mind people using bold words to emphasize certain things, as long as it's not overused.

Can you give some contexts for this? What kind of post? I believe it is not about "bold" in general.

People are treating this in a broad sense, and they post this and that. Kind of turn into a thread about 'what is bold and what's useful for.'

I was amused as properly used Bold type is a good tool for posting.

I respect your opinion as I do most opinions but I find bold to be a very useful tool when used correctly. On a bullet point list it's nice to use bold on the subject of each bullet point. Headers obviously are great for bold. Colored letters are pretty freaking annoying when used incorrectly, though. Red letters are pretty standard. They have always signified warning and I appreciate them. Although I agree bold should not be overused, I don't see how it can possibly slow down your reading. Especially, if the font size is the same. Bold doesn't make the words any longer.... Everyone has their quirks, though.

Not only bold, but also font, colors, capitalization, glow, etc.
Bitcointalk posting etiquette

Bold text can be useful from time to time, for example when it's necessary to highlight certain keywords in quotes of another users, in order to focus a reader's attention on them immediately.

I don't really have much problems with posts that contains bolded text. The one I really frown at is using all caps to make replies. Immediately skip such post. For bolded text (s), If it's used appropriately, I'm good with that. I'm only against it when it gets abused in a bit to grab immediate attention of readers. For instance, Bolding all the text in a post reply. Completely unnecessary.

Same feels when theres images being attached and it does take up some load times and when the images are way too big, scrolling down to the bottom is my worst enemy.

For Bold text, I don't have much problem but for CAPSLOCK ones does really irritate me even the sentence you do read up doesn't show up some anger. 

Bold should be used for titles or when you want to draw attention to one specific word.
Maybe someone was angry when creating large bold text

I don't think this topic will have any effect on reducing this

But isn't that the point of bolding a message? You are just simply highlighting and putting an emphasize on the part of what you are trying to say. If a user is using it sparingly on each of his/her post I don't think it would bother anyone even if you are busy on what you are doing and after all what are you even busy for in the first place if you are just here in the forum reading posts of other members? For users just bolding some parts of their text and not most of their post I personally appreciate on what they are doing as they are highlighting the key words/sentences in their post which makes me comprehend what they are trying to say.

This is a thinking of a common writer.

Writing a whole text or post in capital letters is really funny and wrong, it's just like writing an essay, composition or a letter all in capital letters, it'll make it difficult to read and laughable to some extent.
There are things that need to be capitalized, such as the first word in a sentence, the first word after a full stop and also to draw a readers attention to a particular word or sentence, when the correct rules that apply to capitalizatiom is used, then it makes sense.

When a whole text is in upper case letters, it can send a message that the OP doesn't really know what he or she is saying and is not really sure about their ideas.

You're not alone by any means.  It's annoying, and when I see titles in big capital letters or with symbols and so forth, I immediately assume it's some shitposter or scammer trying to use those petty little means to bring attention to their shitty thread.

Haven't seen you around in a while, Jet Cash.  Glad you're still here with us.

Yeah, then every moron thinking he has something important to say (not usually the case) starts to do it, and then it's not long before everyone does it just to keep pace.  It's a neverending shit spiral and needs to be quashed.  Props to Jet Cash for bringing it up.

Bold text should be used sparingly and colored text should be seldom used. The combination thereof, then, should only be used in extremely rare situations.

Especially blue. God, what an ^{ug_{ly color}}.

When bold text is used to highlight passages or to emphasize specific terms then it's much more justified.

There's a button that let's you read pages in Firefox without formatting or signatures or images...

On mobile it's next to the tabs button on the opposite side of settings, maybe you ought to try it. I think you can click the printable version and it does the same too...

Bold is a tool, and definitely has its uses on the forum. A well constructed thread should probably include bold somewhere. For example, putting emphasis on titles or outlining important information within the thread. Posts/replies I would expect to see it less, although I believe it can still be used, and  still has its place, but would expect it to be used less often than threads.

Bold text do create some attention towards a particular point and emphasis what the author wants to say. If i come across a big post, and the key points are bold/Highlighted it may give quick idea for the post and i may not have to read the whole long post. For me, using it for few words or one/two sentence is ok but it is certainly not reading friendly if the whole post is bold or in different colors font.

I rarely see posts that are completely in bold (probably because I don't read certain boards very often). But there's more to it than not using bold at all: use it wisely!
I use bold font quite often, but mainly for headers (see: example), and most of the time only when I'm creating a new topic. It can make your text easier to read when used wisely, just like colors.

You are not alone in this.

I do the same. Too much bold and large font most of the time lose the interest to read a post.

Also I skip to much emoji and GIF when they post it. The images takes time to load and sometimes when there are a lot of image then it's irritating to wait for all of them to load before reading.

I find it slows down my reading quite considerably. Presumably you want people to read your post - well bold and coloured text is non-standard, and it slows down reading for those of us who are busy, and have other interests. If you want your message to get maximum exposure, then please treat the forum as a collection of message boards, and not as a place to practice design exercises.

I skip over such posts, and very rarely do I read the content. Am I alone in this?