Bold, Colors and CAPS Oh My!

[Tortuga]

How does everyone feel about seeing bold, colors and ALL CAPS in comments?

Is it helpful or distracting?

[Ludwika]

17 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

How does everyone feel about seeing bold, colors and ALL CAPS in comments?

Is it helpful or distracting?

I like bold, used sparingly, HATE CAPS, PUTS ME OFF READING, never used colours. 😁

[Qapla]

If/when use correctly bold and underlining (even used together when appropriate) sometimes help to indicate what portion of a comment and/or quote applies to the intention of the post

 

ALL CAPS, if used sparingly, can indicate emphasis - however, it is more often associated with yelling/screaming so is, perhaps, better used very sparingly or even avoided.

 

Colors, on the other hand, have an unexpected consequence. Some colors are clearly visible in light mode while other colors look best in dark mode but, not all colors work in both modes. When people use colors, they tend to only use colors that they think look best in the "mode" they are using and don't check the look in the other modes and, therefore, the purpose of using those colors is lost to those who have trouble seeing those colors in their chosen mode.

 

Another consideration that fits in this thread is "pasting". When pasting text/quotes they are posted in the format they were copied from - this applies to text and background colors. Sometimes this creates black text on black background for those using "dark mode", making this text unseen unless the text is highlighted by the mouse while other times this results in black text in white blocks interspersed between the "normal" text, making it difficult to read.

 

So, while I am, OK with the use of bold, underline, bold-underline, CAPS and Colors, I do think we should check that, what we have used them for, actually serves its purpose and doesn't detract from what we are trying to say.

 

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by Qapla

[New World Explorer]

2 hours ago, Tortuga said:

How does everyone feel about seeing bold, colors and ALL CAPS in comments?

Is it helpful or distracting?

I like orange,(don't like red) especially to separate scriptures  from general conversations.

Don't like caps, but like bold to emphasize the point I am trying to convey. 

Personal preference I suppose. 

[dove]

I also like Italics..can serve the same purpose as the others 

[Hinata]

14 hours ago, Tortuga said:

How does everyone feel about seeing bold, colors and ALL CAPS in comments?

Is it helpful or distracting?

 

I believe using bold in some parts is not bad. Even in our literature we can see boldface being used from time to time in certain words or even to sentences.

 

On the other hands, colours or caps are never applied to run-in texts. They are only used for decoration in the headings, such as in the book titles or as part of the design of that book, but otherwise, the main texts would never have any special colours or caps applied.

 

[MullumMiss]

I get the impression when bold is used in comments a point is being made.  CAPS indicates the persons body language is showing they are annoyed which ANNOYS me.  Colour (color in USA) why I do not know, never use it myself.  

There are some comments I have noticed lately in one of the discussions where ones have used all 3.  For me it changes the tone from friendly discussion to pushing an agenda.  Just my observation.  May not be anyone else’s.  AND THAT IS OK BY ME

Edited July 16, 2023 by MullumMiss

[carlos]

I agree that bold is fine when used sparingly. You quote a reference and mark in bold (and maybe underline) the most relevant words or sentence. That helps to notice the point. Of course, when most of the text is bold nothing is highlighted.

 

All CAPS can be legitimally used in rare occasions to highlight one particular word. But other than that, all CAPS is detestable and will make me ignore the post and jump to the next one.

 

Sometimes the mods use red when we need to edit a member's post, for example to delete a phone number or an email address. We will typically add a note in red letters, something like "Email deleted. Please do not post personal information, you never know who can be reading." That is to make it clear that it was added and not part of the original post. Sometimes I have used red too to differentiate between very similar texts. Like:

wt202305

wt202306

But other than specific situations like those, I prefer to avoid the use of colors. Besides, color ink is more expensive than black.

[Pabo]

Personally, I only use the other features of formating for specific purposes, either to highlight, quoting from other sources, emphasising or for some other purpose to reference various points from one another.