What's with this "bold face type" I'm seeing everywhere??

Am I the only one, or is that Bold Face Type showing up on a lot of different random posts very annoying??!!

(And please don't publicize here how to embolden the type face!)

One thing I liked about DG was that the posts were kept clean of all random cluttery 'thingies', 'smilies', 'boldface type', and irksome 'repetition of the previous question/comment' when answering a post, that other websites are ridiculously fond!

Let's keep the graphics and type CLEAN here. Less is more!

(Grouchy) t.

To me it depends on how it's used--if someone makes their whole post bold I think that's unnecessary and annoying (not as bad as shouting in all caps though!) but when people use it judiciously it's a nice way to add emphasis. I have to say I haven't seen too much in the way of what I thought was annoying overuse of bold, but maybe I spend most of my time in other forums than you do.

I hadn't noticed to much of it either. No more than usual.

Bold type seems to be more easily read by those with visual impairment. Personally, I don't see it as offensive when used with restraint and in situations where persons on a thread are using it for a specific situation. There may be more to it than meets the eye, pun intended.

I find bold, italic, and quoting previous posts to be extremely valuable tools. A 2 page post with no styling gets to be a wall of text, even with proper punctuation and paragraphs.

I have administrated forums for 8 years and wish DG had avatars, the ability to embed images, signatures, etc. Avatars make it easy at-a-glance to determine posts of familiar users. Embedding images would allow me to link to several images without costing DG anything by having to store them. Of course all of this could be disabled by viewers (As they can for guests to my forums).

This message was edited May 19, 2008 6:20 PM

Entire posts in bold type are being done in some threads as a courtesy to accommodate
specific people with vision challenges. It is a strain on the eyes for others though and I find
myself skipping lengthy posts done in all bold because they give me a headache.

I think it is lovely people choose to express themselves as tho they were just talking to you. Occasional bold and caps adds a little personality to the thread.

If folks are having trouble reading the threads, they can press Ctrl + to increase the font size of the entire page. I do not support entire threads in boldface.

I agree, I'm all for helping people who have poor vision, but there are ways for them to increase the size of the font that's displayed on their computer, while those of us who are not visually challenged and find the bold hard to read can't do anything about it. And I don't see how viewing a small font but someone writing in all bold type would be better for someone with visual impairment than increasing the font size on their computer (and I'm sure there are plenty of people here who'd be happy to give some instructions on how to increase the font size if they just don't know how to do it). I'm all for bold to emphasize things, but as a whole post (which I've only seen done once or twice) I'm not at all crazy about it.

I have seen the bold mostly in co-op threads where the organizer needed them to stand out from the rest of the posts. Some of those threads can get quite long and to make her important instructions and updates stand out is very helpful.

I noticed this in the Parking Lot on the daily threads and quit reading them for that reason. I even noticed that someone had gone back and edited and in the edit mentioned the reason for the edit was to add the bold. Like others, I don't mind when it's used for emphasis, but the whole post is a bit ridiculous.

As for how to enlarge the font, if I hold down the control button and roll the scroll button on my mouse, I can make the font bigger (which does increase the boldness, as well) or smaller. But I can't do a thing about diminishing the intensity of the boldness.

I'm not a professional but I do know that contrast is a big issue for some people with vision problems. Print can be big but if it is not dark contrast(bold) it just mushes up(technical term) when they try to focus. My Mom no longer uses the internet although she does read. She can only read emails if I copy to word and change to bold font.

Don't let your mom give up that easy!

Download Firefox browser, pull down the Tools menu to Options....
Under Fonts and Colors, click [ Advanced ... ]
Set the Serif, Sans-serif, and Monospace fonts as desired. There are Bold, Heavy, and Black versions available of several fonts. Let me know if you have trouble finding them.

Now uncheck the checkbox [ X ] Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above.

Now, every font on every website you browse (except graphics with text, and flash animations) will be the font, size, and weight you selected. I just tried it, and when I selected Arial Black for the default sans-serif font, everything on this page was a thick, Arial Black font.


This message was edited May 22, 2008 8:05 AM

Feldon - Thanks for the "recipe" for making bold the default on a browser. It works
in other browsers as well as Firefox and is simple enough to set up. I will pass it
along to those I know who are vision impaired.

June

Feldon... FYI... the 'recipe' above doesn't work like that on a Mac... there's no 'option' under 'tools'. It's probably under 'preferences' but since I don't need to change the font size myself, I didn't look.

On a Mac, specifically Mac OS X, it is strongly encouraged for all About, Help, and Options items to appear under a menu with the same title as the application. On a Mac running Firefox, I believe the menus read:

Firefox File Edit View History Bookmarks Tools

Hi, all~~~

Thought I would check in again and see how my thread is doing here!

Thanks for sharing some interesting observations, although I can't say I buy into all of them... t.

Now I understand why the conversations were in bold. I can now appreciate your (plural - those in the thread) thoughtfulness. Thank you for the explanation Darius.

Janet

Darius, would she be able to use a bold font on her browser as feldon explained? That would let her see any thread or post more easily & eliminate the need for bolding...

I do understand why posts are being bolded on that thread, although I admit I seldom remember to do it (but I only post occasionally). But if she switched to a larger and bolder font, that might be a better solution for her, also.

I think her daughter has set that up for her.

In that case, I'm not sure that "bolding" an already bold font makes a difference... ? I knew her daughter had increased the font size, but I didn't know if she knew about switching to a bold typeface across the board.

Actually now I'm not really sure. I only know she says she can read out posts a bit better if they are bold.

I checked this one out and yes bolding the message does still make a difference, even if the whole window is set to bold. The messages typed in bold become extra bold. There is still a distinct difference.

edited to add
Also some of the specifically bold fonts distort the shape of the letters, because they keep the line heights the same, which makes reading the text even more difficult. The best for shape retention is probably Arial Black but as I said before it is still bolder if typed with a bold instruction.

This message was edited May 26, 2008 6:17 PM