Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

I'm not sure how wonderful the "written by [insert 'nym]" feature is, as it can reveal the "true" identities of less frequent 'nyms if a writer forgets to change it. It did so in today's posts (I won't spoil who here). It's hardly a big issue--it can make it fun for the readers when they know a writer is arguing with themselves (I found #44666 hilarious when I first read it because I previously learned that Niffler was Dragon Lady from Board Identity). But, of course, it's a lot worse if it's signed "a writer" and it shows their 'nym anyway.

Yeah...we should probably take a look at some of those...

The alias links only show up for questions submitted under the new system, precisely because we know that many old answers were probably created with the incorrect alias. But from now on, we're expecting writers to be smart about it. I suspect that it will take a couple accidents like this for them to pay attention.

Laser Jock's study on the sans serif/serif font readability debate has changed my world. Oh my gosh.

Whistler wrote:Laser Jock's study on the sans serif/serif font readability debate has changed my world. Oh my gosh.

Haha. I'm glad it helped. I'm pretty amazed at how thoroughly he looked into the issue. I also had no idea there were that many papers on it.

well, common design lore is that sans serif fonts are for headings and serif fonts should be for large blocks of texts, and I blindly believed this and taught it to my students! I'll just have to tweak that lesson a little.

(btw, did you know that "serif" means "wing"? So serif fonts have little wingtips on them. Think seraphim.)

Whistler wrote:(btw, did you know that "serif" means "wing"?)

How interesting! I'd always heard that it meant "tail," although now I can't find any sources to back that up. Where did you read that it meant "wing"?

Laser Jock wrote:

Whistler wrote:Laser Jock's study on the sans serif/serif font readability debate has changed my world. Oh my gosh.

Haha. I'm glad it helped. I'm pretty amazed at how thoroughly he looked into the issue. I also had no idea there were that many papers on it.

One thing I have heard is that monospaced fonts are harder to read and words set in capitals (or--angels defend us!--Camel Case) are harder to read because we get in the habit of reading the "shape" of the word, and they destroy the shape.

Since this seems to be the repository for 5.0 questions, here goes. I noticed that none of the comments include headers or footers. In other words, they don't have a "Dear ---" or a name at the end. I don't miss the "Dear 100 Hour Board". But are names being deleted on purpose, or has everyone so far just not included one? Because I do like hearing who the comment is from, especially if it is a regular reader.

TheAnswerIs42 wrote:Since this seems to be the repository for 5.0 questions, here goes. I noticed that none of the comments include headers or footers. In other words, they don't have a "Dear ---" or a name at the end. I don't miss the "Dear 100 Hour Board". But are names being deleted on purpose, or has everyone so far just not included one? Because I do like hearing who the comment is from, especially if it is a regular reader.

People are just not signing them, I believe. Which I think is dumb.

Yellow wrote:People are just not signing them, I believe. Which I think is dumb.

Amen and amen.

Yellow wrote:People are just not signing them, I believe. Which I think is dumb.

I think they don't know they're supposed to . . .

Katya wrote:

Whistler wrote:(btw, did you know that "serif" means "wing"?)

How interesting! I'd always heard that it meant "tail," although now I can't find any sources to back that up. Where did you read that it meant "wing"?

Hmmm... it's quite possible that I just made that up, it seems. OED lists serif's origins as "obscure." American Heritage says it is "Perhaps from Dutch schreef, line, from Middle Dutch scrēve, from scriven, to write, from Latin scrībere; see skrībh- in Indo-European roots." Well, strike another one for me being wrong about serifs (also, seraph, which I thought also meant wing, turns out to come from a Hebrew word sarap, to burn).

in related news: The Serif Fairy? http://www.amazon.com/Serif-Fairy-Rene- ... roduct_top

Whistler wrote:

Katya wrote:

Whistler wrote:(btw, did you know that "serif" means "wing"?)

How interesting! I'd always heard that it meant "tail," although now I can't find any sources to back that up. Where did you read that it meant "wing"?

Hmmm... it's quite possible that I just made that up, it seems. OED lists serif's origins as "obscure."

Aw, sad. I liked that etymology.

Whistler wrote:American Heritage says it is "Perhaps from Dutch schreef, line, from Middle Dutch scrēve, from scriven, to write, from Latin scrībere; see skrībh- in Indo-European roots."

That's interesting. (I've noticed that the OED is pretty disinclined to speculate about anything, ever, whereas the American Heritage folks are more willing to toss out some ideas.

Um, I've noticed that rejected comments are showing up. See here: http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/archives/2009/dec/10/

What's interesting is I had a comment rejected on that day, and it didn't show up. (Oh man. I just spent like 5 minutes trying to figure out what day it would've been rejected and it was the very day I already linked to. Irony.) It now shows up in My Questions but not on the day's page.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I hope it's not just me. If it is, that's great. I get to read all the rejected comments.

C is for wrote:Um, I've noticed that rejected comments are showing up. See here: http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/archives/2009/dec/10/

What's interesting is I had a comment rejected on that day, and it didn't show up. (Oh man. I just spent like 5 minutes trying to figure out what day it would've been rejected and it was the very day I already linked to. Irony.) It now shows up in My Questions but not on the day's page.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I hope it's not just me. If it is, that's great. I get to read all the rejected comments.

Lol! Interestingly, I went on a mission with terribly flat feet and had mega-painful problems with them, even with orthotics, towards the end.

Craig Jessop wrote:

C is for wrote:Um, I've noticed that rejected comments are showing up. See here: http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/archives/2009/dec/10/

What's interesting is I had a comment rejected on that day, and it didn't show up. (Oh man. I just spent like 5 minutes trying to figure out what day it would've been rejected and it was the very day I already linked to. Irony.) It now shows up in My Questions but not on the day's page.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I hope it's not just me. If it is, that's great. I get to read all the rejected comments.

Lol! Interestingly, I went on a mission with terribly flat feet and had mega-painful problems with them, even with orthotics, towards the end.

In addition, I submitted a comment (which was summarily rejected) on this question, suggesting the questioner go to a podiatrist since I also have very flat feet. I do believe one podiatrist-related comment made it through, though.

Additional note: my rejected comment isn't showing up.

Indefinite Integral wrote: Additional note: my rejected comment isn't showing up.

Where, exactly, is your rejected comment not showing up that you would expect it to show up?

Oh, nevermind. I see.

Learn to read the backlog, Yellow.