what is the deal with the small and large tags on AskMefi?

October 5, 2006 10:38 PM

I know this has been discussed already and even used as an excuse for the guys here to show off their font skills, but what is the deal with the small and large tags on AskMefi? They exist but there's no script or interface that lets a novice change the size of his or her font in the post? Is this a way of regulating some from emphasizing words? Just want some history here... Thanks.
posted by ifranzen to etiquette/policy at 10:38 PM (57 comments total)

<small> tags are reserved for those with the acumen and will to deploy them.

<big> tags...more so.

In short: metafilter provides shortcuts, semi-consistently, to aid the casual user, but the truly typographically badass must earn their motherfucking stripes.
posted by cortex at 10:59 PM on October 5, 2006

The big tag isn't allowed. Do you ever seen larger text these days?

The small tag is there for people that want to use it (just like blockquote, underline, strikeout, etc) if they know what they are doing. I personally feel people overuse the small tag and try and use it to stuff 10,000 words into a post instead of using it to make quiet asides or some other occasional use.
posted by mathowie at 11:05 PM on October 5, 2006

In short: metafilter provides shortcuts, semi-consistently, to aid the casual user, but the truly typographically badass must earn their motherfucking stripes.

Well put.
posted by ifranzen at 11:08 PM on October 5, 2006

We could tell you but then we'd have to kill you!
posted by Jimbob at 11:09 PM on October 5, 2006

Oh _noooooo!
posted by Kickstart70 at 11:13 PM on October 5, 2006

^{/////\\\\\/////\\\\\/////\\\\\/////\\\\\/////\\\\\}
_{\\\\\/////\\\\\/////\\\\\/////\\\\\/////\\\\\/////}
posted by Jimbob at 11:27 PM on October 5, 2006 [4 favorites]

posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:28 PM on October 5, 2006

When you are typing a comment you are entering HTML. Certain tags are not allowed (like <BIG>, <FONT>, <STYLE>, <SCRIPT>, <FORM> and so on) and certain attributes (inline styles) because people can abuse them. But aside from that you can use any HTML tags you want. <B>, <U>, <A>, <I>, <SUB>, <SUP>, <BR>, <PRE>, <TT>, <BLOCKQUOTE>, <SMALL>, <BUTTON>, etc... Get a good HTML reference and go to town.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:31 PM on October 5, 2006

And it wasn't always as restricted as it is currently.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:33 PM on October 5, 2006

posted by Jimbob at 11:36 PM on October 5, 2006

And my point, in case I wasn't really clear, is that you should not view it as "I only see buttons for B, I, and link so that's all I can do", because this is all standard HTML we are talking about. Those buttons are just for convenience (one which I am glad is optional as it is certainly faster just to type HTML then to have to take your hand off the keyboard and click on a mouse.)
posted by Rhomboid at 11:37 PM on October 5, 2006

^{33333666663333366666333336666633333666663333366666}
Thanks guys.
_{6666333336666633333666663333366666333336666633333}

posted by ifranzen at 12:39 AM on October 6, 2006

I wish I were as creative as you guys.
posted by brundlefly at 12:44 AM on October 6, 2006

I've been informed that I'm not allowed to comment in this thread other than to indicate the fact that I'm not allowed to comment in this thread.
posted by loquacious at 12:46 AM on October 6, 2006

I was informed that you were only allowed to comment in this thread if you used the blink tag.
posted by wendell at 1:28 AM on October 6, 2006

My information conflicts with your information. I was informed that I was to use the marquee tag, which I tried but it didn't seem to work. Probably because I'm a retard.
posted by loquacious at 1:53 AM on October 6, 2006

posted by quonsar at 2:16 AM on October 6, 2006

I was waiting for that.


posted by loquacious at 2:27 AM on October 6, 2006

the most difficult type of text, I think, to read, is text where the letters are alternately blinking and non blinking.
posted by delmoi at 2:31 AM on October 6, 2006

Hmm, actually it's not that difficult.
posted by delmoi at 2:31 AM on October 6, 2006

---

posted by Rhomboid at 2:33 AM on October 6, 2006

What the hell is that?

---

---

posted by loquacious at 2:45 AM on October 6, 2006

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posted by Rhomboid at 2:47 AM on October 6, 2006

the real problem is that metafilter these days consists largely of members who would consider the typing of a series of nested <small> tags a "font skill".
posted by quonsar at 2:47 AM on October 6, 2006

Wheee....

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posted by Rhomboid at 2:52 AM on October 6, 2006

BTW I did not draw those, they're from this guy.
posted by Rhomboid at 2:53 AM on October 6, 2006

Tell us how you really feel, quonsar!
posted by loquacious at 2:56 AM on October 6, 2006

Well, you gotta work with whatcha got, quonsar.
posted by Jimbob at 3:44 AM on October 6, 2006

Tell us how you really feel, quonsar!

cranky, stuffed up and sneezy, and too broke to stay home from work.
posted by quonsar at 4:26 AM on October 6, 2006

*hugs quonsar*
posted by loquacious at 4:59 AM on October 6, 2006

posted by interrobang at 7:11 AM on October 6, 2006 [2 favorites]

I personally feel people overuse the small tag and try and use it to stuff 10,000 words into a post instead of using it to make quiet asides or some other occasional use.
posted by mathowie
I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate.
posted by tellurian at 7:52 AM on October 6, 2006

Nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, font skills...
posted by Armitage Shanks at 7:56 AM on October 6, 2006

—mad entity skills yo—
posted by smackfu at 8:20 AM on October 6, 2006

posted by mendel at 8:29 AM on October 6, 2006

posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:39 AM on October 6, 2006

Dear sir,
My child has unwittingly viewed the artwork posted by the user Rhomboid depicting a female attempting to reveal her fun bag boobie. I find this post to be morally deficient and request the immediate termination of this user's account. That particular arrangment of characters is not appropriate for a website that many children, whom I know personally, frequent, and we at NAMBLA expect higher standards.

Signed,
Lester, Moe

posted by Stauf at 8:40 AM on October 6, 2006

Matt, have you ever considered adding a test-post area? Sometimes I want to try something that's typographically complicated (usually posting programming code in response to a question or some sort of ascii diagram), but I'm not sure if it will work and preview isn't exact.

Many message boards have a test-post area where you can actually post something and see how it looks online.

I know this could turn into a nightmare where people use the test area to post all sorts of rants or whatever, but if it's not too hard to implement, you could solve this by making so users could only see their own tests or so that tests are erased after an hour.
posted by grumblebee at 8:51 AM on October 6, 2006

posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:10 AM on October 6, 2006

grumblebee, what about preview (as in, via the Preview button, as opposed to Live Preview) isn't exact?
posted by cortex at 9:12 AM on October 6, 2006

No. Preview isn't exact. Things happen.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:29 AM on October 6, 2006

I'm fairly sure it's exact if you hit the back button after previewing and hit post. The mangling happens in the form on the Preview page.
posted by cillit bang at 10:47 AM on October 6, 2006

                Testing
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:58 AM on October 6, 2006

Right-O, cillit bang.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:59 AM on October 6, 2006

cillit bang, for once this better work...

&hearts

9829
posted by Stauf at 11:19 AM on October 6, 2006

STAUF MAD!!!
posted by Stauf at 11:19 AM on October 6, 2006

My momz went to w3schools.com and allz I got wuz these mad «funt» skillz.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 11:19 AM on October 6, 2006

Stauf: for the numeric entities, you have to do your bit and then view in non-live preview where it'll look most certainly fucked (except for the text area where you're now free to spread the love) ... a la ♥.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 11:31 AM on October 6, 2006

I ♥ Anus!

Wait.... nevermind.
posted by Stauf at 12:37 PM on October 6, 2006

posted by ijoshua at 12:52 PM on October 6, 2006

Matt, have you ever considered adding a test-post area? Sometimes I want to try something that's typographically complicated (usually posting programming code in response to a question or some sort of ascii diagram)

Here is the guaranteed no-brain no-fuss way to post code (or anything requiring formatting like ascii art) and not have it fucked up.

1. Load code in decent text editor. I use UltraEdit.
   
2. Replace all < characters with &lt; and all & with &amp;
   
3. Replace all line breaks with <BR>. You should be able to do this with regexp search and replace. (This is the important part. The metafilter server will automatically translate newlines in your post to <BR>+newline which causes it to be double-spaced when inside a PRE.)
   
4. Stick a <PRE> at the beginning and a </PRE> at the end.
   
5. Copy the entire thing and paste it into the post box.
   
6. Post without previewing. Just use the live preview, or if for some reason you must use the non-live preview, press BACK before submitting.
   

If you follow that you can post just about anything without it being mangled.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:49 PM on October 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

I'm fairly sure it's exact if you hit the back button after previewing and hit post. The mangling happens in the form on the Preview page.

So assuming Matt's not going to develop a test page, would you say this workflow would work?

1. Type the post, complete with funky ascii stuff.
2. Copy it to the clipboard. (Insurance.)
3. Hit preview. If it looks good, you're done. Post.
4. Hit Back, make changes, repeat step 3.
posted by grumblebee at 3:03 PM on October 6, 2006

oops. didn't see rhomboid's post. sorry and thanks.
posted by grumblebee at 3:04 PM on October 6, 2006

rhomboid, how will your solution handle indenting (e.g. in programming code). The PRE tags will preserve spacebar hits, I know, but what about hits of the TAB key? Best avoided or ok?

Also, do you know of a good (free?) text editor for the PC that would allow me to create a Macro of your steps?
posted by grumblebee at 3:06 PM on October 6, 2006

Tabs in source code are evil anyway since they depend on having the same editor settings as the person who last edited the file, so you should convert tabs to spaces first before posting the code. I'm not sure what the effects of the actual TAB character in a <PRE> are, but I would guess that they are browser dependant with most browsers defaulting to 8 chars. But who knows. Tabs = evil.

Regarding automating it, you can do it with perl pretty easily.

perl -e 'local $/; $_ = <>; s,&,&amp;,sg; s,<,&lt;,sg; s,[\r\n]+,<BR>,sg; print' <infile >outfile

Perl is available for free on just about every platform. For Windows you can use ActiveState or Cygwin (the latter is definitely my preference.) With Cygwin you can even specify /dev/clipboard as a filename to read/write to the clipboard directly for quick cut and paste goodness.
posted by Rhomboid at 3:25 PM on October 6, 2006

thanks!
posted by grumblebee at 4:01 PM on October 6, 2006

So assuming Matt's not going to develop a test page, would you say this workflow would work?

No, if you hit post on the preview page, you're posting different (mangled) text to what you're previewing. You either need to hit the back button after previewing and hit post (so you're posting the same text you previewed), or copy the text on the first page and paste it into the form on the Preview page, then hit post.

It would be very easy for Matt to fix this. Instead of:

echo "<textarea>".$message."</textarea>";

Put

echo "<textarea>".str_replace("<","&lt;",str_replace("&","&amp;",$message))."</textarea>";

(or the Cold Fusion equivalent thereof)
posted by cillit bang at 10:43 AM on October 7, 2006