(see heading) we don't often talk about!
of course--tsuwm comment:
when an URL reaches a length greater than the width of the standard message space, it results in a horizontal scroll bar and all of the posts in the thread become that width, making it all kind of a bother to read, scrolling back and forth.

is so vague and incomplete! the message window size depends on your monitor, your settings, and you default window size.

Now in a perfect world, every one would have a 26 flat screen monitor, and every one would have perfect vision (and a single resolution size for the monitor) and everyone would have the same size default window for their browser.--Oh to live in a perfect world!

reality is, some of us have 13 inch monitors.. (and some have 26)--and all of us use a different resolution, and different browsers, and different window sizes.. and ..well.
--any Url over 50 characters is getting long.. 60 to 70 characters is the limit for small monitor users.
sample of 60 character length--
12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

and the same differences about monitors also are true with our access; some still have dial up; and pay a 'land line use' fee for every minute they are on line and some of us have DSL and some have cable connections, and some have network access and even faster connections.

So when we respond in threaded mode, its easier to keep track of 'conversation thread' --since there are often multiple threads of conversation going on at once-- if a word or two from the post we are resonding to is include in the new post. --this is ignored if we are responding to last post in a thread.

Many of us have evolved into a 'protocal' of "read flat" --which is how i read each thread--
but respond 'threaded' (this post is a 'continuation' of tsuwm's, and if you toggle into the threaded mode, you can see that.)

--To make it easier to read flat--i have included a quote (and we almost never use the quote code) and highlighted it in a color blue, for example, to help everyone follow the 'thread of my conversation'

(red is the shortest color name to type, but blue is the prefered for quotes--lazyness.. (green is 2 extra keystrokes!)

there are no 'rules' about what color you should use. but red always seems like a correction.(and its used to note edits for just that reason!) If you want to color quotes green or purple, or some other color, (even Yellow!) you can. but all those extra key strokes add up!

there are links to discussion about all these 'non-rule' rules in the I & A section. they exist just to make it easier for everyone to understand what is going on.. (and to prevent misunderstandings)

in one of the I & A thread, Jackie made the point that a place like this is like a place of employment.. when you first come here, you enter a place where many people 'know' each other, and there are many 'insider' jokes that you don't understand at first.. but eventually, you catch on, and you too, become an insider..

But right from the first, you have every right to be here and to join in. and once you do, all the insiders will treat you as an insider too--just as they usually do at work.

there are several links in I & A that are recommended for newcomers. but like the FAQ, they are not required (just recommended) reading.

no one has to follow the generally established protocals. they are just that--general established -if you know better ways to navigate, or to increase the general clarity here.. well, let us know. If your idea is generally percieved as better, it will catch on.. if not, it won't!

and if you have a personal style differs, we'll get used to it.
one poster generally uses *(word)* instead of the bold command (*(word)* works as bold in most Word Processing programs to bold a word.) Most of us don't follow this style.. but no one objects.




my other obsession