# Automatic username bolding?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automatic-username-bolding/335270>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [December 12, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automatic-username-bolding/335270 "2005-12-12T16:36:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automatic-username-bolding/335270/1 "2005-12-12T16:36:33Z")

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Here is a suggestion: would it be possible to introduce a feature to bold user names automatically, like where you put their name :like this: and it is bolded? I realise it doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to type two bold tags but it would be more convenient.

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**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automatic-username-bolding/335270/2 "2005-12-12T16:57:55Z")

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Even easier to just click on the “ **B** ” on the posting page

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**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automatic-username-bolding/335270/3 "2005-12-12T17:06:18Z")

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And it’s only a convention anyway; there are many posters who don’t bold usernames.

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**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automatic-username-bolding/335270/4 "2005-12-12T17:58:10Z")

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> [@FlyingRamenMonster](#):
>
> Here is a suggestion: would it be possible to introduce a feature to bold user names automatically, like where you put their name :like this: and it is bolded?

It’s not possible with vBulletin BBcode parsing. A BBcode tag MUST be inside square brackets, or whatever they’re called.

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**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automatic-username-bolding/335270/5 "2005-12-12T19:05:16Z")

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What picnurse said. Just highlight the name, or any chunk of text, that you’ve typed in the the reply window, and click the “B.”

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**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automatic-username-bolding/335270/6 "2005-12-12T19:05:53Z")

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So you want to replace bold tags with colons? That would save, let’s see, five characters per name. And it would probably cause inappropriate bolding of random text anytime someone uses more than one colon in a post. I don’t see the point, myself.

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**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automatic-username-bolding/335270/7 "2005-12-12T20:34:11Z")

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This is not going to happen.

TubaDiva