Brought up in another (now closed) thread that at the SDMB we usually bold usernames in replies. I asked:
I was directed to ask here (as was my original suspicion) so I’m asking here. Why do we bold usernames in replies?
I recall it goes way back, and was originally because some users’ names are actual words, and got mistaken for parts of a sentence. The bolding is a convention, not a rule, just to keep things clear. I think it’s a good idea.
Makes it easy to scroll through without reading and see who’s talking shit about me.
Basically it’s just a board cultural habit. A few people started doing it ages ago, they were copied, and now it’s just typical practice.
It does serve to make obvious who you are talking about. If I am skimming a thread, I am more likely to notice a mention of my name if it is bolded. Also, since many posters have usernames that are ordinary words, it makes it clear that you are talking about a poster rather than just using the word.
It’s hardly unique to this message board. I’ve seen the same or similar conventions for years. It really helps to make the text less confusing when people have user names that can be mistaken for part of the writing e.g. you with the face.
I think that part of it is that, when you post a quote from another Doper, the quote starts as, e.g.:
That automatic bolding of the user name influences bolding in other contexts.
For me, hajario has captured it. If someone’s username looks like a name, it is easy to process as a name and thus doesn’t need special delineation. But when someone’s username is a string of words (like the example given), it disrupts my thought process to read a sentence, struggle with the meaning, then identify the username and sort it out. Bolding is a way to cleanly id a username. Then it’s just habit and consistency.
Which is a vBulletin thing, I believe. I haven’t noticed it on other boards. I think they included it to emphasize attributed quotes.
dhkendall, just be glad we didn’t make this the convention.
Xash, can we make this the convention?
Can we?
Huh?
Pretty please?
First, you must learn that my username is all lowercase. Once you master that simple concept, we’ll work on the more complex issue of changing convention. 
I first noticed it on Fark, and was given the same reason. It gives you a way of making the names stand out without having to change them to starting with a capital letter.
What confuses me here is that, if the name starts the sentence, many people around here will still capitalize it. I thought the bolding was sufficient.
(My name is captialized because I dislike having a name with spaces In fact, when I see them, I tend to treat them like each part is separate name, ala first and last names. Oh, and bigT looks silly.)
Preach on, brother!
We’ve been bolding usernames (on the first use) for as long as I’ve been here. I’ve gotten yelled at for doing it on a few other messageboards… the person I addressed thought that I was trying to sneak in some sort of insult.
Does bolding make my name look fat?
Colibri
“No Dear… your ass makes your ass look fat…”
I had the reverse happen to me at the SDMB, I almost never put usernames in bold (I want to say never but I have possibly done it once or twice), and someone accused me of putting the username in a normal style with the intent to belittle.
I guess that people are insecure all over.
Here’s a compromise solution:
Arnold Winkelried
Pah. Not according to my new convention, it isn’t!
I’ll go be annoying somewhere else now