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**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [December 10, 2000, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909 "2000-12-10T18:38:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@keno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keno)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2000, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/1 "2000-12-10T18:38:56Z")
How do you turn “HTML on”? I find using VB code to be very confusing. Can’t find anything in Profiles.
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**Author:**  [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2000, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/2 "2000-12-10T18:46:35Z")
You can’t set HTML on, I’m afraid. It’s “off” as the default setting for this set of message boards, but is presumably available to other boards using the same software. vB code isn’t that bad, really, once you get into the hang of using square brackets.
What do you mean when you say you can’t find anything in profiles? What information are you looking for?
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**Author:**  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2000, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/3 "2000-12-10T18:49:45Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by keno \*
> **How do you turn “HTML on”?**
A relaxing meal with good conversation is a nice place to start.
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**Author:**  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2000, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/4 "2000-12-10T19:06:18Z")
Eh, perhaps he means he can’t find anything in the Profiles on how to turn HTML on?
HTML has been turned off permanently at the source (by the board’s administration) because somebody hacked the passwords last February.
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**Author:**  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2000, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/5 "2000-12-10T22:12:13Z")
How does HTML relate to cracking passwords? I always thought it was that trolls were using HTML to annoy people. Should the FFFMB be worried (the FFFMB allows you to use HTML)?
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**Author:**  [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2000, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/6 "2000-12-11T00:18:56Z")
Well I can’t speak for the official reason for disabling HTML but I can think of a few reasons:
HTML allowed posters insert images, wav files, animated gifs, etc. into threads, which often made the loading time of the thread unbearably long. Also when you post a pic from another website that adds to the traffic of that other website. It was using up other people’s resources as well as our own. AND there is also the issue of posting copyrighted images, controversial images. You get the idea…
Also, we had some little twit a while back used HTML to hack into the SDMB ad banners.
It’s essentially just a case of the negatives vastly outweighing the positives.
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**Author:**  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2000, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/7 "2000-12-11T00:44:48Z")
Also, depending on how well vBulletin validates the HTML you type in your message, there are problems with even innocent mistakes in formatting screwing up the display of the entire page. If it didn’t validate at all, for instance, you could mismatch TABLE tags in your message and inadvertantly screw up the TABLE’s the rest of the messages are displayed in. That’s so fundamental, that I expect vBulletin catches it. But there’s bound to be things that aren’t caught. Not to mention what you could do, particularly with javascript, if you were malicious.
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**Author:**  [@Homer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homer)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2000, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/8 "2000-12-11T12:12:26Z")
Who did hack the ad banners, if I may ask? I’ve heard it was a well known poster, but no one has mentioned names.
Also, remember the infamous “Post your desktop” thread? That darn thread would eat this board alive if it were around today!!
–Tim
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**Author:**  [@pricciar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pricciar)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2000, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/9 "2000-12-11T22:35:31Z")
Some person named gloworm posted HTML tags that hid the advertising banners.
Other people used a flaw in UBB’s parsing of HTML to get root access to the SDMB server.
Threads can take a few minutes to load now, and the most anyone can do is have smilies in their post. With HTML have the ability to show an image of an actual size map of Texas.
Those are three reasons I think HTML isn’t needed at this time.
pat
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**Author:**  [@Homer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homer)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/10 "2000-12-12T03:30:58Z")
Thank. I knew the history and all, I just never knew who did it. It all happened rather soon after I joined, IIRC. Was he a well known guy?
–Tim
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**Author:**  [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2000, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-turn-on-html/44909/11 "2000-12-12T12:34:00Z")
To my knowledge, gl0worm was just an off-the-rack, plain vanilla troll. Some HTML knowledge was all that separated him from the masses under the bridge. As far as I know, there was no link with any other poster, well-known or obscure.