# Why does it do that?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-do-that/35660>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [October 4, 2000, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-do-that/35660 "2000-10-04T18:55:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hardhead365](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/71c47a/32.png) [@hardhead365](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hardhead365)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2000, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-do-that/35660/1 "2000-10-04T18:55:53Z")

</div>

Most of the time the messages on the boards fit neatly onto the width of my screen, regardless of the computer that I am on or the setup of the monitor, either 800 X 600 or 640 X 480. Occasionally a poster will run off the right side of the screen. I noted that the majority of the time the cell holding the text of the posting contains about 75 characters, but when it runs off the right it contains about 100 characters. Is this a function of the font size being used by the poster?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2000, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-do-that/35660/2 "2000-10-04T20:49:18Z")

</div>

It’s not the font size, as posters here have (almost) no control over the font size in posts (you can make it smaller with subscript or superscript, but that’s it). What happens is that there’s some long string without spaces in it, so the browser can’t break it up. Most often, this is a URL, but occasionally, someone will post something like  
hahahahahaha  
continued for way too long. A moderator will usually fix it when we see it, if it’s an extreme case.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hardhead365](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/71c47a/32.png) [@hardhead365](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hardhead365)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2000, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-do-that/35660/3 "2000-10-04T20:58:01Z")

</div>

Thanks, that’s been bugging me

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Homer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df788c/32.png) [@Homer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homer)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2000, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-do-that/35660/4 "2000-10-05T04:06:42Z")

</div>

I believe the techs also set the board to break between each post, so the super wide ones don’t disrupt the rest of the thread.

–Tim

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2000, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-do-that/35660/5 "2000-10-06T14:25:25Z")

</div>

[nah]

I was tempted to test out Tim’s last hypothesis, but then I decided it would not be a good idea if he was mistaken.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2000, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-do-that/35660/6 "2000-10-07T01:36:54Z")

</div>

I don’t know if it’s thanks to a setting by the techs, but it is, in fact, true that sidescrolling only affects the post in question. I’ve never tested it myself, but I’ve seen plenty of accidental cases.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lord\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecccb3/32.png) [@Lord\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Jim)\
**Post date:** [October 7, 2000, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-do-that/35660/7 "2000-10-07T03:25:36Z")

</div>

I think this was one of the chances in the last update. Each post is now in a separate table instead of being rows in one large table. I remember **Jerry the god** saying that was the reason the pages load sorta incrementally. And that would account for why one post can stretch and the next one not. When they used to be in one big table, as soon as you messed up the width, it was messed up for the whole page.

You can look at this thread, [Test of something noticed in Cecil section](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=40956), so you don’t have to mess up one on your own.

Jim