One thing I've noticed is that some users are using "font color equals white" tags to post in-line spoilers. If people are using the personal css feature like I am with a black background and gray text, then the spoilers show up in blazing white characters instead of being hidden.

Rather than try to change the humans, this regular expression will replace those font tags with the appropriate span tag.

$string = 'the actor on tonights show is <font color="white">sooper seekrit</font> !!';

preg_replace($pattern, $replacement, $string);

Just a suggestion.

I think some people actually consider the visiblity of spoiler text a feature rather than a bug. But maybe they could just modify the spoiler tag in their style sheet? I am not knowledgeable enough.

And whoa, gray on black? I bet that looks trippy.

Principle-wise I'd rather change humans. I try and point it out whenever I see it, so we all play nice together.

I think some people actually consider the visiblity of spoiler text a feature rather than a bug

But putting in font=white tends to ensure invisibility for the poster, and those people who have made spoilers visible with css can't see them unless they've also changed their background colour.

o, I don't think it's rude to point it out when you see it, if you couch it right.

I think some people actually consider the visiblity of spoiler text a feature rather than a bug.

Yeah, and it makes the font tag kind of spoiler font kind of annoying. (I have my spoilers set to grey so I can see them, but if someone hard codes theirs to white, I have to highlight.)

Why do I try to do things the hard way? Thanks for the thought Dana!

AFAICT there are no other font tags in use on the site, so what I did to get the Tags That Have Gone Rogue to behave is to add

font { color: #000; }

to my personal css. This overrides the "font color equals white" tags (on Chrome/Vista) and makes them match my background color. For those of you like Jessica who have half-hidden spoilers, then you'd just make the font color the same as your spoiler color.

People do occasionally use font tags to change color of a limited amount of text for effect, but it's rare.

I'm a reformed font tagger, but I'm sure I slip sometimes. Old html habits die hard. I still type <i> instead of quick editing for that type of formatting. Prolly ought to change that habit, too, huh? Are people using their css to deal with emphasis formatting?

I'm still using the font color=white HTML because the CSS stuff is way beyond me. Is there something else I should be doing? Or can someone tell me what exact code to put on my CSS style sheet to make my whitefont conform, or whatever?

If you use the quick edit for spoiler fonts--an 's' before the line you want to white font--it shouldn't mess with people's style sheets.

Right?

Oh! DUH. Thank you, Sue.

Or can someone tell me what exact code to put on my CSS style sheet to make my whitefont conform, or whatever?

What you put in your CSS style sheet affects only what you see, not what anyone else sees.

For spoilers, using the "s" quickedit is best, but second best is using the tag <span class="spoiler">stuffyouwantblinvisible</span>